I've been selling on Etsy for over 4 years now. During those years, I've learned a lot of do's and don'ts. I've had busy times and slow times. I've made great items that I was sure would be best sellers only to find out they weren't and other items turned out to be a smash success.
My best all time selling item is the plain and simple kraft tag -
I've sold 3,500 in the first 2.5 months of this year. I haven't counted the total for all 4 years. That might take a while...
People use them for weddings, price tags in their brick and mortar stores and craft shows or make their own gift tags with them. They can be purchased in my shop in sets of 25 up to 1,000. I can also make a custom listing for just about any number you need.
Another surprise big seller has been my paper luau flowers -
I had an excess amount of paper in 4 different colors and decided they would make nice party decorations. I sold quite a few sets in quantities of 25-100. Then one day a museum event coordinator contacted me and asked if I could make 10,000 of them. SURE!! The girls and I worked hard for quite a few days on that. I no longer have the original colors but I'm offering the ones pictured above.
People don't often tell me what they are doing with the items they buy but it's fun when they do. The last person to buy my paper flowers said they were poking a hole in the middle and making lollipop flowers to give away at a hospital! What a cute idea.
If you'd like something for your next event, be sure to stop by Ellie Marie Designs. If you don't see what you're looking for, send me a message! I love custom orders.
Trying to decide what to sell in my Esty shop was not too hard. I am not really super talented in the area of arts and crafts. When I was about 16, I took a macrame class. I really enjoyed that and did quite well with it. Then I tried toll painting, decoupage, stenciling, cake decorating, cross stitch, sewing, plastic canvas and whatever else was new. It was always a colossal failure. It wasn't any good or it was too messy, too expensive. Some projects took too long and I lost interest.
Then scrapbooking came along. Someone compared it to making bulletin boards, but on a much smaller scale. Well. I'm a teacher. Bulletin boards I can do.
When we were in Romania, I started a scrapbooking ministry with the ladies there. They had seen my scrapbooks and I thought it would be fun to get the supplies and show them how to make them. It was a fun way to reach out and fellowship! When we left the country, I gave away a lot of my supplies. But I still had a bunch that we brought back to the US.
So when I considered what to sell on Ellie Marie Designs, I was inspired by the prophet Elisha in
the Old Testament. He asked the widow who was in great need of making
some money, "What do you have in the house?" What did I have in my house? Stacks of scrapbooking supplies.
Do you sell on Etsy? How did you decide what to sell?
