As an Etsy shop owner, you know every penny counts. Staying ahead of the competition often boils down to either boosting your sales or cutting your costs. A mentor once told me, “Sales will take care of themselves, but it’s the pennies that will get you.” At the time, I didn’t fully grasp the importance of this advice, but it resonates deeply now. That’s why keeping track of your expenses is so crucial. One of the biggest areas to focus on is your shipping costs, as they can take up a significant portion of your budget. Let’s explore some strategies to help you keep those costs in check.
Whether or not you offer free shipping, packaging and shipping your items is always a necessary step. Ensuring your packaging is sturdy and includes proper padding is essential to prevent items from shifting and breaking during transit. This is also an area where you can strategically reduce costs. Start by identifying your top-selling items and optimizing your packaging specifically for them. Our site provides detailed charts that allow you to analyze your best-selling products, breaking them down into top 5, 10, and beyond. This data is crucial for making informed decisions and serves as the foundation for streamlining your packaging process. Once you’ve gathered this insight, you can focus on selecting the right box for maximum efficiency.
Once you’ve identified the item, evaluate the next 2-5 items to determine if they can use the same box or a similar one. In most cases, adding extra padding inside the box is more cost-effective than switching to a completely different box size. For example, upgrading from a 12x10x5 box to a 12x10x6 box might be a practical solution. Always consider the cost per box while making these decisions. I highly recommend using Uline and reaching out for bulk purchase quotes instead of relying solely on the listed retail prices.
By now, you’ve identified a box that can hold multiple items, along with the cost of each box and the padding material. When done effectively, this strategy significantly lowers packaging expenses for your top-selling products—savings that will accumulate over time.
Now, let’s dive into shipping costs. Understanding the most popular destination state for your shipments is crucial. This insight is provided in another chart we offer for Etsy Sellers. Knowing your top shipping locations helps you estimate costs more accurately, decide whether to offer free shipping, and choose the best carrier—be it UPS, USPS, or FedEx. One highly recommended option is UPS Ground Saver (SurePost). This service utilizes the UPS network to transport your package to the local post office, where USPS handles the final delivery. It’s a smart choice that can save you the frustration of incomplete tracking updates, like when USPS shows an item was picked up but fails to provide further scans. Here’s some quick tips:
- Know your top selling product(s)
- Consolidate boxes to accommodate more than 1 of your items
- Use padding to fill in extra space, as long as the shipping cost stays the same
- Know your top shipping state
- Determine if free shipping works. Etsy favors free shipping and lower shipping costs
- Look into using UPS Ground Saver
You can get started for free today and see if this tool for Etsy Seller Data Analysis is the right tool for you. We provide step by step instructions on how to upload your file and then how to use the data. Any questions, feel free to contact us.