Unlocking Etsy Success: Master Strategies with Dylan Jahrauss

And now your hosts , serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson .

Dylan's insights and strategies have helped countless entrepreneurs thrive on Etsy . Today we'll dive into her journey , explore her success tips and learn how to excel in this online marketplace . Let's give a warm welcome to Dylan . Welcome to the show .

That's where I got started when Tony Hsieh was there and then went on to Zulily , which is a totally different business model flash sale , very , very different and I learned a lot . Married someone in the military , though you move a lot .

I didn't really expect that it's hard to grow and climb the corporate ladder when you're moving every six months to two years . And people yeah , if people like that , right . So basically I thought , okay , I'm going to start some side hustles . Can I at least cover my living expenses this way ?

So I was dog walking , I was house sitting , and then I threw up a picture of something from my wedding on Etsy and I just thought , oh , I'll just put up one picture , a couple words , and two months later it's sold . Months later it's sold . I thought , oh , no , now I have to ship this thing and make a new one because it was a custom item .

And my husband and I we figured it out . He's more of the engineering mindset , he's a submarine officer , so we figured it out by month four . We're doing over $10,000 a month , and that was eight years ago , so it's really what it took was applying what I knew from corporate e-commerce to Etsy , and that was what it took .

Yeah , you own your policies and you own your brand , and whereas people say , oh , I got this thing from Amazon , with Etsy they know your shop and they come back to your shop in a different way . Typically , with Amazon , they're not looking up the seller and trying to find their shop . It can even be hard to find a seller's actual brand shop on Amazon .

So Etsy , it's just totally different . I would say things you can leverage with the platform . But you want to think about this differently . You're not just thinking about product and price point , you want to think about customer , and this is because , with Etsy , there's many different customers coming to Etsy .

It's a lot of women , but they to think about customer , and this is because , with Etsy , there's many different customers coming to Etsy . It's a lot of women , but they do shop for men , so it's not just women's products . There's digital products , print on demand , handmade supplies and Etsy .

Last week or two weeks ago they came out with new categories that really open up the world for new products . So a lot of opportunity on the table right now . But you wanna start with your customer first with Etsy , so who you're selling to and you can target multiple customers in the same shop . But what this is gonna impact is your SEO .

Seo on Etsy totally different than Amazon , totally different than Shopify . You have to master this in order to be successful on Etsy , but once you get it down , it does become intuitive .

So , for example , if let's say you have two products on Amazon right now , you could literally take those two products and create 30 listings from each one on Etsy and you're just targeting different long tail keywords with each listing . So a ton of opportunity .

It's probably one of the lowest barrier to entry platforms , one of the easiest to get started on , and I think everyone should be on Etsy if you're trying to build a brand .

One might be around a gift for , let's say , your mom who lost her husband . One might be selling B2B to funeral homes . All of these different types of customers you can target on Etsy different listings .

Right , it's an eight inch name sign or an eight foot name sign . So choice Etsy customers want that choice and that's where you can get really competitive as well . If you nail how to convert people and how to offer choice without

overwhelming them with choices , I think people think , oh , I'll give them , you know , 50 color options . Your conversion rate's going to die if you do that . So you know being strategic in how you offer choice . It's a playing field , it's a competitive advantage .

So , giving the choices not too many and personalization Etsy customers , they don't expect things the next day . You know Amazon , it's like prime what can I get tomorrow morning ? Etsy , they're willing to wait , which is great , that patience and understanding .

The Etsy customer also is willing to pay more for customer service , which can include speed , but it can also be communication . Sometimes , etsy customers , they will pay for that communication , that handholding being involved in their purchasing process . So it's a lot of different ways that you can win , I would say , compared to Amazon .

Look , last month the software estimated that it made $10,000 . Here I'm going to teach you how to make something that's a similar copy or inspired . We're just going to tweak the font . That's not a strategy . That's not a business strategy . That's chasing success . You will never win that way . You have no track record .

So that's one of the biggest mistakes and I think people jump to that because it's easy Copying something , thinking , oh , I'll just do that , I'll do what they're doing . That's not how you win on Etsy and you can spend years doing that and never really get a business off the ground .

So like the Las Vegas Home and Gift Trade Show that's happening actually , I think , this week , and those types of markets will get you ahead of the trends . That's one way to find trends .

But also looking on Pinterest , looking on TikTok , looking to premium brands who set the trends and then bringing things that aren't on Etsy yet to the platform and that might be a color , a pattern , a print . It could be a new product , but you've got to look outside of Etsy for ideas .

