When it comes to creating or starting a new business (be it craft-based or not) it’s always helpful to do some research of the market and your competitors first. It’s not as fun as diving straight in BUT looking at what other businesses in your niche or are doing well and seeing if you can replicate those aspects can help get you started off on the right foot and save a lot of hassle at a later stage.
I’ve compiled a list below with the current, as of June 2020, Top 10 UK Etsy Sellers based on their total number of sales so that we can look at what they sell, how they are selling it and what we can learn from them to implement into our own Etsy businesses.
Top 10 Etsy Sellers
No1. NicoleDeBruin
What do they sell – Jewellery Supplies
Price Range – £0.17 – £14.07
Total number of items – 13,933
No2. HappyCuteStudio
What do they sell – Planner Stickers
Price Range – £0.50 – £9.50
Total number of items – 1,108
No3. HoorayDays
What do they sell – Party/Celebration Supplies
Price Range – £0.35 – £29.90
Total number of items – 2,472
No4. SarahBurnsPrints
What do they sell – Personalised Prints and Cards
Price Range – £0.50 – £15.00
Total number of items – 760
No5. Petershams
What do they sell – Millinery Supplies
Price Range – £1.00 – £80.00
Total number of items – 2,725
No6. KatieAbey
What do they sell – Gifts/Homewares/Accessories
Price Range – £1.70 – £25.50
Total number of items – 323
No7. SERENITYproject
What do they sell – Jewellery
Price Range – £2.95 – £26.95
Total number of items – 249
No8. AmyLucyDesigns
What do they sell – Personalised Gifts
Price Range – £0.97 – £48.47
Total number of items – 986
No9. Punkypins
What do they sell – Enamel Pins/Accessories
Price Range – £0.51 – £18.50
Total number of items – 468
No10. ThePersonalWeddingCo
What do they sell – Personalised Gifts/Wedding Favours
Price Range – £2.50 – £38
Total number of items – 184
What can we learn from these top Etsy sellers?
So, what can we learn from the above sellers and what can we adopt as our ‘best practices‘ in our Etsy business
Photos
According to Etsy’s customer research poll, 90% of shoppers stated that having high-quality images was the top factor when deciding to purchase products – based on the images above we can see that consistency in the photos is key.
When Etsy first came about it was recommended that you use a white background for your photos but nowadays it’s more helpful to use your photo backgrounds as an opportunity to include your company branding be that with a consistent colour palette – AmyLucyDesigns uses a lot of pastel colours and wood grain whereas KatieAbey is very bright colours and she uses sweets as a prop in a lot of her images, or themes – SerenityProject has various styles of models wearing their pieces but the theme is always similar in that its muted colours and repeated textures such as hessian. Even if you are using product mock-ups, like HappyCuteStudio or Sarah Burns Prints as using, it’s worthwhile investing in a set or bundle of product mock-ups files that are similar in styling.
The only time I would probably still suggest using a white background is if you are a supplies shop (like NicoleDeBruin) as the only thing you want people focusing on is the supply item itself. It isn’t always easy to get a perfectly ‘clean’ background on a photo but websites like Canva have tools that can do this for you!
Number of items
It’s often suggested that there is a ‘magic’ number of items to have listed for sale in your Etsy shop and when you hit that you will start gaining more traction, some suggest it’s 50 others say 100 but either way, the more products you have listed on Etsy the more opportunity you have of getting seen.
All of the shops above have at least 150 items listed, that might seem like a daunting number but it’s worth remembering that if you have an item that comes in a variety of 6 colours for example, you could list it as 1 item with a drop-down to show the 6 varieties OR you could list each colour variety as it’s own separate product creating 6 products for your shop in total. Granted it makes a bit more work for you when you’re just starting out but it all helps to get you seen in the searches.
Pricing
Pricing items for Etsy can be tricky, you don’t want to price too low because you need to cover your costs and time but you also don’t want to price items too high because you want to be competitive with other shops selling similar items. There is a lot of info floating about on the internet about how to price items on Etsy (and I think I’ve read most of it over the years!) but this post is by far one of my favourites for how well it explains stuff and this Etsy pricing calculator is a good starting off point if you want to see if your
Looking at the data above it shows that a lot of the shops have a wide price range – is that something you should look to do too? Well, yes…and, also no…
What I mean by that is, don’t push yourself to add lower-cost items to your shop if your craft or talent doesn’t lend itself to lower-priced items – if you make hairbows that are fairly straight forward to make and can be done in batches then, by all means, looks at maybe having a lower-priced range and then some fancier higher priced items but if you do hand-painted custom pet portraits, don’t worry about having to offer smaller less detailed pieces just because they can be priced a bit cheaper – it’s not worth your time to do so and it’s not your target audience/buyer. Don’t undersell your talents or time.
I have a good friend who makes various very beautiful jewelry. Just the other day she told me that she tried to sell them on Facebook, but was unsuccessful. Her jewelry is very beautiful, but she doesn’t seem to be good at business either. I will show her your article, because she has a lot to learn from here.
Hi Charlotte
You just reminded me why I love Etsy. The shops are so arty and colourful.
I had no idea that there were certain formulas that lead to better results, but it totally makes sense. Many thanks for the insights – and you are absolutely right. Best to do your research before setting up!
Looking forward to checking out more of your posts.
Best,
Jean
I love Etsy. It is jam packed full of talented people making amazing things. I can spend hours browsing. I found the section regarding photography useful as I think this also applies to blog posts – particularly with food shots.
some lovely things for sale and it also gives me joy and inspiration of people starting their own journey of creating something and then selling it.
Etsy is my number one choice for buying gifts. I wish I was as creative as a lot of the salers.
I love Etsy! I tried to sell a few home-made dream catchers on there a few years ago. I sold a couple but the time it was taking me to make them and the cost of materials, I barely made a profit. It is something I would love to do again though.
What a brilliant article. I’ve never actually bought anything from Etsy, but I have thought of launching my own shop, so this is a really useful overview!
What a fantastic article, love Etsy for their creative work. I could spend hours browsing through the their site
So many talented creators in Etsy. It’s one of my go-to places for gifts!
Such talent – I could literally spend hours on Etsy browsing!
These stores sell some absolutely gorgeous things! I don’t look on Etsy nearly enough any more and it shows – will definitely be checking these out. Thank you!
I love looking through Etsy and it is so important for us to support small businesses
What a great list of sellers, I’ve not used Etsy much so I best get looking over there as theres some lovely bits here