# 7 Tips for Selling Wood Projects on Etsy



## WoodworkingTalk (Dec 8, 2015)

> Etsy can be a great place to sell your wood projects, allowing others to appreciate the things you’ve made while earning money for your hard work. Unfortunately, figuring out how to sell on sites like Etsy can be overwhelming at times, if you aren’t sure what you’re supposed to do. Sometimes sales will be slow, sometimes they’ll be fast and often you’ll find yourself wondering how best to appeal to potential customers. Although there is no one-size-fits-all formula to Etsy success, keeping the following points in mind will give you a good idea of where to start.


*Read More*:
http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/articles/7-tips-for-selling-wood-projects-on-etsy/


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## leonafurniture (Dec 23, 2015)

etsy is a fantastic place to sell<a href="http://emfurn.com/products/live-edge-dining-table">live edge tables.</a>. We sell our brand on furniture on etsy regularly. Hope it doesn't get too saturated!


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

woodburn said:


> etsy is a fantastic place to sell live edge tables. We sell our brand on furniture on etsy regularly. Hope it doesn't get too saturated!


What's the name of your Etsy store?


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## allpurpose (Mar 24, 2016)

Been thinking about Etsy myself.. I've thought about work benches, but they're about 200 pounds give or take. I'm not shipping through the big 3 that way, but perhaps a shipping broker? They're easy to break down into components, but still heavy. I kind of doubt many people would want to pay for truck shipment.


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

That's my issue as well.
Weight and shipping.
Most of my furniture weighs in at ~100lbs and goes up to over 400lbs. Most of it doesn't break down either. 
Also another product we are working on is 5000 lbs.

Another problem is I don't build mid dollar products and to me Esty is like a glorified Flea Market.
Everybody is looking for that low balled price and my time is worth more than to get beat down on price, especially with the shipping issues/etc.


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## VIFmike (Jul 21, 2012)

I sell on Etsy as a full time job. I started just making whatever I thought would sell. Over the last few years I have learned what will sell and what wont, what shipping is all about and most importantly what not to do. 

All the above tips touch on something that is true. I sell many low end items and they are what pays the bills. I do sell some more expensive ones as well but if I had to just rely on those I would not be in business long. The same as GM trying to only sell Cadillacs. I make some in stock tables in a standard size and a few of the most popular stain colors. Keeping those in stock for people who want something right now is the bread and butter of the business. 

When I started out my clothing racks were unique pieces. Now many other shops have tried to copy them. Although mine are still unique the things that make that so are lost on people who do not know what they are looking at. Mine are made with a wider more stable base. Others are narrow as the other shops have to use a 2x12 and its just so narrow. Especially when they are so tall and all the weight it at the top. Mine use 3/4" pipe and fittings instead of the 1/2" they use. Mine have rounded edges and no sharp edges. Many more things make them better. Many customers just see them the same and buy based on price. Many other things I make are in the same boat. Unique but hard to point it out. 

My basic items are my in stock desks, coffee tables etc with hairpin legs. I underestimated this segment of the market. I started making coffee tables day one but they did not sell well and still don't. But take that same coffee table and make it with longer legs and offer it as a desk and it sells 10 or more to one over coffee tables. Plus in my clothing racks I also sell the most basic large ones all the way down to T and C stands. Again bread and butter. 

Shipping is a big factor. All my items are shipping friendly. I simply just quit making items that can't be shipped easily. I used to make these cool benches but they took an hour to package and cost as much as a table or rack to ship. But the price they can be sold for does not make it worth it. Many people on here likely make items that are too large, cant be broken down, too heavy etc. Those items can ship freight and should be the high end items. So you have to develop some easy to make fast sell items. Yea your purists may not want to do that but when doing it for a living you have to pay the bills. I have a daily UPS pickup that costs $5 and the items I just put on the front porch. It would be worth it for one item. We ship 4 to 6 a day. 

Yes it is a job. From the time I step into the shop in the morning until I turn the lights off in the evening every minute is accounted for and is worth money. Time is money, old saying and it's 100% true. I see people on Etsy forums talking about saving a buck or two by shipping at the post office. They actually think that loading items in the car, driving to the post office, waiting in line, driving home saved them a few bucks. Not understanding the time and expense in doing so cost them 10 times more than they saved. They sell an item for what they have in the materials and don't figure in their time. you can't figure your time for $10 an hour either. Your time as a wood guy should be $20 to $100 an hour depending on what you make. I figure my time at $50 an hour even though I can make $100 an hour in the shop all day if I want to. I also have a payroll company that does my payroll for my incorporated company of which I am an employee. That way I write off everything. 


