I was writing a post about how to bring people to your new online store, and one of my favourite tips was the humble insert card: a thank-you, your web address and a QR code, tucked into every package.
Then I went to check Etsy's current rules, as I do before I tell anyone anything about Etsy, and found this line in its Off-Platform Transactions Policy…
You opened a store of your own next to your Etsy shop. It looks good, the products are in, checkout works. And the visitor count says zero.
That's normal. A new store starts with no traffic, and no search engine is going to send you crowds in week one. The people who visit first are almost always people who already know you. Your job for the first few months is to give them easy reasons to come, then slowly widen the circle.
Here's what works for makers, roughly in order of…