How to Make Money Selling photos on Etsy – Practical Steps and Tips to Succeed

How to Make Money Selling photos on Etsy. Etsy is an e-commerce platform that started in New York, USA in 2005. It is an open market focused on creative, original and artistic locally-made or handmade and craft items e.g bags, beads, clothing, sculptures, paintings etc.

Etsy allows its users to build shops and sell items. They charge $0.2 for each item listed in your shop and 5% of the price listed for an item purchased.

Are you a handicrafts worker or artisan, you can make cool cash selling on Etsy. Etsy has a community of both buyers and sellers.

You can also make money as a photographer selling your photos.

It may be a hard time for photographers as people no longer spend much on photography because their phones can solve that. But, luckily, Etsy can be a cool place for photographers to make money selling their photos.

Selling photos on Etsy is easy but, it may not be easy for a beginner, so we have some tips to help.

To start selling on Etsy, you need a shop.

How to open a shop on Etsy:

  1. Create an account:

Visit etsy.com and click “Sign up”. Follow the process and fill the form which includes your shop name, location, category etc.

  1. Choose a cool name for your shop:

Choosing a nice and spicy name helps a lot. Use eye-catching and brand-related names. Etsy allows you to change the name once and any further changes require approval. Make sure your shop name is related to the type of products you sell. Don’t use food related names for an accessories shop, or clothing related name for arts and craft shop.

You can seek recommendation from family and friends if you can’t find any yourself.

  1. Customizing your shop:

Customizing your shop also helps a lot as it helps to distinguish your shop from others. You can customize your shop display image and the cover photo. Use a  nice picture that tells almost everything about your shop as a display picture. Then make a banner-like photo for your cover picture. Making a beautiful cover photo is relevant because it serves as your shop welcome board.

  1. Setting up shop policies:

You need to put some policies for your shop for buyers to know. Making a nice policy is important and keeping to your word is very important to avoid disappointing buyers.  Like payment options, refund policies, shipping details etc. You need good policies and make sure shoppers know those policies before making a purchase. Buyers give a rating based on their experience shopping with you. If you get bad ratings, other buyers will be discouraged from buying your products.

You can sell both physical and digital photos on Etsy.

Important thing to note;

Make sure your photography is unique and creative before selling because nobody will buy a plagiarized work. You may need to put in some cool strategies to attract buyers like extra editing, cool frames for your photos etc. If you are selling nature photos, try to get exceptional views never gotten by any photographer. DO NOT TRY TO SELL PHOTOS FROM GOOGLE!

Who buys the photos?

Now, you may be wondering who will buy your photos. Well, graphic designers, bloggers, marketers and even companies need those photos. Graphic designers can use it for making flyers or other designs, marketers can use it for adverts.

Now you need to upload your photos.

Click ”Sell on Etsy”.

Then choose your photo and upload.

High resolution photos are required.

Put your price and you are set for the final task.

 

The final step is to promote your listing. Only fewer or uninterested people may see your product if you don’t promote it to a wider audience.

How to promote you listing

  1. Use social media:

Having social media handles is very important. Many internet users do use social media daily that is why the social media platforms have billions of users and becomes a nice place to display your products. Most social media platforms are free to use. Open social media handles and get as many followers as you can. You can also use ads to get followers. You can then start to share your listings with your followers and make sales.

2: Using ads:

This is also a cool way to promote your listings. It’s advisable to get a good marketer to run ads for you. This may cost but it will yield results. You can place ads on blogs, websites etc. Many websites are stormed by millions of users daily. It can be a nice catch for you but make sure you advertise on the right website. Don’t put an accessory item advert on a sports website. People might just ignore your ad.

Tips to get more buyers on Etsy

  1. Put up creative works:

Everyone loves something creative. Try as much as possible to get good shots. Use good camera, good dimension to get a perfect shot.

  1. Choose a good niche:

A nice niche also helps. Choose a niche like nature, arts and crafts, travels etc. Avoid using multiple niches. It makes no sense to have many products and no buyers.

  1. Give discounts:

Everyone loves that 20%, 30%, 50% off. Giving discounts pulls buyers also. You can run discount promotions periodically.