Starting an Etsy Business For Dummies. Gatski Kate

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      • Be friendly and approachable. This strategy will yield substantially better results than taking the opposite tack – being rude and inaccessible. Also, a little bit of humor can go a long way. Oh, and the tone of your bio needs to match the tone of your shop and products. If your business is about whimsy, a stuffy bio just won’t do!

      • Stick with first person. Some people write their bio in first person. Others opt for third person. Our view? Unless you’re the queen or a professional athlete, go with first person.

      • Keep it short. It’s your Etsy bio, not War and Peace. A few short paragraphs will do. If you find your bio running a little long, try using sections, with titles, to break up your information.

      • Be professional … sort of. No, you don’t have to wear a pin-striped suit and practical pumps. But you do need to project an air of competence – even if your shop is all about fun. You want to be taken seriously as a seller, right?

      • Proofread. Before you post your bio, triple-check it to make sure there aren’t any spelling or grammatical errors. Better yet, ask your English-major friend to check it for you.

Chapter 3

      There’s No Place Like Home: Discovering Etsy’s Home Page

      IN THIS CHAPTER

      Home. It’s a word with many meanings. It’s where you live. It’s where your heart is. It’s where you hang your hat. It’s where the cows finally come. Simply put, it’s a place to which you always long to return.

      Etsy’s home page is no different. As you use the site, you’ll often find yourself returning home – to the home page, that is. Whether you’re buying or selling, exploring or researching, Etsy’s home page is your home base. In this chapter, you explore the various features of the page and find out how to navigate from it.

Etsy’s home page (see Figure 3-1) is the page that appears when you type “www.etsy.com” into your web browser. You can also access the home page by clicking the Etsy logo in the upper-left corner of each Etsy Marketplace page or by clicking the Home link in the header bar. The Etsy home page includes several sections. We delve into several of these sections in this chapter.

      Source: Etsy.com

       FIGURE 3-1: The Etsy home page offers easy access to myriad site features, and it’s easy on the eyes.

       If your home page doesn’t exactly match what we discuss here, don’t freak out. Etsy regularly experiments with the layout of its home page.

Tonight’s Head(er)liner: Exploring the Header Bar

      To enable you to easily access the tools you need, every Etsy Marketplace page, including the home page, contains a header bar with several links. The appearance of the header bar differs depending on whether you’re signed in to your Etsy account. If you’re not signed in, the header bar contains the following links:

      ❯❯ Etsy: No matter where you are on the Etsy site, you can return to the home page by clicking the Etsy logo on the left side of the header bar.

      ❯❯ Sell on Etsy: For quick access to tools and resources for sellers – including a helpful guide to how fees work and info about what you can and can’t sell on Etsy – and to set up your own shop, click the Sell on Etsy link. (Parts 2 through 4 of this book are devoted to selling on Etsy.)

      ❯❯ Register: Click this link to register with the site (see Chapter 2).

      ❯❯ Sign In: If you already have an account, click the Sign In link to log on (see Chapter 2).

      ❯❯ Cart: Click this link to view items in your shopping cart.

      When you sign in to the site, the following links replace the Register and Sign In links (refer to Figure 3-1). (The Sell on Etsy link will remain until you create your Etsy shop, discussed in Chapter 8.)

      ❯❯ Home: If you’ve navigated away from Etsy’s home page to another page on the Etsy Marketplace site, you can click this link to return. (Or, as mentioned, you can click the Etsy logo in the upper-left corner of the header bar.)

      ❯❯ Favorites: Etsy enables you to bookmark your favorite items and shops by adding them to your Favorites. To view your Favorites, click this link. For more on adding Favorites, see Chapter 22.

      ❯❯ Shop Manager: After you set up your Etsy shop (see Chapter 8), this link appears in your header bar. It offers easy access to all the tools you need to manage your shop.

      ❯❯ You: Access your Etsy account from this drop-down menu. Options include View Profile, Conversations, Purchases and Reviews, Account Settings, and Your Teams. Or choose Sign Out to log off your Etsy account. (You get the scoop on managing your account in Chapter 4. For help with your profile, see Chapter 2.)

       The rest of this chapter assumes that you’ve signed in to your account and created your shop. (If you haven’t yet, that’s okay; just be aware that you may not see all the home-page features discussed here.)

      Etsy’s header bar includes one more important feature: a Search bar. When you know just what you’re looking for – say, Kermit the Frog suspenders or a reclaimed barn wood unicycle – you can search for it here. Simply type in a relevant word or phrase and press Enter or Return on your keyboard or click the Search button. (For more info on searching, see Chapter 5.)

Category Eight: Browsing Etsy’s Category Links

      At last count, Etsy featured roughly 1.7 million active sellers, all with their own shops. Don’t worry, though: The items in these shops are organized into broad categories – eight, to be exact – so you can easily find what you’re looking for. Categories include Clothing & Accessories, Jewelry, Craft Supplies & Tools, Weddings, Entertainment, Home & Living, Kids & Baby, and Vintage.

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