Etsy Best Sellers

Aside from Amazon, no marketplace offers the average person a greater opportunity to try and succeed at e-commerce than Etsy. For independent creators who build their own stuff, Etsy is the best platform to sell goods on the net. Given the range of products that make it to the list of top selling items on Etsy, almost every creator has a chance to succeed on the platform.

Etsy has tens of millions of engaged customers. Wherever you are in the world, you can offer your own creations to this engaged audience and make good money. You have as much chance to grab attention as any other creator on the platform. This is because Etsy has regulations that limit what can and cannot be sold on the site. Most of the sellers will be small creators like you.

Generally, the only things that can be sold on Etsy are:

1. Handmade goods: if you have put creative thought into designing a product and built the whole of it or part of it yourself, you will be allowed to sell it on Etsy. You cannot resell mass produced products by big brands on Etsy.
2. Supplies: to facilitate the creation of their handmade products, Etsy creators need craft supplies. There is a huge market for craft supplies on Etsy. If you can provide these supplies, you are welcome on Etsy.
3. Vintage goods: the only exception on Etsy that allows people to sell products they haven’t built themselves is if the products are vintage goods. Vintage goods, according to Etsy, are products that are at least 20 years old.

You can make it big selling products in any of the three categories. Nonetheless, it would be smart to do extensive market research and figure out the products that have the highest probability of success.

Etsy makes it easy to figure out what items are doing well. You can filter top selling items by location, price, categories, item type (craft supplies, handmade, or vintage), and ordering options. The following categories of products tend to feature often among the best selling items on Etsy:

1.     T-shirts with Cool Designs

You will always find a number of cool t-shirts among the top selling items on Etsy at any given time. If you can come up with cool graphics or quotes and print them on t-shirts, you will have a ready market waiting for you on Etsy. This is one of the easiest things you can do on Etsy since all you have to do is buy plain t-shirts and print stuff on them.

The designs can be generic or target specific communities. One of the top selling t-shirts on Etsy right now has ‘Black, Educated, Petty’ printed on it. Thousands of it has been sold and it has helped the store get nearly 1000 generally positive reviews. Another t-shirt that is doing well from the same store is a black t-shirt with a supposed quote from Cardi B, a female hip-hop artist.

When designing t-shirts, you can go for a funny, shocking, or hip look. Also, you can tailor your designs to growing communities such as the Vegan community. The design doesn’t have to be complicated. All you have to do is connect with the audience you are targeting.

Etsy customers will probably buy more than one product from your store if they like the quality of their first buy. Take advantage of this knowledge by having different but related t-shirt designs available in your store at any given time.

2.     Jewelry Supplies

Craft supplies shops often make up more than half of the top 10 top selling items on Etsy. Jewelry supplies are some of the most popular craft supplies on the site. Users sell beads, precious stones, crystals, and charms, among other items.

Getting into this space and having one of the notable stores can be very profitable. The bad news is that it takes a lot of effort to rise in the ranks and be one of the top stores. This is because creators tend to build long-term relationships with their suppliers and will always source their products from the same suppliers every time.

This could be bad news for the average beginner but you can turn it into an advantage if you try hard enough. Since relationship building is the currency when providing jewelry supplies, if you do put in the time and succeed, you will have a store that consistently registers high sales volumes month after month.

Providing jewelry supplies also means that you can survive trends and stay in business for a very long time. It is designs that get out of fashion. Raw materials do not. If you rise to become one of the top craft supplies stores, all you have to do is provide supplies to the people whose designs are currently doing well. Your store will be basically trend-proof.

3.     Customized Creations

One of the main reasons Etsy has grown so rapidly is because it gives customers an opportunity to reach out to creators and ask for custom arts and crafts. Customized jewelry, clothing, baby products, gifts, stickers, and decorations are in high demand.

Providing customizations gives creators a chance to charge a premium for their creations. If you want to produce a lot of items while still being able to customize the product for every customer, you can have a general template then offer a small aspect of the design such as an inscription or embroidery as a customization. If you have an attractive template that makes it to the list of the top selling items on Etsy, several people will contact you asking for customizations.

Most of the money for customized items comes from people who order items in bulk. Things like stickers and decorations are seldom ordered in singles. An underappreciated market for customized items is those Etsy buyers who serve other customers offline. Examples include shop owners and service providers such as wedding planners. If you can land customers like these, you will have reliable repeat buyers who make bulk orders.

4.     Kids and Baby Products

Products made for babies are a hit with the Etsy crowd. Popular baby stores on Etsy such as InfanteenieBeenie move hundreds of items every month. The primary customers are mothers and people looking to buy gifts for their loved ones with newborns.

If you choose to create items for babies, you should have a dedicated store for kids and make several baby items. Having just one product for babies and then listing it on a store targeting adults is not the optimal way to sell baby products.

Those with an eye for design and can knit well will definitely see success with handmade baby clothes. Most of Etsy users are mothers. Women pretty much run the site. With more than 80% of the creators being women, you can be more than guaranteed that your ideal customers for baby products are on the site.

To maximize your sales numbers, make baby clothes in different sizes. This way, you can get repeat business from your buyers as their babies outgrow the things they have bought from you. Also, have a lenient returns policy to put buyers who may have second thoughts about your creations at ease.

5.     Stickers

The number of stickers sold on Etsy will blow your mind. Stickers have been one of the most popular categories on the site since its inception. There are several stores that only sell stickers with tens of thousands of reviews. For inspiration, check out a store called One More with Love. Stickers is always a safe choice if you want a product that can make it to the top selling items on Etsy.

Creators selling stickers differentiate their products mainly by price and cuteness/design. A pack of stickers doesn’t cost a lot of money to produce. A small increase in price can lead to a very big change in ROI.

When selling stickers, what the customer sees on your store is pretty much what they will get. Therefore, relative to the rest of Etsy, the level of returns for stickers is pretty low. It also helps that the price per pack of stickers is generally low and buyers aren’t that motivated to return what they don’t like to get their money back.

Closing Thoughts

If you browse through the top selling items on Etsy at any given time and click through to the stores offering them, you will notice a pattern. The stores are well put together, offer a range of related items, and have several positive reviews. If you were to visit any other successful small e-commerce store outside of Etsy, you will discover that they have the same features as Etsy’s successful stores.

There is no magic bullet to succeeding on Etsy. Even if you started creating a product in one of the ‘top selling categories,’ you will still need to put in the work and create a well-rounded store. You might get lucky and have one of your products trend but most of your success will come from selling multiple items from one store.

One of Etsy’s biggest strengths is the sense of community it fosters. You should strive to build relationships with your customers to ensure repeat business. Reviews are also very important since Etsy users will put a lot of value on what other people on the site think of you and the products you create. To get positive reviews, offer products of exceptional quality and competitively price them. You want to make sure that your buyers always get value for their money.