
8 Simple Steps to List a New Item in Your Etsy Shop
So I have been running my Etsy Shop Proof & Parchment for almost a year now, not 100% sure the day I started but it was right around the holidays last year. Over time I have gone through many phases on how I run the shop. From creating new designs to listing an item to wrapping up an order there are a thousand ways on how to go about it. I will probably be tweaking all of this continually but I am pretty happy with my current process and would love to share it here for anyone feeling lost and not knowing what to do next when running a shop.
Pre Product Listing Checklist
- Create production calendar
- Research products and trends
- Track shop metrics

New Product Listing Checklist:
- Design new product
- Order Inventory
- Photograph and Create Mockups
- Research SEO
- Draft the Etsy Listing
- Create Social Media Posts
- Publish Listing in Etsy
- Follow Up
Prep Work
As you might have noticed, I technically have 2 lists above when working on my shop listings. This is because, before I even start the actual workflow of listing a new item there is some prep work involved that I wanted to touch base on first. For me this involves creating my production calendar, researching what new products to design & sell, and tracking my stats to see what is popular and actually selling.

Create a production calendar
My production calendar is where I plan out ahead of time when I want to list new items in my shop and how many. By planning ahead I am able to regularly add new items to my shop in order to keep it fresh and always have new stuff for customers to check out.
Research products and trends
It is always important to be aware of what is trending and what your customers want from your shop. There are multiple ways to do this and I go into more details about this in my Holiday Season Prep post.

Track shop metrics
At the beginning of starting my shop when I did not have many numbers this was harder to do. I basically went by trial and error with testing out items. I started with digital prints since it was a low cost startup option and over time I have continued to add products. Now since I have had my shop for a longer time period I can use stats to determine where to focus my energy. I am able to track what is selling best and what my customers love to determine what to design next.
Once I have this prep work done I can then move onto the actual checklist for each new listing I create. The prep work is something that I revisit periodically depending on how the shop is doing. Over time this will hopefully be a quarterly check in to update my production calendar and research new trends to plan for future listings.

New Product Listing Workflow
Design new products
This can be the longest part and really depends on the time of year and how many new items I need to crank out for the upcoming weeks and season. For example summer can be really busy in this phase since I need to get my fall and holiday designs ready one after the other since there’s really no break between the seasons.
Order inventory
I currently use drop shipping so I only need to order inventory if I’m creating a new product so I can test the printing and make sure I’m happy with the quality and printing.
Photograph & Create Mockups
The picture of my items is what will make or break a listing. People are visual buyers. If the photograph does not fully represent what I’m selling or is not really clear then potential customers will just scroll past.
Research SEO
I use mostly Marmalead to do this research. This is where I find a variety of tags that people use to search for items in Etsy. This can be really tedious but is super important to actually making sales and being found online.
Draft the Etsy listing
I write up the description for my listing along with the title and all the other info needed in Etsy. This is where I also input my tags in Etsy and I make sure to optimize the rest of my content with the most important tags. I also add in my photos along with a few images that relate to my business – email signup, customer testimonials, etc.
Create Social Media Posts
Once I have my listing and new product ready I make sure to get all the marketing details ready to go too. This includes creating the Pinterest graphics, Instagram post, and Facebook post. You can follow this step and use it for whatever platform you choose to focus on.
Publish Listing in Etsy
Everything is ready now I just hit publish! Once it’s live I schedule out the social media posts and pins over time based on those calendars and if the item relates to certain dates or holidays.

Follow Up
Once I have the listing live I will track it over time to see how well it is performing. It can take time for new items to be found in Etsy so I try not to obsess over this immediately. Instead I look at data over 30 day increments to see what type of traffic and sales the item is receiving.
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