Yall all know, we’re all about working smarter, not harder, in our small business…and we want the same for you, so you can regain your time and enjoy the time you spend working in your business.
Your handmade business and creative work should be something that makes you feel excited, happy, and motivated to continue doing, and feeling in control of your time is one of the best foundations you can set for your creative business. This is why we’re sharing our most valuable time-saving tips in this episode.
Some of our time-saving tips today are really specific to Etsy sellers, but some are totally applicable to all artists and small business owners, even if you don’t sell on Etsy and you sell somewhere else online.
You can listen to the episode here, or keep reading below!
Time-Saving Tips for Your Handmade Business (Part 2):
Tip #1 Work ahead on packaging
We're talking about pre-stamping envelopes, pre-printing pro<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/3HAhqmXx7nrNevE6LbsndO?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="232" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture"></iframe>mo cards, pre-cutting ribbon or twine, or whatever you include in your packaging.
This can be a mindless, somewhat easy task, so do this when you’re not at the top of your game, like when you’re maybe a little less energetic or at the end of your day. It’s pretty easy to put on a podcast, a show, or some music and spend some time on packaging.
Also: when you prep your packaging before your orders roll in, you're manifesting that those orders will come and putting them into existence.
Tip #2 Batch your product photos
We say this literally every podcast episode but, it's one of our best tips we could give you to save time. Work on your product photos in batches because it saves you time only setting up your photo space once, but also...
the lighting. If you want your photos to look the most consistent, they will look better if you take photos all on the same time/same day so the lighting is most consistent (versus shooting a few a day and having some days cloudy, some days bright, etc.).
Tip #3 Use Etsy’s integrated shipping labels
When you buy postage within Etsy's integrated shipping label program, Etsy automatically notifies your customer of shipping and tracking.
We used hand write out our labels and manually buy postage at the post office, and then we switched to a third party app for discounted postage, so that was a big of an upgrade to print out labels, but you guys, Etsy’s shipping labels are where it’s at. This is the single best way you can save yourself time on shipping because you automate the process and cut out unnecessary steps.
Tip #4 Don’t drive to the post office.
Seriously! Cut out the driving and standing in line at USPS time. You can schedule package pick ups on your postal service's website or just use your mailbox if your products are small and you have a low risk of mail theft.
Tip #5 Use the Sell on Etsy app
Do you have the app on your phone yet??
From the Etsy Seller app, you can answer customer messages from your phone, renew sold out listings, etc, all from your phone.
This is a time-saving tip because it’s way more convenient to manage daily activities from your phone I think than to log into your computer for messages but…I will say this for time management. Answer messages 1 time per day or no more than twice a day. You can do it at the “start” or the “end” of your work time block.
These time-saving tips have helped us to optimize our business so we have more time freedom to do other things we enjoy like other art hobbies, going outside, etc. It also means that the time in our business is spent on the most profitable, the most effective tasks, and not on things like driving to the post office or gathering supplies together every single day. If you can find ways to eliminate or speed up distracting and repetitive tasks, you can free up more time in your business for more important tasks.
We hope you've found these tips helpful! Ready for the next step in your handmade biz?? Get our free guide to Etsy SEO
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