#437 – Strategies From A Million Dollar Etsy Seller

Video of the episode at the bottom

Etsy is a well-known online store where makers and sellers can list their hand-made goods and interact with customers.  However, it can be challenging to stand out in a crowded marketplace and make a significant profit. That’s where Dylan Jahraus comes in – a million-dollar Etsy seller who shares her insights and strategies for success on her podcast.
 
In her podcast, Dylan covers a range of topics, starting from her story and selling journey to effective SEO strategies and effective ways to upsell your products in the Etsy platform. She shares her knowledge on what kinds of products can sell well on Etsy and even dives into specific category hacks like vintage items. She also discusses common mistakes to avoid, such as activities that can lead to getting banned on Etsy.
 
If you’re looking to start selling on Etsy or improve your current sales, Dylan’s tips, hacks, and insights can help you navigate the platform and increase your chances of success. This SSP episode is a must-listen to start thriving on Etsy!

In episode 437 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Dylan discuss:

• 02:30 – Dylan’s Backstory And How She Got Started In E-commerce
• 04:40 – Talking About Her Selling Journey On Etsy
• 07:05 – She Made $1.5 Million On Etsy
• 08:10 – What Kinds Of Products Can You Sell On Etsy?
• 10:00 – What Went Wrong With Bradley’s Product On Etsy
• 12:00 – The Vintage Category Inside Etsy
• 13:00 – Breaking Down The Project X Listing On Etsy
• 14:14 – Effective SEO Strategies For Etsy Listings
• 17:08 – You Need To Find Ways To Upsell
• 17:55 – What To Do When Your Product Is Sold Out
• 19:15 – Etsy Categories That Amazon Sellers Should Look Into
• 20:35 – Activities That Can Get You Banned On Etsy
• 22:45 – Seller Success Stories On Etsy
• 26:40 – Talking About Amazon Handmade
• 29:50 – Learn To Sell On Etsy With Dylan’s Course And Coaching
• 31:50 – Dylan’s 60-Second Tip
• 33:00 – How To Connect With Dylan Jahraus
• 35:00 – How To Find Products To Sell On Etsy

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Selling over a million dollars online with up to 70% profit margin. That’s what today’s guess has achieved. But we’re not talking about Amazon today. We’re gonna dive into her story to see if this marketplace might be somewhere that you can have similar success. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think.

Bradley Sutton:

Sellers have lost thousands of dollars by not knowing that they were hijacked, perhaps on their Amazon listing, or maybe somebody changed their main image, or Amazon changed their shipping dimensions, so they had to pay extra money for every order. Helium 10 can actually send you a text message or email if any of these things or other critical events happen to your Amazon account. For more information, go to h10.me/alerts. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we have got someone here for the first time. We are gonna be doing like a deep dive into Etsy. So we’ve got Dylan here. Dylan, how’s it going?

Dylan:

Good. Good, good, good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, Dylan is, it is funny, like I was just what I do with this podcast is sometimes I’ll check the Apple Podcast charts and I’m like, Hey, where, where are we ranking? And then we are in the, I forgot what it is, like the entrepreneurship category or something. And, and, and then, so I was looking, and then we were like in, I don’t know, like number 95 or something like that for whatever particular day I was looking at it and I was just browsing around the other ones. Cause I usually check ’em, Hey, make sure no Amazon ones are, are ahead of me. I hadn’t looked at this in a long time, and so yours was a first one that was like, wow, here here’s like rank number 30-35 or something. So like, a lot of people are listening to this.

Bradley Sutton:

And it was about Etsy. I’m like, wow, this is interesting. I sell on Etsy. I think Etsy is great, but I’m just kind of winging it on Etsy. And I was like, you know what a lot of our listeners are Amazon sellers, and not everybody can sell on Etsy, but I figured there are some people who maybe haven’t considered going to Etsy. So like, let’s bring in an expert to talk about it. But before we get into the nuts and bolts of that, let’s learn about you, cuz I know literally nothing about you. Where are you even in the world right now?

Dylan:

Perfect. So I live in San Diego, California right now.

Bradley Sutton:

What? I live in San Diego. live in San Marcos. Where do you live?

