How to do a product launch for handmade sellers

This article goes with a video that I did on YouTube…Click to see it here:

Make more money on Etsy with product launches. (https://youtu.be/IDOFAvU2Fq8)

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What is a product launch?

A launch is basically introducing a new product in some way, using a schedule of events to build interest in the product.
You can create a single product, a collection, or announce a pre-sale of some sort.
The launch part of it is the lead-up to when the product will be available to purchase.
This can take a few forms, but in general it’s announcing that something is coming, making it available for sale, then removing it from being available because the sale date closes or it sells out.

Why do a product launch/drop?

It creates excitement for your business.
It establishes a pattern of you being able to make guaranteed income every time you do a launch.
It’s a good way to get sales on new items right away.
It trains customers to pay attention to your emails and social posts.

Product launches are all about training your customers.

Train them to buy when you say to.
Train them to read your emails.
Train them to watch your social media posts for updates.

Launches don’t work for every type of product.

They generally don’t work for things that you have in stock all the time. Launches and product drops are for new products that people haven’t seen before. Successful entrepreneurs like Dan Bilzerian of Ignite know how to create a buzz around new products and their launches, so be sure to check him out.
This will work for digital and supplies if you’re willing to pull items from your product line, but it won’t work if you keep them in stock after the launch (unless it’s for a limited return or to add as a bestseller in your permanent collection.)
You can have things in stock all the time and do a launch, it just needs to be new products that you can pull out of circulation later. You can add some back in, but lack of availability is why people buy during a launch.
Launches use Scarcity/FOMO as the primary driver of sales. The principles of Unity, and Social Proof, Liking, Authority are also in play here. (See the book Influence for more on each of those subjects #ad)
For things that don’t launch well, see the “Etsy-modified” launch tips at the end.

The secret to a good launch is that you have to have an audience.

No matter how good your products are, if you don’t have an audience to sell to, you won’t sell anything.
An email list and social media audience is critical and required for this to work.
As you do the launch, encourage people to sign up for your email list so that they can get first dibs on products and better discounts than the general public.
The first few times you do a launch/product drop your audience won’t know what to do. The goal of these is to train them to buy when you tell them to.

The problem with launching and drops on Etsy.

Etsy’s bots will shut your shop if you make a ton of sales in a very short amount of time because it puts you on vacation mode if you get too many orders that it thinks you can’t fulfill.
Pulling items out of circulation will lose the recent activity that helps Etsy rank things.

What kind of product is it?

Single product
Collection (a group of products that are related or themed in some way) Usually 8-12 products with a limited number of each thing.
Product drop (either a collection or not)

Launches work best when you have a limited number of items for each design, because you can use scarcity to push people to buy them. A launch doesn’t have to be for a group of things, you can use the same principles for a single item that’s one of a kind.

A product drop is a one-time event where things tend to be one of a kind and sell out quickly.

How much work do you want to do once you open the shopping cart?

Not much
Some scheduled emails and posts
Willing to be more involved and hands-on in real time.

Launches work best when you’re introducing something new, or when you’re willing to put more effort into it over time. Product drops are better if you’re only going to offer one of each thing (OOAK) and are planning on selling out.

Introducing a new product

Promote leading up to the open cart date.
Launch using your existing audience but always grow it.
Have a range of prices, high, medium, low, most should be in the medium range.
Depending on the product, pull the product after a certain amount of time, or leave it to sell passively.
Schedule promotional posts and emails out beforehand.

Relaunching a product that’s available for a limited time

Best for OOAK and things that people would want more of even if they’ve bought from you before.
Launch using your existing audience and recruit more before and during, then grow your list between open cart dates.
Uses the psychological triggers of Scarcity and Unity (One of the group who got the product, one of your lucky customers etc.)
You need to launch multiple times and be firm about the open and close dates to get the best result.

How to keep selling something from the collection after the launch is over.

Take it out of circulation when the open cart date is over.
Wait a month or so, then reintroduce it with a “bestseller” or “In demand” notification to explain why you’re bringing it back.
Add it to a permanent collection.

