Skip to Content

How to Promote Your Etsy Shop for the Holidays Without Spending a Dime

By: Author Vanessa Hamlin

Posted on Last updated:

Is your Etsy shop holiday ready? If not, here’s 6 steps to help you promote your Etsy shop for the holidays without spending a dime!

Now’s the time, my friends! People are already filling their carts with Christmas cheer and you need to get your stuff in front of them! So, what do you do when you don’t know how to promote your Etsy shop and you can’t afford to spend a ton of money on traditional advertising?

You up your game, of course!

Make your shop look better, feel better and therefore convert better than the shop your customer just “walked out” of.

A View Into The Doorway Of Your Etsy Shop

Let’s look at this from the perspective of a shopping mall…

There are tons of doorways to walk into.

Customers have their choice of 10 different clothing stores, 5 different places to buy bath and body products and 3 different shoe stores. Are you following me?

That’s how I like to look at Etsy. It’s a marketplace (online shopping mall), full of handmade goodies from different shops…just like the regular mall.

So, what makes you choose to walk into a certain clothing store at the mall, rather than the one with a doorway right next to it?

It’s the ambiance…

It’s how that doorway makes your customer feel!

Your photographs on Etsy do exactly the same thing. They are the “doorway” into your shop from the outside mall (Etsy search page).

So, let’s take a walk through the doorway of your shop so we can learn how to dress it up enough to make people line up at the door of your Etsy shop for the holidays…

How to Promote Your Etsy Shop for the Holidays Without Spending a Dime!

 

How to Promote Your Etsy Shop for the Holidays Without Spending a Dime - Food Life Design

Step One: Clean Up Your Images

They are the first thing a customer sees when they walk up to the “doorway” of your shop!

Are they doing the job?

Does your first image make you want to go through the doorway?

Start thinking about your images (at least the first one you use in your Etsy listing) as a window display in the doorway of your shop at the mall.

Make it pretty, but don’t clutter it up! Use a clean, neutral background and decorate with props sparingly.

I often fail at this myself and it’s something that I’m constantly working on and trying to figure out!

Step Two: Up Your Keyword Game

Oh, hello! How’d you hear about our store?

How many times have you been asked this when you’ve gone into a new store in your area? About a gazillion, I would imagine.

But, that’s the question you are silently asking every single customer that walks through your imaginary Etsy shop door, isn’t it?

As business owners, we all want to know how people find our shops, because we want to repeat whatever the heck it is that is bringing them into our stores. The more times you can wash and repeat a certain process, the more money you will make.

Think of your keywords (tags) as the answer to that question every time you have a sale.

In the physical world, the answer might be…

Well, Bob told Shirly and Shirly told Jessa and Jessa told me she found a great deal here, so I thought I’d check out your shop.

But in the Etsy world, the answer is more likely…

I typed “personalized stationery” into the search box on the Etsy home page and your listing caught my eye.

Which takes us back to step one – your image must be eye-catching! But, your keywords have to be spot on or that listing will never pop up for them to see and you will have lost that sale.

Fix your keywords!! I can’t stress this enough. I am constantly changing and tweaking keywords to fit new products, holidays and different seasons. It’s a never-ending battle, but it’s so worth it when you use the right keyword at the right time.

Step Three: Offer Gift Wrapping Services

Everyone is so busy these days, that so many don’t have the time to spend an entire day wrapping Christmas presents. So, if you have the time, offer gift wrapping services this year and help them out!

Just head over to your Etsy shop dashboard and click “Settings”, then choose “options” from the list. Once the new page opens up, just scroll down and select “Enable and Set Price” from the menu below “Offer Gift Wrapping”.

Etsy will add your gift wrapping service to all of your listings and customers will have the option to have their product wrapped or not during checkout.

Plus! Bonus – when a customer is shopping from an Etsy search page, they will have the option of choosing to search for only items that offer gift wrapping (on the left sidebar of the search page)- giving you a better chance of coming up in their search results.

Step Four: Offer Free Shipping

And speaking of having a better chance of coming up in search results… Etsy is pushing Free Shipping this year, like never before. And they are boosting shops that are offering it.

Plus, customers love free shipping and are even willing to pay a little more for something that ships free. And quickly…especially around the holidays!

Step Five: Have a Sale or Offer Coupons

Let Etsy do the promoting for you! Host a sale every time Etsy is promoting a sale and you’ll have a better chance of showing up in the top listings.

Offer coupons to new buyers and every time someone purchases something, give that new customer a coupon to come back again!

Step Six: Surprise Your Buyer with a Free Gift

‘Tis the season for giving! And you want to know how to promote your Etsy shop the best way? Offer a free gift to every buyer that spends a certain amount throughout the holiday season!

Shoppers LOVE free gifts! That’s why people line up and sleep in tents before Black Friday sales!

Freebies could include:

  • A coupon for a free item.
  • Matching collection pieces in smaller sizes.
  • Small item from a different collection (to promote future sales!)
  • Buy One Get One Free or Half Off

Giving away freebies is one of the best ways to promote your Etsy shop. Make them want to shop at your store just to get that free gift!

That’s it for today! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and learning how to promote your Etsy shop for the holidays without spending a dime! It’ll require a lot of upfront work from you, but it will be so worth it when you hear that “cha-ching” over and over again!

Read more from the “How to Sell on Etsy” series:

Signup for my daily newsletter to receive free printables, easy dinner ideas, recipes, home business tips and so much more right in your inbox!

Have a Spectacular Day!