Dylan:

So I’m by the strand close to Coronado.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh my God. You, you’re literally like, like 25-30 miles from me. And like I know it seems that we don’t live in San Diego. Last night in my house, outside of my house it was 33 degrees. Like, this is not San Diego weather.

Dylan:

Right? Right. Yeah. But so we are military though. So I’m a military spouse. My husband works on Point Loma on the submarine base. So we move a lot. We were up in Seattle, and we’ve been in Connecticut. But I’m originally from Minnesota. He’s from Hawaii. We met in Seattle, I was doing the e-commerce thing up there. And then we moved here.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah. San Diego normally is a little bit warmer than Minnesota. I mean, you probably thought you’re this week, you’ve been back home. Okay. So I don’t hear a strong Minnesota accent.

Dylan:

You know, I have not been back there for probably 17 years since I lived there. So left for school. Did the, did the e-commerce career thing moving around the country?

Bradley Sutton:

Where’d you go to school?

Dylan:

Yeah, the college of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Okay. Like I remember they had a, what’s their mascot there? They had a good basketball team, like one year, like years ago.

Dylan:

Tribe, it might have changed it for some reason.

Bradley Sutton:

Yes. A lot of that going around these days.

Dylan:

So that’s what we were I was on the dance team, so I was all into the whole basketball team thing. It was really fun. But yeah, studied business there. Then got out, and moved to Las Vegas. I worked for Zappos you know, owned by Amazon. That’s where I got my start in e-commerce. And then moved up to Seattle, and worked for Zoo Lilly, the flash sale site. And then moved down to San Diego. And there’s not a lot of e-commerce here. Thought about working for Petco headquarters, but like, not quite what I was looking for. So I started on Etsy and I did not expect it to become what it did.

Bradley Sutton:

Tell me that thought process though. Like that’s, that’s not a normal thing. There’s not much e-commerce. Let me start on Etsy. Like, like, so like the, I mean, like, how did you know about Etsy? Like, were you a shopper on Etsy or something? Or what made you think that that’s the route you should have gone?

Dylan:

Yeah, so I’m a straight-up hustler, okay? So I was dog walking. I was buying jewelry from China, and selling it on eBay. Like, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was trying to just make a buck, right? And so I took a picture of something I made for our wedding and I put it on Etsy. I thought maybe someone would buy this. Now, this thing, it was a letter J made out of foam and toothpicks. Okay. Foam and toothpicks with some flowers on it. So there was no way I could ship this thing to anyone. But someone bought it. And then by the time someone bought it, I forgot I had listed it and I thought, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? Someone bought this. Now I have to figure out how to make it. And so, yeah, that was about almost seven years ago.

Bradley Sutton:

Did you make it or did you have to cancel the order?

Dylan:

My husband handled that one. He kind of figured out the engineering. We made it work. So that was our first sale. We didn’t get our first sale until two months on the platform though.

Bradley Sutton:

I know you just said it, but I totally, totally went over my head. What did you say year we’re talking about here?

Dylan:

So that was 2016.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So it’s been a while. So 2016. So then what was your next product? Like that was like, okay, that was an accident, but now, hey, let’s do this for real. Like what, so what was your, like, your first kind of like, quote unquote real product that you sold on Etsy?

Dylan:

Yeah. My next product, so my whole first year, I just had two products. The next thing was a thing for a nursery, a baby mobile. Now two products for my first year, but we did 134,000 with those two products.

Bradley Sutton:

And you made all of that in-house?

Dylan:

I did. Okay. One-bedroom apartment with a dog and a baby. And yeah, we were cranking out orders. We were making stuff on with our jigsaw on the patio in Mission Valley not exactly the place to do that. But we made it work.

Bradley Sutton:

Wow. Okay. Now fast forward, we’re gonna fill in the gaps here, but fast forward to now we’re in the middle of, or towards the beginning, middle of 2023. What did you end like in 2022 in gross sales on Etsy, just so people understand the potential?

Dylan:

Yeah, so I’ve done one and a half million dollars on Etsy, over a million dollars in profit.

Bradley Sutton:

In profit?

Dylan:

In profit. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

So, I mean, that’s gotta be a lot of, I mean, that’s millions of dollars of gross sales than on Etsy. Wow.