I think a lot of people they get stuck into the metrics of okay , this has low competition and high search volume , so I will just do that . That doesn't give you any detail on if you could be competitive . Maybe it's maybe the best seller . They're selling it at a cost that would be completely prohibitive to you . You could never compete .

So you really have to look at the qualitative information , not just quantitative , and actually go into Etsy and look at the search results , and the search results will tell you if there's room to compete . One of my favorite opportunities actually is to look up a set of long tail keywords , look at the search results and look at the best sellers .

When I find a best seller that has an ugly listing photo bad SEO , not enough detail that tells me this is an opportunity for someone to come in .

My go-to is I have two kids , so two and six .

So I've been through like some rough baby years here with them and I always think , okay , if I was up in the middle of the night with my baby , like in the recliner , like feeding them or whatever , could I half asleep , buy this thing on my phone and like wake up the next morning and think what just happened , what did I buy ?

And it arrives and you forgot you ordered it . That's how you want your Etsy listing to be so easy to purchase . So photos there's 10 different types of photos . You don't want to have the same photo over and over . You need that video to really fill in any gaps in information , having not too many options , but some options . And then your description .

I don't know if you guys see this at all , but have you seen people just taking these long chat GPT descriptions and pasting them in . You see that .

When you're creating your listings , you're on your computer usually , so you're not thinking about mobile . Got to be thinking about mobile .

But , yeah , I would say what you don't want to do and the Olympics are coming up , so this is kind of a pertinent analogy here . You don't want to look at what a shop that has 200,000 sales is doing today and copy that , because that's not what they did to get here .

You want to look at a shop that is growing very rapidly , high order velocity this year , and look at what they did to get here . We're looking at people who maybe they were on Etsy 10 , 12 years ago . It looks like they have a huge shop and that looks like they're doing really well , but what they're doing today it's not what got them there .

So that's why I hesitate to tell people to look at other shops , because it's not telling the whole story .

And so can you give a couple of tips on SEO and then a couple of tips on Etsy ads ?

And it's different than Etsy . It's different than Amazon . It's different than Google . It's going to be different than what you want on Shopify Long tail keywords in the widest variety of long tail keywords . We're not keyword stuffing . That's completely different . We are looking at the widest variety of long tail keywords . You're not competing with yourself .

I see people put the same SEO on every listing and they're wondering why do I have five views Lifetime ? That's why so wide variety of long-tail keywords . You need seo in many different places . It's not a title . Seo is not a title . It's about 10 of your seo and um . Don't rely only on etsy's traffic .

You have to drive traffic through things outside of etsy , social media being a big one . So it's kind of like when you're getting started on Etsy , it's kind of like pushing a truck out of the mud . Okay , it's , it's stuck . You have to give it a push . Just slamming on the on the gas it's not going to get you out . You've got to give it a push .

It's some , you know , manual elbow grease , whatever sweat equity . It's so worth it though .

So , let's say , it's something that you said $100 , right , mm-hmm . Okay , so you start with the revenue . Hang on , guys , I'm actually pulling this up . This is great . You can edit this up .

So with Etsy they have different percentages based on if you are opted into offsite ads , where they are promoting your things on Google , on Bing , Yahoo it's mostly through Google , realistically and if they're not promoting it now you have to do offsite ads if you're making over 10K in revenue per year . But let me show you , let's go through your example .

So you said $100 , and this actually will give it to your audience , this profit calculator . It calculates everything for you . It will tell you the Etsy fees on that revenue , based on if there's no offsite ads . If there's offsite ads and you've manually turned that on , you're making less than 10K per year . Or if you are making over 10,000 per year .

So you'll see Etsy fees . They can change . They are variable , so you have to account for that . You have to be careful . If you've turned offsite ads on , this means someone basically clicked in through one of Etsy's ads for your product on Google . You have no control over which ads they promote .

Something else you want to be mindful of If they click into an ad for product A but they buy product B in your shop , you still pay for those off-site ads . So then you're going to put in your cost of goods sold , including your shipping . Let's's see , I think my screen froze . I'm an excessive tabber . You can see here this is too much .

My husband kills me for that . I could not survive like it . See here , interesting , I'm not frozen am I no , no , just your screen . Sorry guys , there we go , okay . So then you're going to put in your cost of goods sold , so maybe that's , you know , fifty dollars . Your shipping is another ten , so let's say it's sixty dollars .

Okay , you just put it down the list and then you're going to put in this is my favorite part the number of minutes of labor for that item . Now , maybe it's a print on demand product and it's literally just 10 minutes of communication with the customer .