Time to work is important. When I did only made to order items for customer orders I did ok. When I started setting aside an hour a day to make an extra item for "in stock" I started making the money. Then after years of figuring what sells best and other ways or making more time in the shop I now have the ability and capacity to make more than I can sell of made to order easily and now I am focusing on making more different in stock items. This means that I simply make more. My numbers have doubled or risen by at least a third every year. Since 2012 I have made more than 3/4 million in gross sales. I was just doing it part time for all of 2012 and half of 2013. Now I have myself, my two sons part time and one helper part time. 

Any of these subjects I touched on lightly and I have much more to offer. Anyone want to know just ask. I may not have the best advice as I have had to figure it out on my own.


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## VIFmike (Jul 21, 2012)

By the way, we had a few other threads on selling on Etsy that we have had some good discussions on. Maybe someone should post a link to them here.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Here ya' go, Mike. Once again, a great topic and tons of info - Selling On Etsy


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## VIFmike (Jul 21, 2012)

The thing about it is that as a traditional woodworker you have to think outside the box. You have to think about time and shipping. You have to make simple easy to make items and sell those to get them into looking at your shop where the more expensive things are. People these days are buying basic simple designed easy to assemble things. Can't go wrong with tables.


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

VIFmike
Glad that you are making a living and doing well with it. It becomes a regional issue and what you can survive on or flourish on in your area.

Your quote...
"People these days on " esty " are buying basic simple designed, easy to assemble things. Can't go wrong with tables."

You "can" go wrong if your profit margin is slim.
If I can't make $50-125 per hour + materials (like any car mechanic or other common union laborer) I simply won't go there.
My coffee tables start at $550 and go well over $1000.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Aard said:


> VIFmike
> Glad that you are making a living and doing well with it. It becomes a regional issue and what you can survive on or flourish on in your area.
> 
> Your quote...
> ...


Do you have an Etsy shop? I'd like to see your tables - thanks! David


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## VIFmike (Jul 21, 2012)

My comment assumes you know your costs and pricing structure. It costs 20 cents for a listing and just about anything will sell on Etsy. So no way to go wrong as if it does not sell you are only out the 20 cents. I can make expensive tables as well. I have made some much more complicated than the ones I make now. But the fact is they don't sell as well. 

By that I mean in the same amount of time I can make several tables that will all be sold before an expensive one and make more profit in less labor time. The balance is having some cheap to make, low priced ones to sell to make the money and also have the other ones in your shop to sell if you wish. There is no risk because you dont have a brick and mortar shop to pay bills on. If you are doing it at home like I am the incidental and other cost is virtually the same whether you make a $100 table or a $1000 table. The difference is the labor and materials. 

I have about one hour of labor in my tables. That's the time to get the materials, process, glue, process, sand, stain, clear. One hour. $20 worth of materials. I'm not trying to get rich. I'm trying to create a job and living for me and the guys that work for me. We all work less than 30 hours a week and never have to leave the house except to go get materials or lunch.


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

It sounds like you are doing well with your business and I applaud you for that.
Also if you love what you do, that's important.

On esty, the target audience isn't after more expensive items.
As said before, I consider esty like a flea market on the internet. It attracts a lesser affluent crowd or those out to barter hard and try to beat you up on price. You can see if you keep your pricing point to a certain level you are likely doing well. Thus more expensive items would naturally not sell as well to the esty crowd.

If you are making a decent profit margin, more power to you.
You see, it's regional for you and if your audience is national. So if you live in a region and the labor cost is low (say $25 per hr.) compared to a big city where the labor cost is (say $75 per hour) and the target national audience is of moderate means, you can understand the profits of living in the lower cost region is far better than if your operation was in the big cities.
So it depends on two things. Your region and the national audience. The pricing between the two are key.

I'm concentrating on a hi end crowd. The sales aren't as fast, but I don't work long hours doing what I'm doing.
My pieces are of a "one of a kind"style. Never repeated. That demands a little more time, but I value that time and won't give them away.
However right now I'm letting the furniture business slow and I'm concentrating on a new business model. It's taking my time to get it up and running but the end products profit margin is quite large.
www.QuonLiving.com
So I'm not out to get rich on my work either. Still we all are out to make a decent living and put something back for our retirement years.
....
A few points I've considered.
When I lived in Illinois near Chicago,...
Auto Mechanics charged $90 per hour and marked up the parts by 30%+
Building contractors made $65 per hour (Union charged more) and marked up their materials 10-20%
Now I live in rural North Carolina...
Auto mechanics charge $75 per hour and some mark up the materials 20-25%
Building Contractors make about $45 per hour and I haven't noticed material markup.