Dylan:

So yeah, so last year our revenue was 370,000 between 70% and 75% margin on that. So really, really good margin.

Bradley Sutton:

And we don’t know about that kind of margin in the Amazon world. That’s awesome.

Dylan:

I know it’s possible with Etsy though. And yeah, I do sell on Shopify and a little bit on Amazon Handmade as well. But Etsy is definitely the biggest piece of our business.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Now let’s level set again and just explain about Etsy, because I’ve got questions because like, I think everybody kind of has shopped on Etsy at least once maybe somehow they did something in search, and then maybe an Etsy thing came up. But then a lot of us who don’t know too much about Etsy, like we might assume that it’s, Hey, this is just like how you started, like handmade goods from your own house. But then, and I know they’re strict about some things, but then like I’m looking on Etsy. Like right now I’m looking at Etsy and I see baseball cards on here. So like, what exactly is it like, allowed to be sold on Etsy and what’s not?

Dylan:

Yeah. So there’s a lot of gray area with Etsy. Sometimes I wonder if they keep it that way on purpose. But there’s so much flexibility. So yes, they’re very strict about things like copyright, right? Like, things like that. You hear about shops getting shut down all the time for that kind of thing. But in terms of the rules and regulations on what you can sell, they’re pretty flexible. So obviously, there’s the handmade or altered category. I call it the altered category because you can literally buy something that’s completely finished, add something tiny to it, just something tiny, change it in some small way, and then it’s handmade.

Bradley Sutton:

So like this water bottle, I could buy this water bottle, but if I spray paint this cap red or something, theoretically that would qualify cuz I altered it. I didn’t know that.

Dylan:

Yeah. Yeah. And then there’s the supply category, which is two things. So it’s either something that’s a component of something else. So like a craft supply or what? They also classify things in the supply category, that’s anything for an event or occasion. So anything for weddings, anything for parties. So you could literally buy finished party decor, finished wedding decor, like wedding bouquets and stuff from China. Sell it on Etsy. You don’t do anything to it, but it’s in the supply category.

Bradley Sutton:

Wow. Okay. So I’ve already learned something because I didn’t know that. And I gotta check into it, but I was selling something my reasoning was where like, even though I didn’t really dig into what’s allowed and not allowed, I showed you a couple of my products. Like we did this YouTube case study where we showed everybody how we found products to sell on Amazon, and it was like these coffin shelves. And so I’m like, well, you know what, like, it’s, it’s made by hand somewhere like, I’m getting it from China, but you know, like, it’s not like this mass-produced thing. I just got a small team over there putting these things together. And I’m like this still should so what I did was I pick, Hey, this is made by me or a member of my shop or something like that or whatever thing.

Bradley Sutton:

I’m like, I haven’t had any trouble. But then one of my products, I don’t know if somebody complained or something, or maybe it was in an Amazon box. It wasn’t like a big seller for me. But then I just one day saw that my listing wasn’t there anymore. And then when I contacted Etsy, they didn’t say they can give the exact reason, but that it didn’t meet their requirements or something like that. But what do you think happened there? I think it might have been like a mirror, like a certain kind of mirror, like a gothic mirror I was selling.

Dylan:

Okay. Do you think that picture of the mirror could have been found maybe as a listing photo on Ali Express or something?

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, for sure. Because I sold this on Amazon too. Yeah. And all of our Amazon products, like, like those pitchers ended up on AliExpress and Alibaba and stuff. So that would do it.

Dylan:

That would do it unless you had marketed that mirror as like a wedding reception decor piece, because for a wedding. That’s the event occasion. You could have done that, but yeah. Yeah. See, that’s, that’s where you just gotta be careful. You gotta know what the rules are so that you can work with them. Right.

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting, interesting. Yeah. So that’s something to keep in mind because like when you get popular on Etsy or Amazon, I noticed that Alibaba and AliExpress like, a lot of the factories will just start copying the images and stuff. So knowing that that’s a danger could be something interesting to think of.

Dylan:

Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Now let me show you here. I’m like literally looking at baseball card images and stuff. What category would this fall under? I mean, they’re not saying that this is wedding decor.

Dylan:

Are these vintage by chance?

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, vintage. Vintage, yes. It says right here, highlights vintage from the 1990s.

