As an Etsy seller, have you ever felt like you’re just yelling into the void with each new product you list?
You spend hours lovingly crafting beautiful handmade items, take well-lit photos from every angle, and write a thorough description.
But then…nothing.
Your new listing gets barely any views, let alone sales or reviews.
It’s incredibly frustrating, isn’t it?
You’re putting in all this work but feel like you’re getting nowhere fast.
Believe me, I’ve been there. A few years ago, I was in the same disheartening situation as an Etsy seller struggling to get my t-shirt shop noticed.
But then I stumbled upon a powerful “profit push” strategy that completely turned things around for my Etsy shop. By using this clever launch technique for new products,
I’m able to:
- Get my latest creations visible on that first crucial page of Etsy’s search results
- Rack up a bunch of positive reviews right out of the gate
- Drive a surge of initial sales at full price
- Set the listing up for long-term passive income success
Sounds pretty great, right?
Let me explain exactly how this strategy works and why it’s so amazingly effective.
Why the Old “Sit and Wait” Approach Just Doesn’t Cut It Anymore
If you’ve been selling on Etsy for a while, you’ll remember a time when you could pretty much just list a new item and organically wait for sales to start rolling in over time.
No fancy marketing needed – Etsy’s search algorithm would surface your products to interested buyers.
Well, those days are long gone.
With over 60 million active buyers on Etsy and countless new products being listed every single day, there is just way too much competition now.
If you take a passive “set it and forget it” approach to launching new products, your fresh listings will quickly get utterly buried beneath the endless wave of newer items.
On top of that, Etsy’s modern search engine prioritizes products with strong seller performance metrics like:
- Consistent sales volume over time
- High numbers of glowing reviews
- Outstanding review scores and ratings
So new listings without any of those crucial signals basically get treated as afterthoughts and hidden from view.
Etsy has also rolled out advertising features that allow sellers to pay for prominent placement of their product listings through avenues like:
- Offsite ads on Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
- Promoted Listings that get top billing in search
- Occasional featured seller spotlight promotions
While paying for visibility can give an initial boost, it’s not really a long-term solution for sellers on a tight budget like you and me.
The advertising fees start to add up quickly!
This is why just publishing new products and hoping for the best no longer works on Etsy.
To have any chance of getting discovered amidst the sea of competition, we need an entirely new playbook.
Enter: The “Profit Push” Method for New Etsy Product Launches
So what’s a savvy Etsy seller to do in this ruthlessly competitive environment?
The real key to success is generating as much visibility and positive momentum as possible right out of the gate when you release new products.
By giving your latest creations an immediate high-powered launch push, you can:
- Rack up those all-important initial sales fast
- Quickly collect a bunch of glowing product reviews
- Send strong positive signals that alert Etsy to this hot new listing
Etsy’s algorithms will then reward that initial buzz by prominently displaying your soaring new product in more searches.
This creates a self-perpetuating sales cycle where the visibility leads to more purchases, more stellar reviews, better rankings, and so on!
Sounds amazing, right?
But how exactly do you pull off this powerful profit push launch?
Here’s the step-by-step system I use:
First, I build up the hype for my upcoming new Etsy product release by sending a series of emails to my subscriber list over 4 days.
Each email message offers a limited-time 40% discount to my loyal followers as a special VIP treat.
- On Day 1, I announce the brand new product with something like “Hot off the presses! My latest handcrafted [product] is finally here. To celebrate the launch, I’m giving you 40% off for the next 4 days only as a thank you for being an awesome subscriber!”
- On day 2, I sent a reminder nudging them again about the special discount opportunity that’s still available. Email open rates usually hover around 20-30%, so this ensures more people get the memo.
- Then Day 3 brings another message that ramps up the scarcity and FOMO factor. Something like “Just 1 more day left to get 40% off my new [product] VIP discount! Don’t miss out on these savings – the offer ends tomorrow at midnight.”
- Finally, Day 4 is the big guns’ push to drive as many last-minute sales as humanly possible before the promotion expires. I’ll send an early morning “This is your last chance!” email, and then follow up again in the evening with a final “Last call! Discount ends in just a few hours” message to anyone who didn’t open the first one.
At the end of each of those Day 4 emails, I’m sure to politely ask buyers to leave an honest product review once their orders arrive. Getting a fresh bundle of positive feedback is absolutely crucial for:
- Converting future shoppers who stumble across the listing
- Improving the product’s ranking in Etsy search results
Since these early buyers are my warm audience of loyal fans and subscribers who got a great discount directly from me, they’re usually more than happy to leave a glowing review and rating for my latest creation.
The end result?
My brand new Etsy product gets an explosive launch filled with:
- A wave of initial sales to spike that momentum
- Plenty of fresh positive reviews to win over buyers
- Surging visibility from Etsy’s algorithm now that it’s trending
- And hype building for a long future as a passive income source!
However, the profit push method doesn’t just solve the initial problems of getting a new listing noticed and establishing early credibility.
There are a few nice bonus benefits as well:
- Thanks to the limited-time scarcity, sense of urgency, and heavy promotion, I’ll often see a flood of full-price purchases too! Shoppers who miss out on the discount will sometimes buy at the regular price before it potentially sells out.
- My email subscribers get first dibs at exclusive deals on shiny new products. This gives them a big incentive to keep opening my messages so they never miss out again!
- Each successful launch creates another consistently selling product line. So with every new release, I’m adding another income stream to my Etsy shop that generates reliable passive sales.
And the best part?
Once the profit push system gets your new Etsy listing off to that rocket start, it tends to just keep soaring.
The built-in visibility, sterling reviews, and consistent sales create an unstoppable self-perpetuating cycle. Talk about setting it and (happily) forgetting it!
So if your Etsy shop could use a mega sales boost, I’d highly recommend giving this profit push strategy a try.
It takes a little planning and preparation on the front end, but the payoff is more than worth it in the long run.
Recommended Tools For Etsy
Design Nexus newsletter – Get simplified Etsy tips and modern marketing strategies — plus a free Digital Product Starter Kit!
Creative But Fine newsletter – This is your source if you want more detailed guides about Etsy and graphic design.
I have made an entire section of helpful and mostly free tools you can use to build a successful online business on Etsy. See the tools here.
Kittl – A go-to place for any person, who wants to make money with print-on-demand on Etsy.
Creative Fabrica. They have millions of cheap graphics that can elevate your t-shirt design.
Vectorizer – This tool transforms your image into a vector with seconds. scalable without losing the quality.
Disclosure: Some of the links above may contain affiliate partnerships, meaning, at no additional cost to you, NechEmpire may earn a commission if you click through to make a purchase.
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