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When selling on Etsy it’s important to pay attention to seasonal themes and holidays and apply them to your shop. My busy season starts just before Halloween and continues through Christmas, and that’s when I have the majority of my sales on Etsy for the year. But I always include other seasons (like summer) and holidays (like Valentines Day, when my heart jewelry is quite popular). Every store is different and it depends on what kind of products you make, so here are a few ideas to optimize your item listings so they’re found by seasonal buyers.
Start Early
Well before the season or holiday is the time to begin researching and deciding which items to market from your shop. Just think how early you see holiday products in your local big box store. They do this to get people excited and ready to shop, so you should also start early!
Make sure you’re signed up for the Etsy Finds emails, as they will give you an idea of when various holidays are starting to be promoted on the site. You can see what the top trends are for each season by reading these emails. Etsy also posts a yearly Holiday Merchandising Guide on the site, which is an excellent source of keywords and trends for the upcoming winter holiday season.
Extra tip: Seasonal keywords can also apply to vintage and supply items on the site- just make sure they correctly apply to the item being sold.
Create New Products
If you plan on creating seasonal items for your Etsy shop I also suggest beginning as early as possible. This way you can perfect your products, write clear item descriptions, and have time to take photos that will appeal to shoppers. Think of items that are most often purchased as gifts and go from there. When I made lasercut holiday ornaments and added them to my jewelry shop it opened my store up to a lot more potential customers. They’ve become one of my best-selling product categories!
Edit Your Listings
You should also review and edit your existing Etsy listings to reflect the season. Only do this to listings that a holiday or seasonal theme would apply to, and don’t use keywords that make no sense for the item. The best place to adjust your listings is in the item title and tags. Brainstorming a list of seasonal keywords and phrases to use in these places is a great way to see all of your options. Be sure to include holidays (Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, etc.) as well as times of year (fall, spring, graduation, etc.). You can also use the “Occasion” drop down selection at the bottom of the edit listing pages (on the desktop version). This can help your listings be seen by even more shoppers looking for seasonal items.
Extra tip: Always go back and change those tags out after the holiday or season is over.
Change Your Shop Banner
Switching your banner or cover photo is one more thing you can do to represent various seasons in your Etsy shop. These large images are designed to increase branding for your shop, so changing them out to celebrate holidays or seasonal themes is another easy, free marketing tool. You can do variations on your year-round version or make totally new ones and put them up a month or two beforehand. For example, I’ve seen holiday themed shop banners with holly and Christmas trees next to the store’s logo, as well as spooky ones to get shoppers excited for Halloween.
What other ways do you prepare your Etsy shop for upcoming seasons?
Rebecca George
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