Dylan:

Yeah, I believe it’s, I forget if it’s 15 or 20 years or 25 years. It’s one of those years. It has to be that age and then vintage. There you go.

Bradley Sutton:

I learned a new thing. So like I have some, like, I think you were like 20 years old, like some Pokemon old Pokemon collectibles from Japan. So technically I’ve only been selling those on eBay, but now I can potentially sell some of these on, on Etsy. Wow. Fascinating. Yeah. All right. Le did, did you have a chance to look at the one listing that we had made?

Dylan:

Oh, I did. I definitely did.

Bradley Sutton:

You did? Yes. All right. Hold on. Let me find it myself here. I haven’t even looked at this listing in a long time. So let me, let me share my screen so people can see our terrible, I’m assuming it’s probably gonna end up not being that great, our listing. Hey, I’m on page one of the coffin shelves. That’s another thing I wanna ask about is like ranking and things like that, because I’m like, I’ve got one of the coolest coffin shelves here. But here is our Etsy listing guys. It’s under How Cool Is That Store? That was the name of our, that’s what I say at the podcast all the time. And, and we’ve, we’ve got like, Hey, we’ve got 500 sales on Etsy, but, but tell me what like what was your impressions of this and what are we doing wrong here? And don’t, you’re not gonna hurt my feelings, so don’t worry.

Dylan:

Yeah, I know. I’m very direct. I don’t hold back, but, so the photos are actually good. You had someone do these?

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Yeah. We actually did the in-house. Like we, we had a photo like, cuz at Helium 10, we have a photography team and stuff, so I had them take some, some images originally for Amazon. But then some of these correct me if I’m wrong, but like you’ll notice this first image had this orange background, like Amazon, it’s required that you have a white background, but on Etsy, nobody uses a white background for the main image. Right.

Dylan:

Not good sellers. Right.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay.

Dylan:

With this, the main problem is your SEO. I mean, this is not Etsy SEO. Like this is maybe on Amazon, this would do better. I’m not an Amazon expert. But With Etsy, you really need to be looking and thinking about this. Like, what are people actually typing in? So the person who’s buying this, do they know that they want a coffin shelf? Or does this someone who’s looking for gothic decor. Do you know what I mean? So you don’t wanna lead with coffin shelf, you wanna lead with, I mean, it’s your most valuable real estate in the front of your title here. So you wanna lead with the gothic decor. Now who else is, is buying this? Is this like Halloween decor? Is it clear I’m not the customer.

Dylan:

Right? But no one’s gonna be typing in 14 by 7 inches. So we don’t want that in the title. We could do something like shelf decor. Maybe they’re just looking for a decor piece for their cute shelf or a knickknack or something for the consult table, but no one’s typing in 14 by 7. Okay. So the dashes are also breaking up your SEO. If you took those out, you’d be found for nearly twice as much. Same with the commas. Wow. so yeah, it’s much, much different on Etsy what you need to do. But we can literally, we could double your search results, like the number of visits and views if you updated the SEO.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So offline or after this, I want you to give, I could probably take that and do something, but why don’t you literally give me the title you think it should be, and then late on, I’m gonna come back and, and say how what kind of differences it had. But let me know what you think the title should be and I’m gonna change it to whatever you say. And I’m sure I’m gonna see more sales here. What else? Any other feedback?

Dylan:

Yeah, the description. So description, your SEO really needs to be there as well. So that’s something that’s missing. We really focus on high-converting descriptions. I teach you how to do this in my program, but it’s, we really want the description to be high converting. That means enough information, not too much. If you confuse someone with your description, they’re just gonna bounce. They’re not gonna reach out to ask you a question. Most people on Etsy are shopping on their phones now. So especially for this type of product, they’re probably on their phone. If it’s not clear, your description’s not easy to read, then they’ll move on. So the SEO is missing. That should be at the very top of the description and should be very consistent with your tags, and your title. And then things like shipping information should be in the description breaking things up to make it more readable.

Bradley Sutton:

You’re saying I should have shipping information in the description? Cause I don’t think I do. Right?

Dylan:

Yeah. Turnaround time. Like, wait, where is this coming from? How, when can I expect to receive it?

