I'm still having trouble with the next part of my journey to creating an Etsy business. I need to describe what I offer, as in pricing and products. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to sell. My problem will be figuring out what to price my products at. Most artists, most small business owners in fact, underprice many of their products due to under confidence and a poor understanding of demand. That way they may have more products sold, but they also get less profit so they have less money to grow the business by marketing or trying new products. People who price their products under the best price, that sweet spot where people will still buy but you get a good profit, often get stuck in a rut or burn out. I'm probably going to price my products too low since I have trouble thinking people will ever buy something handmade by me. To avoid that I decided to figure out where I want to be in my market and who my direct and indirect competitors are on Etsy. I found a few lovely shops selling stone jewelry and a few selling jewelry aimed at the healing power of stone jewelry but I learned something new when I did a search on Google.
I was looking for tools to analyze competitors on Etsy and stumbled upon this interesting tool designed into Etsy. Once you type keywords into Etsy, the site brings up lots of links to items near that phrase. However, if you look directly below the search box, in the upper right corner of the search listings is a set of three small square icons. If you click on the chart icon, a new search will come up while a chart of how many listings fit (by percent) in what price range as well as gives three or four examples you can click to see what items in that category may look like. I believe you have to be logged in to see the chart icon, but that is rarely a problem for sellers on Etsy. Although this tool is not very good for seeing who your competition is or where you fit in the market you are thinking of entering, it is a good quick gauge of what prices are common in your market and how detailed your product should be to sell in a high price range or that other are selling less detailed work at that price range. Nothing beats good market research when researching competition but this tool is a quick chart for Etsy sellers to use when deciding if you are pricing your item too low or too high. It can't be your only pricing aid, but I will go into specific pricing techniques in a much later post. At this stage I am merely using the tool to decide if I would rather sell $20 necklaces or $100 necklaces in my store. I think that my store will focus on a nice place in between for now. As I get comfortable and better at techniques I can add a few more expensive pieces to see how it goes. For now I have a good round number to put in my branding statement. I just need to decide some more things about my market before I start getting into the specifics of my store and brand. I can't have merely a general idea of my store when I start deciding on plans so it is back to market research for me.
