This goes without saying, but you want to earn as much money on your Low Hanging System sales as possible.
And when working on your net profits, certain platforms like Etsy include various fees that you need to take into consideration.
Let me be clear: these are NOT something that you need to spend a *ton* of time on, as it’s far easier to *make* money than *save* money… but they can certainly be worth checking into.
Because of that, I’m going to share some ways you can optimize your listings so you get the biggest bang for your buck and still remain competitive.
Let’s take a look below at five suggestions about how to save money on Etsy fees (and a little on Amazon) and maximize your profits.
Double-check your pricing
A common mistake new sellers make is overlooking their profit margin. You need to double-check to make sure you’re pricing your items so you can make a profit on each sale.
To help ensure you don’t mess up your products’ pricing on Etsy by not correctly factoring in shipping costs and fees, my assistant made this handy Etsy Profit Calculator, which you can access here.
On Amazon, you can make sure you’re going to earn a profit by going into your listings and clicking where it says “Estimated fee per unit sold Price” inside Seller Central. (Just go to Inventory then Manage Inventory and you’ll see this option near the middle of the screen.)
From there, you can see the summary of changes that happen when a customer purchases your item and you can adjust your pricing accordingly.
Also, even if you’re still earning a profit, you might be able to earn a bigger profit. Some sellers believe they need to price their items as low as they can to remain competitive. But this isn’t always true. Especially if your products are in low-competition niches, you can get away with charging more.
Plus, sometimes when items are priced really low, customers perceive the value and/or quality to be low as well. So don’t be afraid to charge a little more than you might initially feel comfortable with. You’re likely to earn just as many sales but with a bigger profit.
Update your prices for customers with items in their carts
In addition to making sure your products are priced correctly, it can also be helpful to change your listings’ prices occasionally. I’m not talking about major price differences. I’m talking about small price changes. For example, if you typically charge $14.95 for 11-ounce coffee mugs, try changing the price to $14.75 instead.
You obviously don’t want the price difference to cut into your profits too much. But sometimes, customers sometimes like to keep items sitting in their shopping carts, and with slight pricing changes, you can use this strategy to stay competitive.
When customers favorite your items on Etsy and then add those items to their shopping carts, they’re able to see any future price changes you make. And if they see a price reduction, even a slight one, this could push them to pull the trigger and purchase.
So this can be a good way to capitalize on the customer views and interest you’ve already received and make the most of the Etsy fees you’ve paid.
Any price changes you want to make can be done using a bulk-editing tool like Vela, which you can learn more about here. Or, you can use Etsy’s editing option feature inside the Listings tab in your Shop Manager.
Just select the listings you’d like to modify. Then, click Editing options. Choose Edit prices from the dropdown. Make your changes and click Apply.
You can also modify your listings’ prices during the holidays when you see a lot of customers have your items in their carts. For example, you might see Etsy say something like, “10 people have this item in their carts.” You can then pick and choose which specific items to give a slight discount to instead of making changes in bulk.
Reevaluate your shipping costs
Along with your listings’ prices, you also want to double-check your listings’ shipping costs.
On Etsy, it’s up to the seller to create shipping profiles. So you want to be absolutely sure your shipping prices cover the shipping costs manufacturers, like CustomHappy, charge to send your customers their items.
You can also browse the listings of other Etsy and Amazon sellers who are in similar niches to see how they price their items and what they charge for shipping. This information offers a good baseline for you to work off of.
Another way to stay competitive on Amazon is by selling through FBA.
By selling cases of mugs, you’re able to offer customers Amazon Prime shipping. This means you can charge more for the mugs during the holiday season. Customers are always willing to spend just a little bit more to get their items to them faster this time of year.
Review your listings’ performance seasonally
Since LHS is a number’s game, you want to create as many listings as you can (throw spaghetti at the wall, so to speak) because you can’t be sure what’s going to sell well and what won’t.
But every so often, your listings may need an overhaul. Think of it like doing spring cleaning for your ecommerce business. It’s a good idea to check which of your listings haven’t got any views, sales, or favorites. That way, you can deactivate these listings.
On Etsy, it costs $.20 every time you renew a listing. So if some of your listings aren’t getting any engagement, you can save money by not renewing these listings.
This also applies to any seasonal items you may sell. If you have a lot of holiday-specific merchandise (especially Christmas), you may not want to set these listings to renew automatically, because not many people are going to be searching for Christmas designs in the middle of summer.
Rather, you can renew these listings manually when the holiday season rolls around again and customers are more likely to search for them. But in the meantime, you’ll save money by not having them auto-renew year-round.
(NOTE: I generally recommend selling items with year-round potential. It’s okay to have some seasonal merchandise. But you definitely want to focus on designs that can sell well anytime.)
Pay attention to your ad spends
You absolutely do not need to do any advertising to make the Low Hanging System work. That’s the beauty of this program. You leverage the existing traffic of major ecommerce platforms to your advantage so you don’t have to do much traffic-driving of your own.
But if you’d like to scale up, advertising is a great way to do so. You just don’t want to waste money by advertising listings that aren’t getting any views or sales. (This is another reason why you should review how your listings are doing every so often.)
Be sure to always uncheck any listings that aren’t getting much traction or engagement and only advertise your best listings. This will help you increase your advertising ROI and save you from losing money.
To manage your ads in Etsy, go to your Shop Manager and click Marketing. Then, select Etsy Ads and turn off any ads you no longer wish to run.
What do you think of these tips to keep your expenses low and your listings competitive? If you have any other suggestions you can share, please leave a comment below. I love hearing from you! Also, if you liked this post, please share it with your friends and followers.