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. I would imagine some people are weary of like, oh, is this gonna come from China? No, it’s coming from San Diego, California. So let people know that is important. I should have thought of that. Yep. Okay.

Dylan:

Yeah. And there are also huge opportunities to upsell them. So you have one size here, right? You have one size, two, you have a couple of colors. Now since the black one sold out.

Bradley Sutton:

I have a bigger size too in another listing. Yeah, I do have a large coffin shelf. See, you didn’t even know that because I’m not saying that anywhere here in this listing. I kept it separate. So maybe that’s a thing like, I have this variation of black, pink, and purple. Yeah. But should I have kept the larger size in this variation family or kept that as a separate listing?

Dylan:

Absolutely the larger size in here. Yeah, absolutely. So you wanna be able to give them any option for this within one listing? So it’s too much work to lead them to another listing? It is. Also instead of saying Sold out for black, what I would do is update it to black parenthesis ships for one a month later, depending on when you can get it in you don’t wanna limit yourself from getting sales on.

Bradley Sutton:

That’s my family. It’s not sold out. I don’t know why. I keep telling to I’m gonna send them a message right now. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t manage as much. My my, my family does it, so I’m gonna send them a message right now. Why is the black sold out? Come on guys.

Dylan:

Yeah, so there’s a lot you can do here, but really, I mean even variations like a rush order fee where it’s like, okay, you can pay an extra $15 and it’ll ship the next day, otherwise, it’s normal price and it ships a week later. Do you know? Okay. You can do things like that. So many opportunities to upsell with Etsy within listings.

Bradley Sutton:

Alright. Excellent, excellent. So Amazon sellers out there, what categories would you suggest? I mean, obviously home and kitchen like this kind of decor, like random niche things like this, or the other things we sell in our account are like egg trays and stuff like that. But I’m one of our few thousand Amazon sellers listeners out there, and I’m selling an X category. Who would you suggest to like, at least start to take a look? Not that Etsy would be a home run for every single person, but what are some categories where it’s like, Hey, you definitely should take a look at, maybe Etsy might be for you? What are some categories where Nope, absolutely not? You know, you’re selling an iPhone case. Actually, iPhone cases actually would be it is a popular thing on Etsy, but electronics or something like that. Like, what are the categories that are Yes, go and no go?

Dylan:

Yeah. So people on Etsy, really want something unique, right? They’re not, they’re not just, they’re, they’re a different customer than the Amazon customer. They’re really looking for something special, unique, really giftable items, personalized items. So if you have something, if you sell on Amazon and you have the ability to add personalization to it, to add a name, to add a date, to add a monogram or a letter, even that I would definitely be something that you’d wanna have on Etsy. Even if you have different color options or they can upload a picture or a logo to something and you could put it on that should be on Etsy for sure. Now, if you’re selling things that are kind of vanilla, I’ll call it vanilla things that say a t-shirt that just says like, live, laugh, love, you know? Kind of vanilla things. I wouldn’t really take your time to put that on Etsy. They want something more unique. And it’s really hard if you go into something super saturated, like just generic women’s t-shirt, and there’s nothing special about your design, you don’t have a strong track record. I wouldn’t even waste your time on that with Etsy.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Okay. Yeah. What are some things like some activities that might not be, or that might be banned on Etsy that are not common knowledge? Like you know, like maybe know, like, Hey, I’m not gonna sell some drug-related thing. Like, that’s common sense, but like, for example, some people don’t realize that if you sell a product on Walmart nowadays, Walmart.com, you cannot fulfill it by Amazon. In other words, if Walmart catches that you sent an item from FBA because of the tracking number or cuz it had Amazon on the box and they somehow intercept it and they know that you did that you’ll get banned, on your Walmart Account. Like that’s not common knowledge. Like, is there anything like that on Etsy? Like, Hey, you, you can’t do this, or you can’t use Amazon, it’s fulfillment. Or you can’t like, make a shirt and then you sell it from merch by Amazon, or kind of Etsy doesn’t care about those kinds of things.

