#122 - Etsy for Beginners: Why Buyers Don’t Trust New Etsy Shops Yet

I'm going to be going over a few mistakes that new Etsy shop owners or Etsy beginners do when they are just starting out so that people are not trusting you.

All right.

So mistake number one, your shop looks unfinished.

OK, so shop.

looks unfinished.

So, the most common trust killers are no profile photo, no banner, an empty about section, vague policies, a blank announcement, or unfinished shop details, okay? So sellers often leave these bits until later, but buyers actually use them to judge whether the shop is still active and reliable.

Okay.

So the way to fix this is by adding a clear profile image or logo, a simple banner, a helpful announcement, completed about section and clear shop policy.

So basically that is the trust basics checklist.

State number two, your photos, they look pretty, but they're not doing a very good job at answering buyer questions.

Listing photos need to reduce buyer doubt, not just look nice, okay? And I'm specifically talking about, like, I think the majority of your photo effort should be going into your thumbnail image and the first sort of two or three images after that because obviously when someone is scrolling, they're more likely to see the photos that are up front rather than at the end, okay? Buyers cannot touchy-feely, they cannot measure, they cannot inspect, they cannot compare the product in person, in real life.

So you need to use your photos to show the relative scale, details, colour, use, packaging and personalisation, variations and bits and bobs like that where relevant.

each photo that you have within your listing and this is crucial needs to answer a buying question so let's say you have like a list of five questions that your ideal target market always asks so it should literally be your thumbnail image right and then it should be objection one two three three, four, that you are using your image photo slots to answer those, okay? So each photo needs to answer a buyer objection or a buyer question.

Repeated angles.

just waste photo slots.

So please do not just like put the same image in over and over and over again, because that literally does nothing.

Every unanswered question talking about this, every single unanswered question gives the buyer another reason to go and never to click on your stuff again.

Mistake number three, your description sounds nice, but isn't actually helpful in any way, shape or form.

If your descriptions are very like vague, like beautiful handmade gift made with love, like things like that does not give the buyers enough information.

And what I see is either you have a description, which is either a gajillion years long and it's like this and this and this.

And it's just like literally a wall of text or you have a description that's literally like this.

You need something that is in the middle, okay? You need something that has an introductory paragraph that has lots and lots and lots of bullet points and things to make the wall of text split up so you can use emojis and things like that, okay? It needs to have the practical details before the buyer will feel confident enough to buy from you.

A strong description should cover what it is, who it's for, size, materials and care, okay? You don't want to be adding in things like delivery, processing times, shipping costs, blah, blah, blah, because those are things that are covered automatically by Etsy's little listing helper.

Just State number four is delivery and processing times feel very unclear.

Gift buyers are not just buying the product, they are buying it arriving on time.