In: Dropshipping|Last Updated:
How to Sell on Etsy in 7 Easy Steps

Etsy has grown into a powerhouse in its niche: it’s often the go-to place for people looking to buy high-quality, artisan goods. If you’re a crafty type who excels at creating, learning how to sell on Etsy may be a great way for you to make some extra cash or grow a full-fledged business.

The important thing is to approach this business like a true entrepreneur. You’ll need to cover some critical bases before you’re truly set up to succeed on the platform. But no worries, we’ve got you covered.

In this article, we’ll cover whether being an Etsy seller is right for you, as well as how to go about building and launching your Etsy shop.

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How to sell on Etsy in 7 steps

1. Determine if Etsy is right for you

Just because you want to sell handmade goods doesn’t necessarily mean you should open an Etsy store. Unfortunately, this is a hard truth that many aspiring Etsy sellers learn too late. So how do you know if it’s right for you?

The main things to consider are the types of items you’d sell and the geographic location …

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In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated:
How CPG Brands are Surviving – and Thriving – Amid Increasing Costs

If there is one thing that all consumer packaged goods suppliers have learned over the past two years, it’s how interconnected our global economy is. Even a supplier that is local to its primary market is at the mercy of events happening on the other side of the planet. 

Nowhere has this been more evident than with the rising costs of doing business, whether it’s due to scarcity of raw materials, supply chain bottlenecks, or increasing fuel and labor costs. At the same time, inflationary pressures are squeezing them from the consumer side, as shoppers are more cognizant than ever of spending. 

I spoke with more than a dozen suppliers from around the world – some of them during a recent ECRM session – to get a sense of the challenges these brands are facing, and how they have adapted their businesses to accommodate them. 

What it basically comes down to is that suppliers are getting hit on all fronts: rising costs of raw materials, shipping and freight (even local freight prices have gone up due to the increased fuel price). Labor is also getting expensive and can be scarce. Added to this are shipping backlogs at the ports, which …

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In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated:
Building a Customer Retention Strategy

Most CPG founders are so focused on acquiring new customers that they don’t spend enough time and energy retaining their existing ones. According to Neil Patel, “The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-80%, while the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%.” On top of this, customer acquisition costs for new customers are much higher than for existing customers.

Are you building your strategy around retention first and acquisition second? If not, you should be as it’s the foundation to building a successful business.

Let’s break down what a retention first strategy looks like and how to build one for your business.

First, let’s look at a traditional marketing funnel.

Marketing funnel

Ideally, each potential customer moves from awareness down to advocacy. Now it’s called a funnel because at each stage you’ll have fewer and fewer people moving to the next step. Sometimes it’s because the product isn’t a fit, while other times people are simply busy and forget. As a company, your goal is to:

1) Build as many advocates and loyalists as possible, and 

2) Increase the number of people moving from one stage to the next without exiting the funnel

Why? Advocates and loyalists …

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In: Dropshipping|Last Updated:
Shop Pay: What It Is, How It Works, and How To Use It

One of the biggest considerations for ecommerce store owners is their website’s user experience. Are customers in and out in a quick and convenient way? Most importantly, is there anything that’s causing them to abandon their carts or otherwise fail to follow through with checkout? Shop Pay checkout is one solution to this.

Shop Pay helps to build a seamless experience for users, saving their information so they can complete their order in a few clicks. Customers can also access features like  setting up monthly payments to ease the cost burden. You can enable it on your Shopify store, as well as through social channels like Google, Instagram, and Facebook.

In this article, we’ll take a dive into what this feature is, how Shop Pay checkout works, and how you can use it to help boost your customer experience.

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What is Shop Pay?

Shop Pay  is an accelerated checkout solution Shopify introduced in 2017. It securely stores the payment information customers enter on a store’s checkout page and then autofills it on return visits. This allows for faster purchases and eliminates the need to re-enter billing and other …

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In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated:
This Veteran-Owned Sauce Brand Proves to Retailers That “It’s Gon Be Good”

John Walden, Founder and Chief Quality Assurance/Quality Control Officer of J.W. Southern Sauce grew up in restaurants. His parents and family worked long careers in the service and restaurant industry, where he learned a lot about what makes a good meal. The secret? Sauce. While his love for food and delicious sauces sparked at a young age, manufacturing and producing his own masterful sauces was a new endeavor. From 2005 to 2011, Walden served in the United States Army, where he completed two combat tours in Iraq. While serving in the Army, he started developing J.W. Southern Sauce, born through his collective experiences across several countries and many years of trying to make military food more flavorful. Several years and lots of hard work later, the one-of-a-kind LGBTQ-, veteran-, and now Black-owned and operated brand launched on March 18, 2021. 

J.W. Southern Sauce

We mustard from the beginning 

Before launching J.W. Southern Sauce, Walden received formal education about the sauce manufacturing industry by attending an array of food-safe programs and the University of Georgia’s Department of Science and Technology’s Better Process Control School. From there, he needed a message behind his brand, something that represented all his hard work and would resonate with …

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In: Dropshipping|Last Updated:
Jewelry Photography: How to Take Pictures of Jewelry

When it comes to ecommerce, your photos can often make or break your store’s success. Jewelry photography is no exception.

If you’ve attempted jewelry photography before, or just admired how other brands do it, you’ve probably realized how difficult it can be. Many say that photographing jewelry is tougher than other items, like clothes or furniture.

It’s true that photographing jewelry can be tricky. But with the right tools and tips, you’ll find that it’s not impossible to have beautiful photos without hiring a professional. 

In this article, we’ll give you a crash course on how to take jewelry pictures like a pro.

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Jewelry photography equipment

Taking great photos of jewelry doesn’t have to involve purchasing high-end gear. With just a few essentials, you can create your own photography kit and take beautiful product images.

Let’s explore each of the items you’ll need for your jewelry photography shoot: 

Camera 

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a high-end camera lens to create good jewelry images. New jewelry sellers can also execute a shoot with an Android or iPhone. Personally, I suggest using whatever camera you have handy, be it a …

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