Much is relative to your location/region.

I've been an Architect/Builder/etc for 39 years and watched these trades actually make more than me.
My target goal is to make between $50-125 per hour. Lately I have been making ~$65 per.
If we have mad skills we can do good but what I see is many people undersell themselves. Please don't think I am implying that here. All I'm saying is that we look at ourselves and our talents and adjust accordingly.
When we get undercut by others who come in cheap, it's frustrating. I see many hobbyist on this site who pour hours into projects due to their love for doing it. In the business world that doesn't work well. Still we as business people gotta contend with them.


Do well folks!


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## VIFmike (Jul 21, 2012)

$25 an hour? No way to make money paying workers that rate. My workers make far less than that. But then again they are not veteran wood workers or welders and don't have to be. When I wanted to teach my youngest son to weld hairpin legs it took me one day to have him welding these like a pro. Now if he had to go weld something else he would have to learn it too. But this one thing he can do easy, fast and very well.

Our hairpin legs are the best looking on the market save for ones made from cold rolled or stainless. They are also the best design, easiest to ship and have thicker bases than others. Plus I bet if the others showed their process, ours take half or less the amount of time and work better. By that I mean our base can sit in the same spot on any table any height and the legs at the base will not stick out past the table. That's because the taller the leg is the less the angle. Which looks more "natural" than those with a fixed angle where they have to move the base way in to make them work right. This means I can make a table, use a jig plate to mark the leg holes and it can be used as a desk or coffee table and the legs fit the same. Look at others where the legs stick out past the table or are straight. 

Same son that makes hairpin legs also helping me in the wood shop making basic tables and desks. No special skills needed. Just knowing how to run bare planks through the planer, then after I cut them on the table saw he gets the glue up tabes ready with parchment paper. Then while I'm clamping the edge piece down and standing the others he comes behind me and does the glue and spreads it. We can start a glue up by cutting wood at the top of the hour. At the 30 minute mark we have 4 tables glued up. That's 15 minutes per to plane, cut and glue up. Then when they come off the glue up table it's back through the planer again, cut the ends off, sand, add braces and sand and putty the top. That adds another 15 minutes, then when dry sand out to 220, stain, let dry then clear. When we do them 4 at a time we like to stain 4 at a time and clear 4 at a time. When we do we put them in front of a bank of 6 fans to dry them faster. Same for shipping, Taught my kid to ship these packaged very well in one day. They make more money than their friends and we all work 9-3 then go work on our hotrods.


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Most apprentices and hired employees in training don't make the good dollar but the owners, certified mechanics, licensed and trained carpenters, etc, do make the high dollar. If they don't make that, they will move on to a employer who will pay them that, OR go solo.
I did just that.

I worked as an Architect for 2 employers, and after 4 years with the second one I went solo, struggled for awhile and then did pretty good. I really respected the 2nd employer and we remained friends and I would go in and work with him when he got overloaded, but the situation had changed and he paid me more after the point that I quit. I worked with him off and on until his passing,
He, like most employees withheld training me in a few certain areas (Like structural steel) to hang on to me, but that didn't work after a while. I could get that info elsewhere.
So...
I turned Solo Architect/Builder.

When an employee sees the $$green$$ they say to themselves... "Hey, what about me?" 
You can't blame them when the grass IS $$greener$$ on the other side of the fence. 
Oil field welders as an example: 
My one acquaintance/friend went out to the pipeline projects and made well over $120 per hour. He did it for about 8 months and then returned home to here where a welder makes 1/4 of that. It dug him out of debt.
We are quite rural here but many in this area drive 35 miles away to the near by city of Asheville, where employees get paid well.
Lotta wear and tear on their vehicles but the commute is well worth it to them.

So you better consider treating employees right or they might become your competition or move on.
Since yours are family, or others, likely you do just that. Still, there will be a point that the employees have mouths to feed and will need appropriate compensation.
I understand they are not skilled. Thus low ball paying them makes perfect sense. I did the same when I had construction employees who were green. Still I paid them a little better than the next guy would have and gave them raises as they learned the trade.


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## VIFmike (Jul 21, 2012)

I think we are talking about two very different businesses. I'm not low ball paying my guys. They are making what others doing the same job for years are making. You see in the real world out on the shop floor where all the real work gets done the guys make crap money. Go to any home builder site and all the workers putting down the concrete, the plumbing, the wood, the roof etc are making 10 to 15 an hour. That is here in Texas where unions have not taken over. Their bosses and/or the guys standing over them watching with their hands in their pockets make much more but far less than you would think. But the reality is the real work gets done by guys making just enough to feed their family. They are usually workers from another country that are used to making about a dollar an hour. You might think they have very little skill but see the straight bricks, the even smooth walls. They get it done. 

