Every Etsy shop is unique, and there’s no one-size-fits-all number of listings for your shop. The number of listings you should have depends on many factors like:
- Competitiveness of your niche.
- Complexity of your product.
- Your time and capacity.
- Your budget for material, storage, packaging, etc.
- Your goal, whether you’re aiming for a small side income or a full-time business.
That being said, there are general guidelines based on my experience and observations on Etsy throughout the years.
Shops that selling handmade products
Start with: 10-20 listings
Handmade items often come with intricate details, personalized touches and a uniqueness that’s hard to create in bulk.
From my experience, there’s no correlations of how many listings vs how successful a handmade Etsy shop is. But in general, more listings can give your products and shop better visibility of Etsy, especially given the competitiveness on Etsy right now.
Starting with 10-20 items and designs should be relatively manageable, and can give Etsy shoppers a good sense of your brand’s offering.
Shops that selling digital products
Start with: 20-50 listings
Digital products include templates and planners, which are highly popular on Etsy. But a lot of the niches for digital products can be competitive.
Given the competition, I’d recommend having 20-50 listings to start with in order to target a good amount of long-tail keywords.
Many successful digital product shops carry over 500-1,000 designs as they are relatively low maintenance, but make sure you don’t sacrifice design quality when you scale up your shop.
Shops that selling print-on-demand products
Start with: 20-50 listings
Print-on-demand (POD) allows easy product creation without sellers having to worry about inventory and shipping. Because of that, established POD Etsy shops often have over 1,000-3,000 listings.
Don’t let that big number discourage you. Starting with 20-50 quality designs can help you get the initial traction for a successful POD shop.
Shops that selling craft supplies
Start with: 20-50 listings
Craft supplies are the most popular product category on Etsy. 20-50 listings can be a good number to start with, offering a diverse selection of craft materials for your customers.
How to add a new Etsy listing
- Go to your Etsy Dashboard
- Click “Listings” on the left-hand side menu
- Either click “Add a listing” button on the top right corner to create a brand new listing, or select an existing listing and click the settings icon to select “Copy”.
Etsy charges US$0.20 for each new listings. Each listing will expire after 4-months, or last until it’s sold. If you haven’t opened your Etsy shop yet, or you need consulting before that you can reach out to us.
Perks of having more listings in your store
1) Visibility & traffic potential
More listings mean more opportunities to use a variety of long-tail keywords. Each listing gives you a new opportunity to rank for new keywords and reach new customers, which help improve your shop’s visibility.
This is important because Etsy search traffic is free and targeted. It’s going to be one of the most important traffic sources for the growth of your shop.
2) Encouraging browsing
A diverse range of products can keep potential customers engaged for longer, and encourage them to spend more time exploring your shop.
More listings also gives you the opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell. For example, a jewelry shop specializing in sterling silver jewelry can upsell smaller items like silver polishing cloth. This can increase the average order value and bring you higher profit.
3) Offering products of a larger price range
More listings also gives you options to offer products across different price points. This can help bring in sales from a wider spectrum of shoppers from budget-conscious ones to those who are looking for quality.
Balancing growth of expanding your Etsy listings
It’s important to add new, high quality listings regularly once you open your Etsy shop. Doing so can help you target more long-tail keywords, keep your shop fresh and encourage customers who’ve favorited your shop to visit again. All of that can improve your chance of making sales.
You probably already know adding new listings regularly would benefit your shop, but you may find that overwhelming and don’t know how to do it regularly.
Here are some ways to do so without getting stressed out.
1) Creating variations on successful products
Before making completely new products, it’s good to start with what works. Introduce new colors, patterns, size, etc. of your bestselling products as new listings. You can also make slight adjustments to your bestselling products according to customer feedback or current market trends.
2) Bundling products
This is a great way to create more listings without having to come up with new product designs.
Make sure your product bundles make sense for your target customers. Think about having bundles of products that are complementary and naturally go together. For example, bundling cat shelves with cat steps.
Bundles with a few of your bestselling products can also work great as a discounted set or a gift set.
Quick help guide of most frequently asked questions
1) Is it possible to have too many listings?
Although there isn’t an upper limit to the number of listings you can have, it’s definitely possible to have too many listings.
It’s important to understand that quantity doesn’t bring success on Etsy, quality does.
Balancing is key. If you find that the quality of your listings drop as you add more products, it means you may be spreading yourself too thin. Ultimately, Etsy cares about whether your listings will sell, but not how many there are. So it’s better to have fewer high quality listings than many listings that don’t resonate with your customers.
2) How many listings do you need for your first sale on Etsy?
There’s no magic number. The saying of needing 100 listings before making a sale is a misconception.
Whether you make a sale depends on many factors: the quality of your product, competitiveness of your niche, whether you’re bringing targeted traffic outside Etsy, etc.
So instead of focusing on a specific number of listings, you should focus on creating products that serve your target customers well.
3) Is there a minimum number of listings required?
You need at least 1 listing to open an Etsy shop. The saying of needing 5 listings is a myth.
4) Does Etsy have a preferred number of listings?
Etsy doesn't have a preferred number of listings, but more listings allow shops use a wider variety of keywords, which can improve the visibility and sales performance of the shop.
Conclusion
With these insights about the listings in your Etsy store, the next important step is to make sure the shoppers visiting your shop convert into customers. In other words, improve the conversion rate of your Etsy listings. If you look to improve your conversion rate of your store you can check our SEO growth packages.