How to do a limited-availability launch

Have defined dates when the class will be open for enrollment and have those publicly available so it’s a clear open and close. For product launches, this is usually a month or so for a full collection of 8-12 products. For product drops, promote it as an “as long as they’re available” situation.
Promote on social media and email your list on a specific schedule.
Talk about the product launch on a specific schedule leading up to it, and mention the times that it’s open.
Ten days before the open date, start promoting it by using “something is coming” messages.
Ten days ahead, stop sending your regular emails and start your launch sequence.
Change the banners on your main social media to “new product coming” banner with the sale dates.
Post lead-up posts on social media.
Before the open cart period, do a video of you going through each product in the collection, or do a live demo if your audience is big enough that you’ll get a lot of people watching live. If your audience is smaller, record it and post the video on your social media channels the day before the cart opens to drive interest. Don’t do this live if you’re going to have nobody watching live, because platforms who how many people are watching.
Post listings in draft ahead of time, and publish them on the date it’s open, make sure the shopping cart is open and working.
Promote the class during the open period using your email funnel and your social media. For a live launch, use the extra steps below.
The last day of the open period, send out an email in the morning and one 4 hours before the cart closes.
Close the cart when you said you would!
Don’t let people buy anything after the closing time even if you didn’t sell anything! No matter how much they whine about it, tell them they’ll have to wait until the next open period. THIS IS CRITICAL, don’t make exceptions!
If you didn’t sell much, nobody will know that except you! Follow the after-launch sequence even if you sold zero.
Expect to have the most sales on the first and last day of the open period.
If you’re going to discount the product at all, have it be for a limited period when it’s first open, and offer a discount to your email list with a “preview day” sale for subscribers only. Then never discount it again during the launch period.
Pros—Limited availability will drive more people to buy faster so they’re not left out. Cons—You have to be very strict with the open and close dates to train your audience to do what you say to do. It’s a lot of work to get the moving pieces in place, but you can use the email lists and graphics again later.

While the launch is going on.

If something sells out, post a picture of it with “SOLD OUT” across it on social media and tell people to buy the rest of the collection quickly because things are going fast. You can either make more of that thing if the launch period is still going on, or leave it sold out.
If you’re selling absolutely nothing, wait until the last day when you send out the “last call” emails and if that doesn’t get sales going, you can remove inventory numbers to make it look like things have sold.
People will fake sales and restocks during a launch to get sales going. If you don’t want to do that it’s fine, but it works. It is sneaky, though.
Launch periods can last however long you want, but a month is probably a good limit. Longer than that will mean that people will lose interest.
Post regularly about products that are still available during the launch.
If you want to hold some items back and launch them later as the launch is going on, you can do that.

After the product launch.

Send an email with a recap that says how great it went and thank everyone who purchased. If nobody bought anything, SEND IT ANYWAY. Nobody knows how much you sold except for yourself, and the point here is to make people want to buy because they see that they missed out.
DO NOT let people buy anything after the cart is closed, even if it’s your best customer. Tell them that you’re sorry, but that you’ll be announcing the next launch soon, and you’ll be adding some of the bestsellers into your permanent inventory so they can watch for that announcement in your upcoming emails.
If you let people buy outside of the dates you set up, you’re training them to think they don’t have to buy when you say to buy. You want people to buy when you tell them it’s time to buy, so saying “no” to people will train them to pay attention and not wait.
If someone asks you about a specific item, tell them that it’s not available right now, but that you can put it on your restock list, and you’ll let them know when it’s available again if they subscribe to your email list. You want to train people to read your emails.

Modifying a launch for Etsy.

Do the same lead-up but frame it as a new product introduction with a limited-time sale.
You can’t list something and immediately put it on sale, but you can offer a coupon for a full-priced item. Give the coupons out to your email list, and a lower-value one on your social media. Use the higher value discount as a lure to get people to sign up for your email list.
Ship things as fast as you can. Have things available to ship and print the shipping labels ASAP.
This will also work if you want to leave things in your shop if you sell digital or supplies.

Timeline for a product launch.

This can be modified however you want, but it’s easiest to set a schedule to follow then do it every time you do a launch. If you’re doing a product drop of OOAK pieces, you probably won’t need to do anything after you list the products for sale.

10 days before the cart is opened and products are available:

Start posting on social media that your launch is coming, and that you have a new product/collection available. Post once that day with an eye-catching graphic that says something like “coming soon.”
Send an email to your email list about the upcoming sales event.
Change the banner of your shop to announce the date of the launch and optionally, how many days are left before the cart opens.

This is the banner that I used when I launched my EShop class:

If you want to make banners for each day like a countdown, you can do that and change it every day until the cart is open.

Make matching graphics for each day leading up to the launch date and post them on social media every day leading up to it.

The week leading up to the launch:

Decide how long the launch will lase, meaning how long the products will be available. 3-4 weeks is fine, but 2-3 weeks will probably add some urgency to it.