Dylan:

So you do need to be careful with things like drop shipping. Now, I work with a lot of Etsy sellers and some of them, started their shop just by drop shipping and they’re not selling something. So they’re selling finished goods, but it’s not considered a supply and it’s not considered an item for like a wedding or event. So these are just like finished apparel that had no impact on the design, so they were not involved in the design process at all. They’re just drop shipping. You can’t do that. You have to have some hand in the design process. So you have to be working with the manufacturer in some way. And a lot of people are just drop-shipping things. And eventually, you will get caught. Other things that you, that’s it’s more than a slap on the wrist, you can really get shut down pretty quickly for is Disney. So if you type in Disney, you’ll see thousands of listings. Right. Just because other people are doing it, it doesn’t mean you’re safe. It just means that even Disney, they have to go listing by listing and report that. So it takes them, if someone you know, making, who knows how much power is, is going through these listing and scrubbing, scrubbing them one by one. So just because you see listings still up doesn’t mean that you would be safe to do that.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Okay. Just to people can see what you’ve done on Etsy, but just to people might consider you, well sure. She’s successful, she’s an expert on Etsy. But some of your students, like you don’t have to mention names or what they sell. If you can, great. But can you give some brief examples of some of the success stories from some of your students or people that you have in your network? So people can understand the potential of what they could do on Etsy?

Dylan:

Yeah. So the people I work with, right? The people I work with are more in the breed of I wanna quit my job. And I wanna replace my income. Like I am so burned out. And a lot of them are attorneys, doctors, nurses, dentists, hygienists, like people who are making good money, right? They’re making good money, but they’re super burned out and they can’t just afford to quit their job because they’re making too much. So really we are working and building up their Etsy income in tandem while they’re working full-time to fully replace that. And I would say for me, it’s a win when they quit their jobs. Like their goals are my goals. So, people who have done that, I would say you have some students who’ve done that within six months of launching on Etsy. So it’s definitely possible. It’s not too saturated. The ones who do it though are relentless, absolutely relentless. They have no quit. And they’re willing to do and make or sell what people want versus what they like. That’s like the biggest difference. There’s a whole breed of Etsy sellers who sell what they like. It’s their art. Yep. Right. It’s a passion project. The ones who, who really are relentless have no quit and they’re willing to sell anything that will sell. They get to their goals much faster.

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting. Interesting. So one thing I suggest to Amazon sellers or prospective Amazon sellers is like, Hey like $3000, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000. Not everybody has that in order to start their own private label business, be able to order a thousand units from a factory in China. So like a gateway drug almost is doing things with lower investment, be it merch by Amazon or Kindle books. But then I also say, Hey, maybe you have something you can do on Etsy. You’re not mass-producing something. So like, let’s say there’s somebody who’s listening, and their eventual goal is to be a private label seller on Amazon. They know they have to get some money together. What would be your suggestions to them if they’re just like, Hey, I’ve only got a couple of hundred bucks to my name, or not to my name, but a couple of hundred bucks of liquid that I can deal with here? I’m totally fine with taking the long game. How can I take this couple hundred bucks, 500 bucks, 700 bucks or whatever and start my own Etsy business? Like what would be their path?

Dylan:

Yeah. So we wanna go wide, not deep. We really wanna go wide, not deep. The first thing you sell, or the first thing you list is it’s not a guarantee that that’s gonna be what you become known for a year from now. Sure. So you wanna have a good mix to launch with? And you want to, I give you this, my students this like 10-step opportunity checklist just to vet their idea. Cuz when you’re starting and you have like 500 bucks, you can’t afford to make a bad bet. You can’t. So put out 3, 4, 5 things that are a sure bet that pass the test. And literally, you have to be willing to sell the first few at cost. Just get some sales under your belt. So I don’t know what it is, but they’re holding onto that margin. They really wanna hold the margin and 50% margin, like right out the gate. And it’s like, okay, it might take you three months longer to get your first five sales. If you do that take the hit it’s worth, it’s worth it, right? Just sell it at cost, get a few going. And then you can start to pull leverage to scale. But we don’t wanna be having the strategy that you should have one year in on your first month. We shouldn’t be doing that.

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Now talk to me a little bit about Amazon Handmade. That’s something I’ve never sold on, that’s just a regular seller central account, right? It’s not separate like merch by Amazon, it’s just your login is the same as like a regular Amazon seller and you’ve got access to advertising and things like that. Yeah.

