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Permalink Reply by Helen Lee Marshall May 10, 2019 at 10:53am

Hi!

Have been on Etsy since 2011. It costs  20 cents to list something and Etsy takes a percentage of the selling price (like 3% or so) I haven't sold much on Etsy because my photos are very bad. No matter how wonderful your hat is, if the pictures are bad, no one will buy it.  The descriptions have to be interesting and exciting. I have taken 4 different classes from different people on "How to make money on Etsy" They all boil down to really good photo's, good descriptions and the right selling price. Look at how other milliners do their shop. There is a team on Etsy called "Milliners of Etsy" they can be helpful (but also very uppity at times)  I am COMPLETELY ILLITERATE when it comes to computers and there are computerized ways of making shipping labels, computerized ways to do statistics and finance that I don't know how to do. Sometimes I wonder if my lack of computer savy doesn't turn away the young adult women.

Millinery is a hard road if you don't live somewhere where women wear hats. Shipping can be VERY costly if you want to ship something internationally. Very few Brits or Aussies buy my hats because even if the computer tells you how much the shipping will be, to me it always costs more (the customer pays for the shipping but like I said...I have never had a repeat customer. Most of the women in the US buy a hat for a specific event and never wear the hat again. 

Best of luck! It can be fun and exciting and you can meet people from all over the world on Etsy. It is hard but for me, it's a way to sell my creativity

Helen

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Permalink Reply by Tanya Anderson June 19, 2019 at 9:03pm

Thanks very much Helen :) 

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Permalink Reply by Helen Lee Marshall June 20, 2019 at 2:19pm

You are welcome.

Since i have hired a professional photographer, my hats look much better. I'm still not getting much interest. But like I said Americans buy hats for specific reasons and aren't repeat customers for the most part. If you are an Aussie, that is wonderful and you will be a jump ahead of me. My husband gives me a bad time sometimes about not selling much. To me it's worth the cost of the supplies to be able to make those supplies into art. If no one has bought my hats  then most them  end up going to resale places where the hats will probably be sold for  1/5 -1/4 of the price I posted them in my shop for. That is OK with me because someone is enjoying them and that too, is worth spending the money.

I am a retired RN. After 30 years of causing people pain and getting all kinds of garbage from doctors, families and patients, I am glad to be able to do something that makes people happy. You can't hurt anybody or cause them problems with a beautiful hat. 

Again, Good Luck!

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Permalink Reply by Kristin Silverman February 11, 2020 at 5:30am

I sell on Etsy. I'm currently looking to move my business away to my own website, but I will still keep a store on Etsy.

The only upfront cost is $0.20 (US) to list one item for four months. So that's pretty cheap as a way to get found!

I like to think of it as just another avenue for people to find my work, outside of Instagram or my own website, once I launch it.

Then there are sales-based costs: 5% of the total transaction price (including shipping charge!) as a commission to Etsy, plus credit card processing fees (around 3.5% of the total transaction). 

Because you pay Etsy for each sale, you keep less money than by selling directly through your own web site. But for ease of use and an extra avenue for people to find you, it makes a lot of sense.

You can also pay extra for ads (priority placement in search results) or a slightly fancier shop design, but I've never done that.

It can be hard to stand out among all the junk on Etsy. (By "junk" I mean people who buy a mass-produced base, hot glue a ribbon or flower onto it and call it a "handmade hat.") So high-quality hats can seem crazily expensive when in a sea of cheap offerings.

But the right customers can still find you, as long as you make sure you have good titles and tags to show up in searches.

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