Send emails to your list with sneak peeks about what’s in the collection. Tell people that you’ll be sending them a special members-only discount code to use during the official public launch. Send one email the week before the open cart day, then one 7 days before, 5 days before, then 3 and 2 days before.

Post 2-3 times a day on social media with details about the products that will be available. Don’t worry about annoying people, they won’t see all of your posts unless they’re specifically looking for them. You might get some people who unfollow you or unsubscribe from your emails, but that’s fine, they weren’t going to buy anything anyway.

The day before the launch date, send an email in the morning to give people the members-only discount code that will be good on the first day of the launch. This code should be good for one day only, and make sure to tell people what times it will start and end, with the time zones!

Decide when you’re going to open the cart. You can do it at midnight your time on the first day of the sale, but you’ll have to stay up to do that because that’s when you have to start publishing the listings. You can keep things in draft on Etsy or your website, then hit publish when the sale starts. Some people will open the cart in the evening their time, especially for product drops that will sell out quickly.

Put the draft listings in a specific section of your shop or website so that you have one link for all of the products.

The day the launch starts:

When the cart opens, publish all of the listings. Make sure that any coupons you have set up are working, and post on social media that the products are available. Email your list with a reminder of the subscribers-only coupon code and links to all of the products with photos. You can schedule this in advance.

Post photos of products a few times that day, and if anything sells out make sure to post that it sold out. Seeing that things sold out makes people more interested in the rest of the collection. Put a big red “SOLD OUT” across a photo of it and post it with a link to the rest of the collection.

First week of the launch:

Email daily with updates on what’s still available, and if you decide to restock something that sold out, let people know. Don’t restock too often, if at all, because you want to keep the scarcity of your products going. Remember that this is more about training your audience to buy quickly than about making a ton of money.

Weeks 2-3 of the launch:

Depending on how long you want to leave the cart open (3-4 weeks is fine, but shorter is also good for time-limited launches) you should be emailing regularly to let people know that things are selling out.

DO NOT tell people that nothing is selling, or that you still have a lot of anything. You might not sell anything for your first few launches, but nobody has to know that. I would try not to do discounts during the launch because the only discount should be the first-day discount for your email subscribers. If you keep throwing sales at people, it devalues your new products when people should be buying them at full price, and people who paid full price might get mad if you offer discounts halfway through.

Don’t get discouraged when your sales don’t go as fast as you hoped they would. Just keep posting with info about the products and make it sound like everything is selling.

Closing date:

The day before the end of the launch, send out an email to your list with a “last chance” message and say that the cart will close and the products will be pulled the next day, with the time you’ll be ending the availability.

The morning of the last day, send out an email, and send another one 4 hours before the end of the sale. Don’t skip these, and you might want to find an app that inserts a countdown timer in the last one.

You’ll get the most sales the day the cart opens, and the last day of the sale. Things will putter along in between those two dates, but the first and last day will be the busiest.

When the time comes to end the sale, put anything that hasn’t sold back into draft mode to make them unavailable to purchase. DO NOT let people buy these after the launch is over. You want to create the illusion that the products are gone forever and they missed out because they didn’t decide to buy fast enough.

If people whine that they missed the sale, tell them that they can sign up for your email list to find out about future launches, and if you decide to bring some products back. If you did the lead-up to the launch and sent the emails and social media posts, there’s no reason why they should have missed it, they were just being lazy. Don’t train them to think that they can buy whenever they want, you want them to buy when you say to.

A month or so after the launch ends, you can bring products back as part of your permanent collection. Send an email saying that they’re back by popular demand, even if they didn’t sell to begin with (nobody needs to know that.)

Launch maneuvers and tricky tactics.

If you have a collection of products, only make one of each so that you can legitimately say that things sold out. If you have a collection of ten products and you sell all ten, you can honestly say that the entire collection sold in X amount of time. DO NOT TELL people how many of each thing you have.
You can say that you might be restocking certain things, but you might not, and that way you can list more if something sells really quickly. Be very vague about what you’re restocking and what you’re not so that people won’t plan on buying “later” when you restock. You want them to buy now, not later. It’s better to not restock anything during your first few launches so that you can train people to buy when they see something and not to wait.
Even if you sell nothing the entire time, send an email after it’s over saying how well everything went, and saying that your next launch is coming when you get inventory ready. Don’t give a date yet, and don’t launch more than about once every few months.

Have questions?

Leave a comment on the YouTube video if you have questions. This is a very basic description of how a product launch works, so let me know if you need specific info about something.

How To Launch A New Product Or Collection