Are you excited to start your very own handmade Etsy shop? But not sure where to start?
Opening an Etsy shop is easier and quicker than you think.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the easy setup process so that you can open your own Etsy shop today.
Starting your own Etsy shop might seem intimidating, but I can assure you that the process is pretty easy and straightforward. It should only takes you about an hour, at most an afternoon, to have your very own shop open.
It’s almost free to set up an Etsy shop. There’s no monthly fee on Etsy. But you do need a credit card to set up the billing to pay the first listing fee which is US$0.2.
The best time to start is today.
But if you need some convincing, feel free to check out this article on whether it's worth it to sell on Etsy.
Here are a few things that you can start learning before opening your shop. I would suggest using a day to read about them, but don’t get stuck and try to learn everything about these topics. It’s better to start, then learn.
You’ll have plenty of time to improve your shop and products once you open your Etsy shop.
Click this link and follow the instructions to get 40 free listings when you open your Etsy shop.
First, go to Etsy.com, sign in to Etsy or create an account.
Once you’ve signed into Etsy, simple click your profile on the top right and then “Sell On Etsy”.
After you arrived to this new page, click “Get Started”.
You will then see a few pages that gives you more information of how to sell on Etsy:
You can set up your shop country, language and currency in this page.
Having a memorable name for your Etsy shop is important. Spend a little bit of time to come up with one that fits these suggestions:
Keep in mind that you can change your shop name up to 5 times before having to contact Etsy support. So don’t worry if your shop name is not perfect. There are plenty of successful Etsy shops with average names.
I'd recommend using tools like ChatGPT or Namelix to generate Etsy shop name quickly:
The most reliable way to check the availability of the name you want to choose is to click “Check Availability” in the shop creation process.
Online checking tools may not be reliable because Etsy shops (active or inactive) or usernames are all unique. Checking on Etsy for "shop name containing ..." is also not the best method as inactive shops or usernames won't show up.
You’ll see this screen if the shop name is not available. Etsy will give you some suggestions of how to modify the name in order to fit the criteria.
And if your name is available, you will see this screen:
You need at least one listing to open your Etsy shop, but the listing doesn’t need to be your final product.
For the purpose of the quick set up guide, lets’ put a fake placeholder listing so you can open your Etsy shop first. Here’s what you need to include before you can publish the listing:
You can simply put “test” in title and description, and choose random information for the rest of the fields
At the bottom, you can choose “Get started with simple policy” for now. You can change it after you open the shop.
After your shop is opened, you can add fill it with actual listings. So when you see this screen, you can click “Do this later”:
Now it’s time to set up how you’ll get paid and how you’ll pay Etsy.
In this section, Etsy needs to know your card details, bank details, shop address, tax filing status, etc. It’s a mandatory step and cannot be skipped.
For any new Etsy shop, you are required to use Etsy Payments when opening your shop. Etsy Payments is Etsy’s own payment processing system that accepts most payment options from customers like credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and instalment payments from companies like Klarna.
If Etsy Payment is not supported in your country, unfortunately it’s not possible to open an Etsy shop at the moment. Click here to see the list of supported countries. Etsy says that they are expanding the countries that support Etsy Payments.
Congratulations! You have now opened your Etsy shop! Your new Etsy shop can be reached with these two url formats:
Now that your Etsy shop is opened, you should spend some time to set up the essential parts of your shop so that customers will have a good experience. Here are some of the main sections you should complete:
The final step of this guide - and probably the most important step - is to fill your shop with high quality optimised product listings. Use the duplicate listing and quick edit functions to speed up the process.
Be sure to review our free guides to improve your Etsy SEO and conversion rate.
I would recommend having at least 20 products when starting your Etsy shop, and plan to add more consistently to target specific customers. Many new Etsy sellers fall into the trap of starting with only 1-2 products which can really hurt the reach of their Etsy store.
If you are struggling to add new products, think about variations in style, color, size, etc to increase your product listings. Putting a few products in a bundle is another good option to add more listings.
Having more listings can help you broaden the reach of your shop. Each listing is an opportunity for you to target more long-tail keywords. It also gives you opportunity to satisfy the specific needs of your target customers.
Now that you have opened your Etsy shop, it’s time to get some insights of how to build a successful Etsy shop with a strong foundation.
Click here to see my top 20+ tips and tricks to kick start your new Etsy shop