Dylan:

Yeah. So access to advertising. Yeah. I mean, they definitely have been pushing the advertising. With Amazon Handmade, I don’t know, but I’m getting calls constantly from the account managers for this trying to get ad money from me. And I’m really happy with the revenue we’ve seen. So I’m not really even want to spend on ads at this point, but Amazon Handmade. Now, my big hiccup with that, my big hangup I should say, was the return policy. So with Etsy, you set your own return policies. I did not wanna be dealing with returns of handmade things that are custom-made order. So the account manager showed me this workaround where it’s basically customized with some kind of writing or something where it’s technically Amazon custom, you set it up under Amazon custom, and you don’t have to accept returns. So

Bradley Sutton:

That’s, so you’re an Amazon custom and Amazon Handmade at the same time?

Dylan:

Exactly. Yes. And that’s the only, that’s the biggest reason I was, okay, let’s do it. So if you are on Etsy and you thinking about going on Amazon, I would start with things that are customized

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And on Amazon Handmade, I don’t even know this, but like, is everybody in handmade fulfilling their own orders? Or you can also utilize FBA as well for that

Dylan:

You can utilize FBA, but then you have to accept returns. So that’s why I do What do you do? I fulfill it. So it’s just like an Etsy order. They come in the same way. They go out the same way.

Bradley Sutton:

Which where do you make more profit on?

Dylan:

Well, so that was another thing your pricing on Amazon’s supposed to be like the best pricing. So I just make it a slightly different product line for Amazon so that I can have the same margin on both Amazon and Etsy.

Bradley Sutton:

Because otherwise, you’d probably make less on Amazon. Like if you had it at the same price.

Dylan:

Yeah, the fees are a little bit higher. Okay. A little bit higher. So I just basically offset that by offering some higher price point items, just buffing up my margin a little bit more. And that makes it worth it.

Bradley Sutton:

And then how what are sales like on a similar product? You know, are, are you, is Etsy outselling Amazon two to one, or what’s the, what’s the breakdown would you say?

Dylan:

Oh my goodness. I mean, I’ve only been on Amazon for one year. It’s probably 50 to 1, Etsy to Amazon. Yeah. And I only put one product on Amazon, actually one, one of my product lines just like two, three listings kept it at that, so I could kind of just use it as a playground and see how it works. And I’m fine with that. At this point, we’re kind of drinking water from a fire hose with Etsy and the website. So I keep the chaos to a manageable level.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, cool. Yeah. Now tell me about your course that you have. Like at Helium 10, we have this freedom ticket where it’s called a Freedom Ticket program, where we kind of like take everybody from A to Z of how to sell on Amazon and go into the logistics and go into keyword research and SEO. Is yours more of like a coaching program or it’s also like a course as well?

Dylan:

Yeah, so I launched this back in August. We have about 400 students, about 25% of those are doing the coaching with me and the rest are just doing the course itself. So this is a course you have lifetime access to. It’s really meant to take you from zero to multi-six-figure profit. But about half of my students, while they’re starting from zero, the other half I work with, they’re students who might have like 50,000 to 70,000 sales. They’re doing over a million dollars in revenue. So it’s quite the mix. But yeah, there’s the course and then there’s the coaching option.

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent, excellent. And how do you juggle this like I know how it is when I’ve always, or I, I’ve for the last few years at least I’ve been selling online, but then I’m also Helium 10 is my day job and stuff, and so sometimes it’s hard to juggle both. Like do you have a team now that helps you on your Etsy side and fulfillment in some things? I know your husband helps you out in some things as well. Yes. Or how, how does it work? How does all this work for you?

Dylan:

Yeah, so I have someone, she’s actually a military spouse. She’s amazing. She comes in every day and she’s working on orders and doing fulfillment, so she’s really fully focused on that. My husband also helps in wherever he can, but he is on full-time military active duty. And then really for me, I am coaching all day long. I’m on calls on Zoom all day long, helping people with their businesses and then still overseeing the Etsy side. Still keeping the production and things going. But I’m really fully focused now on helping other people build their businesses.

Bradley Sutton:

Cool. Cool. So what we do on this show is we ask our guests to give our SST, 60-second tip, or it could be TST, a 30-second tip there, but what’s some hard-hitting strategy kind of like a, a cool hack or strategy or advice for people selling on Etsy?