I used to work at an armoring place. We built armored Suburbans, F550 Ford chassis into SWAT trucks and S550 Mercedes sedans. The guys taking those expensive new cars apart and welding armor plate inside made $12 to $15 an hour depending on skill level and seniority. It was shocking to me as the shop foreman to find that they made so little. But it's the reality of the real world job climate these days. Many guys on here live and work in areas and jobs that are insulated from this but more often than not the guys doing the work make far less than the numbers you are throwing out. 

As far as Etsy goes I'm not talking about renting a 10,000 sq ft building and spending $100,000 on equipment and hiring union skilled labor. Won't work no matter how much stuff you make. I'm talking about regular middle of the road skill level guys doing this in their garage. I started in half of a two car garage. The other half was a bedroom. Did most of my work outside. When it rained I didn't work. Most of the guys on here thinking about selling on Etsy can make simple easy to make items from plain wood and make money at it easily. Very very easily with basic shop tools and equipment. Hell most of my competition don't even have a planer or jointer. They are just using a miter saw and then sanding boards. No skill needed. 

The thing about Etsy is it costs nothing to open a shop and 20 cents a listing that stays up 180 days. There is virtually no risk involved and no start up costs other than enough material to build one thing. When I started I had no woodworking experience. I built two items from free materials. When those sold I used that money to buy more tools and materials. I kept doing that until I was able to put some of it in my pocket. My business has cost me zero out of pocket. It's paid for itself the whole way. I'm not getting rich and not trying to. If I were 20 years younger I would be doing something else. 

But the original subject is selling on Etsy. It's actually easy of you have any skills at all. Just browse the items on there. It's not like a flea market. There are very nice expensive items on there. I also don't get asked for a discount and people don't try to barter. The price is the price. Never understood the barter thing. You see it on a CL listing for a car. Guy listing the car for 3000 because he expects to be talked down to 2500. I don't play that game. The price is the price. Anyone can do the same on Etsy. It doesn't sell right away? No biggie you have 20 cents in the listing.


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## Pineknot_86 (Feb 19, 2016)

Excellent discussion! One point is that low end sells more than high end. Any car manufacturer sells more of the lower priced cars than the high priced ones. As you go up the price ladder, the fewer cars are sold.
For instance- bumper sticker: If Rolls-Royce is such a good car, why don't you see more of them on the road?


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Pine
On the other end of the spectrum, if you price things too cheap the buyers might think the quality is subpar and not be interested.


VIF
I think I understand your business model. When in Construction, I never had over 3 employees and we mostly concentrated on additions, but did do 2 houses. We were small and family like with my brother working with us for awhile. It was run out of my home.
The difference is we didn't do repeat work. Everything was specialized and unique.

Ok, I didn't understand the lack of lowball pricing from the buyers doesn't happen. That is good. 
On my furniture pieces I expect a 20% lowball offer on the pieces. It seems most people just want to do that to you. It rarely happened in the Construction business though.
I've bartered somewhat often and swapped A for B, but if it's the seller offering the barter, you have the upper hand in the transaction. Got a riding lawnmower this year for a kitchen table top. Both parties got what we wanted.

Also, like you, 
I've never taken a loan or went out on a limb to start a business. It's a slow start but it does work.


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## blktoptrvl2 (Jul 18, 2016)

I have a question for those who make and sell on Etsy...

I have an item I would like to sell there, but I have always been concerned about patent infringement claims. Thus, I have been researching Design Patents before I take the plunge, get lucky selling a lot of stuff, then get hit with a infringement charge.

It seems that not too many people worry about this issue, I wish I could too. 

What are your views and how do you get around it?


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## VIFmike (Jul 21, 2012)

Well to "get around" a patent one only needs to change 5 things basically. It's a little more complicated than that but that's the basic understanding of it. 

I just don't make anything anyone has a patent on. Nobody could get a patent on the basic stuff I make as it's too generic and no patent would be issued. Just don't make anything that's a direct copy of someone else's work. Also don't use copyrighted names such as TV and/or movie characters, Disney logos etc. They troll Etsy and will slap you with a cease and desist. 

Best advice I can give is just search Etsy for different items. You will see how others make them and what phrases and tags they use. also go through the forums and search copyright or patent.


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