Making and using QR codes in your Etsy shop is an easy way to give customers a shortcut to jump to other ways to connect with you and buy things from your business.
Generating a QR code is simple because of the availability of many free QR generators, and the codes basically give the customer a shortcut to pages that you want them to see.
There are many ways to use QR codes in your Etsy shop, including putting them in your listing photos, on the outside of your packaging, in your shop About section, and on the inserts that you put inside the orders.
The purpose of a QR code on Etsy is to get customers to interact with your business more, and to keep them in your shop longer.
Table of Contents
- What is a QR code?
- How to make a free QR Code for your Etsy shop or website.
- How to use QR codes for your Etsy shop.
Some of the links in this article are affiliate links that will pay me a small commission if they’re used to purchase something. To see the entire affiliate policy click here.
What is a QR code?
QR stand for “quick response,” and it’s basically a scannable graphic that lets people skip the process of typing in a web address or text code to go to a website and other types of information. QR codes were popular for a while when they were first invented, then they died out a little, but when the pandemic hit and people became interested in contactless everything, they made a comeback.
It also helps that more people have smartphones now, because you need one to scan a QR code.
I remember when you used to have a QR code reader app to be able to scan the codes, but most smartphones now will allow you to read them with the camera on the phone itself.
However, the code can’t be on the phone, it has to be on another screen or printed on something else.
That’s one of the downsides of using them on Etsy, because if you’re on a smartphone on the Etsy app, you won’t be able to scan a code.
Having said that, using QR codes is going to be a good option anyway, because it’s another way for people to get to your listings or shop. And there are a lot of free QR code generators that you can use.
How to make a free QR Code for your Etsy shop or website.
There are a few ways that you can make a free QR code for your Etsy shop or listings, including using a Chrome browser app or just pasting the link that you want the code to go to in a free QR code generator.
To make a QR code for an Etsy shop, copy your shop URL or a listing URL to use in the code generator.
For an article about how to find your Etsy shop URL, click here: How to find your Etsy shop URL. To make a QR code you’ll basically need to copy the link up to the part where the tracking code starts, since you don’t need that.
To use a Chrome browser extension:
- Go to the Google app store while you’re on a Chrome browser.
- Search for “QR code.”
- Choose an app, in this example I used QR Code Generator.
- Install the app, then click on the extensions icon at the top right and find it in the list.
- Pin the icon to the toolbar.
- When you’re on a webpage, click the icon to open the QR Code generator window.
- Edit the URL that shows up in the box under the code to get rid of any unnecessary tracking code at the end.
- When the URL looks right, click download.
- Open the code from the downloads.
- Right-click to save the code to your computer.
- Test the code to make sure that it opens the website that you want it to.
To get a one-time QR code by using a link:
- Go to a free QR code generator site, I used the web version of the QR code generator app
- Enter the URL that you want the code to go to in the box.
- The QR code will generate as you type in the website link.
- Download the code.
- Open the download and right-click to save the code to your computer.
- Make sure to check that the code works by scanning it with your smartphone.
Making a free QR code is easy, but the downside is that you can’t track the stats with a free code. If you’d like to get stats about the code’s use, you can subscribe to a service that will do that for you, but you’ll need to pay a monthly fee.
If you just want to use the codes without tracking them, that’s fine, and you can always upgrade to a paid service later.
How to use QR codes for your Etsy shop.
There are multiple ways to use QR codes for your Etsy shop and marketing:
- Make stickers for your packagingv that lead to your email list or social media. I use a thermal printer to make stickers that I put on receipts and my packaging.
- Put a QR code sticker on the receipt to lead people to your website instead of to your Etsy shop.
- Use a QR code to send to people for an email list signup. Put this in your listing photos and in your packaging.
- Put a QR code that goes directly to your Etsy shop on your business cards.
- Add a sticker with a QR code that takes people to your youtube channel for product demos.
- Put a QR code on a thank-you note in each order that gives people a discount code for returning customers.
- Send a QR code that leads to the reviews page in their Etsy account so that they can leave a review.
- Put a QR code in your social media profile photo if you’re having a sale or launching a new product.
- Add a QR code to one of the photos in your About section that leads people to your email signup.
- Put a business card in your packages that have a bunch of QR codes on them with all of your social media accounts and other links so that people have all of your links in one place!
If you’re going to use QR codes, you can customize them with your logo and colors depending on the service that you use, or keep them simple.
They can also be used to connect to more than websites. QR codes can bring up menus, maps, social media pages, add names to your contacts, call people, and let people follow you on Twitter, among other things.
I use QR codes on my packaging, and also to direct people to my website and other sites that promote my products, and that could be helpful to people.
For example, I have one code that goes to my youtube channel and I put it on my products so that people can go to see product demo videos if they need help.
QR codes are a handy way to direct traffic to the pages that you want people to see. With the free generators it’s also accessible to everyone, and using them in your Etsy shop can increase email list signups and bring customers back to your shop.
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