Dylan:

Okay, so I would say that right now, the majority of people who are starting to sell on Etsy are really looking for passive income. And they go into this wanting that passive income, the laptop lifestyle, right? Now, the reason that most people fail is that’s not at all gonna be your first 12 months, okay? Most people are not willing to put in the grind of what it really takes to get to that passive income. It actually takes a lot of active, active work upfront. So if you are thinking about going on to Etsy, don’t do it because you want passive income for that sold reason, do it because you’re wanting to build a business that’s high volume, high revenue consistent for you, but be willing to work for it. If you’re not willing to put in the work, don’t even bother because it’ll dilute your efforts from maybe your Amazon business.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. Awesome. All right. Now, if somebody’s interested in reaching out to you, how can they find you on the interwebs? You mentioned YouTube, let’s definitely mention the podcast, your course, et cetera.

Dylan:

Yes. so you can find me on YouTube just @dylanjahraus. I think we’re up to 20,000 subscribers now. And then on Instagram at @dylanjahraus as well. And then the podcast.

Bradley Sutton:

How do you spell it?

Dylan:

Yes, Jahraus, right? It took me a while to learn how to spell it too. It’s Jahrous and then Dylan, it’s probably not one, hard to spell. Dylan, like Bob Dylan. So Dylan Jahrous. The podcast, now my husband runs the podcast and I believe he even named the podcast. I believe he named it Million Dollar Etsy Seller. I believe that’s what it is.

Bradley Sutton:

Yep. I’m looking at it right now. Let me share my screen here. I just got on here, even got a cool logo here. Million Dollar Etsy Seller. Here are some of your recent episodes.

Dylan:

Great. He’s doing a great job. So yeah, I’d love to connect with you even if you have any questions. Like, is Etsy right for me? Could I sell the same product on Etsy? I can let you know. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Would the chorus be for some, somebody like me who’s already selling on Etsy, or my family really took, took, took this over my wife and kids are doing most of it, but like, would we find benefit in taking your course? Like to, like, obviously we don’t know what we’re doing cuz we just threw stuff together, or is this more for like, brand new Etsy sellers?

Dylan:

No. About half of my students are doing really high volume. So 50,000 to 70,000 sales, been on Etsy for 10 plus years, you know sometimes they’ve done over a million dollars yearly revenue. So it would definitely be for anyone who’s really looking to level up both the revenue, the profit, and the consistency factor.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome. All right. Now I forgot to ask this question. You know, like, so I’m asking this totally out of order here, but if I am newer, yeah. What is like a 60-second kind of product research strategy about like, where to find the opportunity and the niche as, as you said, it’s important that sometimes that we just don’t go like, oh, this is what I’m passionate about. Sure, there’s gonna be people like that and they can have success, but if you’re just like, Hey, I don’t really have a passion, but I wanna go where the money is, how do I find those gaps where I can make decent gains on Etsy?

Dylan:

Yeah, so there are two things I would say. You know, sometimes people are saying, oh, you should pay for EverBe Marma lead sales, Sam Wright, but you don’t have to pay for it. You could really get all the information you need from the free version of eRank. You just look at basically the ratio of supply and to, to the search results. So that tells you the level of competition relative to how many people are searching for that. But I also would note that if you are really wanting to become a market leader on Etsy, do not look to Etsy to see what the opportunity is, because Etsy is one of the last places to pick up on trends. So look outside, look at Pinterest, look at influencers, look at big premium brands who are on the cutting edge of fashion and trends. That’s where I would look before looking on Etsy.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. All right. Well, Dylan, thank you so much for joining us. Guys, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast, Secrets of a Million Dollar Etsy Seller. You might see a familiar face in an upcoming episode there. So subscribe and then, and then wait for that podcast. But let’s maybe reach out I like bringing people back once a year on the show. So what I’m gonna do is maybe take your course myself and then next year, let’s connect, and then let’s show people how we’ve been able to level up my Etsy account from your training. So thank you, Dylan, for joining us.

Dylan:

Awesome. Thank you.

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Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started: 

• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business. 
• Helium 10: 30+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon or Walmart business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say. 
• Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation. 
• SellerTrademarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.