Your shop is so popular

If your shop is so popular you can't keep track of all the treasuries, gift guides, then these two sites are for you:
craftopolis - find out if you are in any treasuries or gift guides
featsy - find out if your product has been featured

Etsy Seller workbook

It's a simple but sweet Google spreadsheet - the Etsy seller workbook. I could have done with keeping better records - than stashing my receipts in a cardboard box and not knowing what went with what.

It was the first time I used Google spreadsheet so it took me a bit to get used to something other than Excel. First thing you want to create your own copy, so click on File then "Create a copy". I called mine 'Etsy-sellerworkbook-diggitydugs'. Don't worry about where it is saved (somewhere in the cloud).

Now you can get to business - widen the columns on the 'Instruction' page. Always read the how-to:) To get to the instruction page (known as a sheet) use the links at the bottom of the site.

I would imagine that the non-US user would find the following sheets useful:

• etsy sales - download your sales data and copy and paste into this sheet (well part of it - the other part I find really useful to keep track of the actual postage and any tracking numbers - these you will have to fill in manually).
• etsy expenses - luckily you don't need to enter this by hand - simply download it from "Your Etsy bill" - go to the specific month and then right at the bottom of that page is a link to download your bill as a CSV file to copy and paste
  
• other expenses - a very useful page to track how much you spend on raw materials. You need to enter these manually.

Thanks to earthskyfirewater.etsy.com.

My Etsy book

I have no idea when this would be useful (if you have any ideas let me kn0w), but how about making a book from your shop - http://www.myetsybook.com

I made myself one, unfortunately there aren't many templates, but if you work on it you can upload your own images for the background.

Etsy pounce

Etsy Pounce is an under appreciated Etsy tool - and one that is built in. I used it a lot when I was researching opening a shop to see what people were actually buying. What I noted is that most of the sales were sewing/crafting supplies (hence me starting to sell fabrics).

If you are interested in starting your own shop, use this tool to determine trends but be careful not to just copy someone who is successful. You need to find your own niche. Good luck.

Heartomatic

Yesterday I mentioned the heartomatic, but didn't link to the real deal. Hosted on a site called craft cult, it's the most useful Etsy tool I have found (one useful thing about the forums). It's basically an easy way to get an overview of your hearts. For the uninitiated, hearts are a way for people to bookmark your shop or items and show their interest to purchase or just that they like your stuff. What I find most useful thing my heartomatic is seeing the ratio of views to hearts - a very crude tool to see what stock is popular.