Misskat -
If you’ve not read the Etsy Sellers Handbook, you should – it’s recently been redone with great information and tips.
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/the-seller-handbook/The Etsy Forums, although often helpful, tend to be filled with two categories of sellers - malcontents or folks looking for an answer to a specific question or problem. It's easy to get lost for hours reading forum posts. You should browse, but don't allow yourself to get bogged down in the muck or discouraged by the negativity.
Keep it in perspective. Along with my very first soaping friend (met on this board more than a year ago), we reminded ourselves and each other often, "This is a hobby." Neither one of us "needed" the income (although the extra cash is nice to have), we love what we are doing, especially the creative part and the social interaction with other Etsyans and customers. For us it is about having a good time and learning something new every day and sharing our discoveries.
If you're serious about a business that will generate lots of income quickly, Etsy is likely not the place for you, especially in the soap category. The competition is fierce with more than 800,000 sellers (all categories) now. I just looked at some quick numbers. Right now on Etsy, if you do a search for "soap" in the Bath and Beauty handmade category, you'll get 47,737 listed items. From what I can tell, only a handful of soap makers on Etsy earn enough income to be considered a "living" and many of them have lots of help in their shops (people who wrap, people who label, ship, even take their photographs). Most of them have their own web sites in addition to selling on Etsy or sell on other venues, do fairs, flea markets and crafts festivals. It takes years to build a reputation and a following. But, if you're looking for a place to start, it's perfect.
Etsy internal stats are better than nothing, but don't really tell you all that much. There are days I get 2,800 "views" and 2 sales and days that I'll get 100 views and 8 separate sales. No rhyme or reason that I’ve been able to figure out. Google Analytics are a little better, but it takes time to learn how to interpret those data.
And, most controversial perhaps, in light of what's already been said here, don't worry about SEO on Etsy for now. Etsy's listing "relevancy" (what gets you found internally on Etsy) uses a completely different algorithm than Google (where SEO rules). Etsy changed the way search worked last August - some good overall information here:
http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2011/keep ... relevancy/SEO is exceptionally important if you're running your own site and driving your own traffic. The advantage of a place like Etsy is that your traffic can and will come from people who go there to browse and hopefully to buy. Being found in Google is an advantage, but is not everything. The “small-time” soapers I know on Etsy (between 50 and 500 sales a year) are almost all exclusively on Etsy, with a presence on Facebook (although that’s now changing with their paid model), Twitter, although most don't really know how to market themselves using Twitter (Anne-Marie is a master at this, by the way), Pinterest, and many have their own blogs.
You have plenty of time to learn about SEO for when you're big and famous, rule the soaping world and have your own web site that competes with Amazon! Don't allow yourself to be discouraged or overwhelmed. Take great photos (the single most important thing you can do), learn about how to do your item titles and tags to be relevant in Etsy searches, join a few teams that are interesting and/or educational and, most of all, have fun.
Connie
(happily retired and soaping for fun!)
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but all of that and more is found on Etsy's forums.