Maybe it's like an engraved product where you are packaging this thing , you're , you're , you know , sanding it down , whatever , and maybe it's 50 minutes . Let's say it's 50 minutes , and then it's going to give you your hourly wage , so Etsy's fees , they are all calculated in for you .

10K in revenue , it goes down to 25% .

It's just a total shop budget , which is why we do not recommend Etsy ads . I mean , there's many more reasons . You'd be much better off with something like Facebook ads or going through meta than Etsy ads . But really we exhaust every organic method like Pinterest , instagram , tiktok , facebook , even YouTube , before we touch paid traffic .

They're like oh yeah , I've got a couple of sales coming in . How do you go from A to Z ?

Sometimes it's going to be costs uh , it could be suppliers , it could be your turnaround time Um , it could be another competitor coming in . We always want to identify what's preventing you from 10x-ing your business .

Right now , I find , with my sellers at least , it's usually a bandwidth issue first , just because it's usually one person , and then we get into the point of okay , now it's time to hire your first employee that's going to increase bandwidth and make this more scalable .

It can also be an issue where maybe a source of traffic that was really strong is no longer as strong . Maybe your ads were working really well and now they're not working well . So now we have to really lower the risk and , I would say , have a just wider spread of where this traffic is coming from .

So we just identify where the constraint is , tackle that and then move forward . What's the next thing that's preventing you from 10xing ? I think a lot of people forget about new , adding new . So hormoses , they actually teach on this as well . But the more better new principle .

So always doing more of what's working , more , exhaust more , more , more , more of what's already working . Okay , then we make it better . That might be like a faster turnaround time , lower costs , something like that . And then new .

And I think a lot of people who maybe they have success in an e-commerce business , they just focus on more better , they stay in that more better and they forget the new . And when I see a business where their bestseller is the same bestseller that they had five years ago , I know we've missed so much opportunity .

And that's where we have to focus on the new again . Because you get comfortable , it's new is uncomfortable , you know . Yeah .

You're going to have the same results . So you want to learn how to fix your listings first , and I would probably take a look at product market fit . Let's say you put all your listings up correctly , you had the right SEO , the right pricing , you thought they looked great . Well , sometimes the hard truth is there wasn't product market fit .

People just don't like it . It's like your baby's not cute . I'm kind of kidding , but it's like we all think our baby , our product is like the best thing ever . Sometimes I'm not a graphic designer , but I think this looks really good .

And it's hard because you know our mom says it looks good , you know our spouse says it looks good , but the customer is what matters . So that's where you might need to just really start over . Choose your customer first , build a product mix around them and move in a different direction .

But the doctor's like you got to change how you're working . Surprise , I didn't . And it came back . So I'm like I cannot keep having surgery every two years . This does not make sense . So I completely outsourced production for my shop . A military spouse comes in , does everything I do less than an hour a week on Etsy now , and that gave me so much time .

Also , in the military spouse community , we move a lot . It's really hard to have a successful career . People were saying like wait , dylan , how are you making twice as much as your husband ? I'm a receptionist , I'm working at Starbucks because I can't get a job . How are you doing that ?

And , um , you know , I saw a huge need for learning real e-commerce strategy . Uh , really corporate and real corporate e-commerce strategy . And so I started a YouTube channel to teach . It took off . People wanted a course before I even had the course , built the course . We have 3,000 sellers now in that program in about two years .

About 30 people in the company and it's one-on-one private coaching , so hand-holding . You get 208 coaching calls 24-7 , access to me and my team seven days a week . I have a night crew in there coaching people . It's full support . But we really don't work with people who want to make less than five to 10,000 .

So it's really just for people who want to make something a little larger for their business .

That's yeah , that's probably the maybe , that's the number one thing .

I don't know , I haven't met anyone who's , like you know , super successful , who hasn't been through something in their past , and I think that builds character and resilience and that resilience will prevent you from giving up . People who go into e-commerce thinking I'm just looking for a laptop , lifestyle , passive income . They're not going to be successful .

We see it all the time . Right , they try something for a month and then they quit . They go Amazon one month , shopify dropshipping one

month , etsy one month , and nothing's easy enough . So they're still working for their boss . They hate . That is what it is resilience and being willing to delay gratification .

I think there's hundreds of videos there Tutorials , actionable advice so check that out and then we'll give a link to download maybe a checklist or something that will give you some structure for your business Outstanding , and we will post links to all of that in the show notes .