I’ve done it, you’ve done it, we’ve all done it.  We’re in a hurry and what do we do? We sit staring at our expired Etsy items and in a hurry click relist.  Bad, bad, bad.  Shame on you! Here’s the why you should not be arbitrarily clicking relist anymore.

Are You a Etsy Relist Maniac?

It’s easy to do and it’s easy to fall into that habit.  But I’m begging you, for the sake of your business – stop doing that right now.  This is truly one of the worst mistakes & habits you can get into on Etsy.  We have talked about this before in our Build Your Brand, but we’ve never talked about it step by step and explained why you need to do this.

First, you must tell yourself that it IS worth it to take a second, third, or forth look at your item.  Even better, have a friend who you know will give you a straight answer look at your item.  Here’s an acronym that might help you as you relist your items, POWER.

The RELIST POWER is in Your Hands

When we talk about power, we think of someone whom is strong or something that carries force.  You want your Etsy store and your brand to do the same thing.  You want you image, your brand, your product to be solid.  You want a cohesive look to your store. But most of all you want to find a new home for your handmade or vintage item.  If you didn’t you would not have listed it on Etsy to begin with.

P – PICTURE

If you were honest with yourself, you might actually admit that your pictures just aren’t that good.  Or you might admit that your pictures are pretty decent.  However, rarely have I seen a picture of someone’s listed item that couldn’t have done one facet of that photo different to make it better.  My pictures are not the best.  I’m not a photographer, but I do the best that I can with what I have.  This being said, maybe since you took that picture at least four months ago when your listing went live, you have a better idea for the picture.  Maybe it was a little blurry. Take 5 minutes and retake your photo.  If your background was busy, put it on white. If you had a white background, put something in the photo with it. But do yourself a favor, if your photos are bad…do not simply do the Etsy relist maniac thing. This isn’t a race, you want to sell your item, do it justice & give it a good photo.  If your photos are top notch, then consider reordering the photos.  Maybe the photo that is your favorite isn’t the favorite of your customers.

O – Offer

What does your item offer?  Does it offer anything? If it doesn’t, than it should! I can’t tell you how bad I feel when I read a description like this: “red faceted beads on a linked chain of 17 inches long.”  What?!  Why sell yourself short.  You want to sell your item…so do that.  Perhaps something worded like this would make your necklace more special: “Perfect for a night out on the town with the one you love” or “Make it a night you’ll never forget and wear a piece of jewelry that says “wow” when you enter the room.”  It’s all about what your going to offer your customers.  Perhaps instead of “made of 100% wool” you should be writing “Sheep are never cold in winter and you won’t be either when you wear our 100% wool, handmade cowl.”  Do you see the difference?  If your items isn’t currently offering anything, then you aren’t doing justice to the work you’ve put into that creation; fight the Etsy relist syndrome and offer something.  Everything you’ve ever bought has an offer attached to it.  Think about it: Oatmeal – whole gain goodness to warm you up; Celery – Good for you & your waistline; Ronco Oven – Set it and forget it.  Everything that is for sale has an offer attached to it, your item should too.

W – Wording

One of the things that we do the most often is word our ads incorrectly.  We make typos here and typos there.  Perhaps you missed something or there was something you needed to add.  Pictures help sell items…but strong wording filled with SEO rich content keywords will get you found.  Now please, don’t mishear me and keyword drop the whole way through your article. Can you say boring & redundant…I can hear it already (and you haven’t written it yet): “This gorgeous pendant cabochon filagree necklace would look lovely on your date.” Um…NO! Don’t do it. Stop tempting yourself. Doing this will only make you appear desperate, and if you’re like me you might be clumsy but your not stupid.  Make sure you reread your ad before you click relist.  Change the order of words. Change paragraph order and for goodness sake don’t neglect your keyword tags.  There’s nothing that makes you appear in a hurry more than having a pair of mittens tagged “scarf” because you didn’t change your keywords. And let’s be honest, when this happens you risk being turned into Etsy for misusing keywords – you don’t want that, do you? Neither do I.

E – Etsy

The biggest overlooked mistake that 90% of Etsy sellers make.  They don’t check the Etsy Blog to look at the current month’s Merchandising Desk. There’s a reason that Etsy published this valuable information. For those of you who don’t know, the fashion & retail industry has a thing called trends. It is those things that are deemed to be “popular” or “trendy” or “in style.”  The item that your about to list may actually fit into one of those trends.  And if it does, you should be using it!  Please, don’t stretch your item to make it fit the trend, but if it fits, you should use that to your advantage!  For example, this month Etsy sponsored a site wide sale. This only happens about 3 times a year (now, Black Friday, & Cyber Monday).  Etsy gives tags for your items that are featured in the sale. So this month, if your store is participating in the site wide Etsy sale “Christmas in July” Etsy will be helping to promote you: if and only if you use the tag “christmasinjuly” or “cij.” Of course, if you don’t read this merchandising desk, then you will be missing out on this information. The bottom line, don’t do the Etsy relist shuffle until you’ve checked the Merchandising Desk on the Etsy Blog.

R – Relist

And finally, last but not least, you can now relist your item. By this point you should have edited your pictures, even if it’s only their order.  You should have added some kind of a offer into your text. You should have read your ad, reread your ad, and read it again. And you are NOT going to hit that relist buttons without checking that merchandising desk, are you? No you are not! If you can incorporate these strategies into every item that you relist, you should see higher views, more hearts, and over time both of those translate into the one thing you really want: a sale.

Remember that there should be POWER in your relists, each and every time.

Thanks for joining me today. Join me next week to Build Your Brand on Etsy & experience success.