Opening a 2nd shop on Etsy is a big deal, and not a decision that should be taken lightly.
At the same time, it’s an incredible opportunity to drastically increase your sales, and take your Etsy selling experience to an entirely new level.
While Etsy certainly allows you to start a 2nd (or even multiple) shops, there are a few rules that you must follow, as well as some best practices that will ensure everything goes smoothly.
In this guide, we’ll cover not only how to successfully start a 2nd Etsy shop, but all the benefits and drawbacks of doing so. These are really important to keep in mind, so make sure you take all of it into account before opening up an additional store!
How To Open A Second Etsy Shop
It turns out, the actual process of opening a 2nd Etsy store is exactly the same as it was for the first one.
You simply register a new account and open a shop, the exact way you’ve done before.
There are some additional steps you must take in order to stay compliant with Etsy’s rules, but we’ll cover those in a moment.
Note that there is no way to open a second Etsy account using the same email address. You must use a separate email address when attempting to make your new account, or Etsy will notify you that the email address is already in use.
Etsy’s Rules Regarding Additional Shops
This section is extremely important to pay attention to.
If you violate Etsy’s rules regarding multiple shops, you are not only at risk of having the new shop shut down – but your original shop as well! In fact, when Etsy closes one account for policy violations, they tend to close all other accounts as well. Therefore, you should be extra careful to ensure you aren’t breaking any rules.
For reference, here are some of the most important to pay attention to.
Your Shops Can’t Sell Similar Items
One of the quickest ways to get your accounts shut down is to sell similar / competing items on multiple accounts.
If you think about it, using multiple accounts to flood the search results with offers or establish new pricing standards is completely unfair to other sellers.
Etsy wants to make sure you aren’t using multiple shops to market to the same audience. Reports on Etsy’s forums indicate that while some overlap may be okay in some scenarios, Etsy looks at things such as your branding and marketing efforts to determine who you’re marketing to, and who is likely to buy the products.
There is not much of a reason to offer to cater to the same audience in multiple shops anyway, as we’ll discuss in the drawbacks section later on.
Keep separate product lines in separate shops, and you’re unlikely to run into any issues.
Here’s the key thing to keep in mind – if your 2nd shop would do something to give you an unfair advantage, it’s probably best avoided.
Publicly Disclose All Of Your Shops
Secondly, you must update all of your shop profiles (including the original one) to disclose all of the shops that you own. This is mention in Etsy’s policy here.
Again, this is a transparency thing and goes a long way to showing you’re trustworthy as a seller.
As a plus side, I’ve had particularly happy customers browse through and shop from my other shops as well, so it’s a small little sales bonus too!
How Many Etsy Shops Can You Open?
There doesn’t appear to be any hard rules regarding how many shops you can open, provided that they sell different items, cater to different audiences, and are publicly disclosed on each account’s profile.
Obviously, running a 2nd shop adds a lot of complexity to things, let alone a 3rd, 4th… well I couldn’t even imagine running 5 Etsy shops all at once!
Benefits Of A Second Etsy Shop
Now let’s get to the fun part – discussing all of the benefits of running multiple Etsy shops! There are plenty, which is why opening a new store can be such an exciting opportunity for you and your business.
1. You’ll Reach Additional Customers
This one’s the obvious one, but it’s perhaps the most exciting.
Although Etsy has an extremely large customer base, there are only so many people interested in a given product type. We all know that more listings correlate with higher sales on Etsy, but what happens if you’ve reached the limit of the total market?
By adding completely new product types, you get to experiment with things that may sell much better, explore additional interests, and reach entirely new markets that you never had access to previously.
2. More Passive Sales
There are a large portion of Etsy sellers that do no outside marketing of their products, instead relying completely on Etsy’s search algorithm or Etsy ads to deliver customers to their listings.
This is the strategy I’ve taken myself, as I’ve always preferred to focus my own marketing on sending people to my stores, where I have more control over the customer experience.
That being said, opening a second Etsy shop is perfect if passive sales are your target.
By being able to target entirely new sets of keywords, you increase the likelihood that you’ll receive free organic visitors from Etsy’s search – meaning that your stream of daily sales continues to grow along with your shops.
This is an excellent reason to start a second shop!
3. It Helps To Keep Your Shops Organized
The key to increasing your average order value on Etsy is to make your shop browse-worthy – which is why shops that have a high views to visitors ratio often do the best.
How do you keep people on your shop longer, spending more time looking at more and more listings?
It comes down to relevancy.
People want to see items that are relevant to their interests, without having to sort through listings that hold no appeal to them.
This is why some of the best Etsy shops niche down, and really focus their entire shop around one core type of person. For example, creating an apparel store specifically around one topic, instead of trying to be a general store that caters to everyone.
You could still have shirts, hats, sweatshirts, etc – different product lines, but catered to the same person.
Additionally, sorting out different product lines into collections helps browsability as well.
However, when you start focusing on an entirely different market of people, opening up a 2nd store can make a lot of sense – and prevent people from having to browse through products that aren’t relevant to them (they won’t by the way, they’ll just leave!)
4. Separates Physical / Digital Items
Finally, some store owners eventually decide that they want to start offering digital downloads, such as printables or worksheets.
While you could certainly offer these on the same shop if the target customer is the same, it doesn’t hurt to split these into a separate shop either – particularly if you plan to sell a large variety of digital items, and want to break them up into categories.
Selling digital downloadables is a great way to make passive income from Etsy, as there is very little ongoing work you have to do other than customer service. Files are delivered instantly after payment is confirmed, and it’s generally a pretty hands-off experience.
That being said, you have to be abundantly clear that the file is digital, and no physical product will be delivered. Even on digital-only Etsy shops, buyers still sometimes get confused about this!
Drawbacks Of Opening Multiple Etsy Shops
Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks of multiple Etsy shops as well, that make running them a little bit harder. Take these into account, so you know whether the increased sales will actually be worth it.
I’ve seen some store owners become so overwhelmed focusing on making their 2nd shop a success, that it actually ended up crippling their first (already proven) shop entirely. So, you’ve definitely got to be careful!
1. Focus Is Split Between Multiple Projects
This one is a big deal.
Most Etsy shops tend to grow exponentially – this is the case for most online businesses actually. Putting twice the work into something usually results in far more than twice the results.
I have seen far too many entrepreneurs chase the next ‘shiny object’ – believing that the next opportunity is the one that will make their dreams come true. They abandon things that are clearly working too quickly, because the massive results aren’t coming quickly enough.
And because they never truly give any one project the attention it needs to succeed, they never end up getting anywhere.
You should only start a second Etsy shop when you’re sure you’re doing everything you can for your current store. There isn’t anything new to do, and you’ve reached the most customers you possibly can on Etsy itself.
While I personally would rather expand to other platforms at this point (like starting my own store on my own website using something like Shopify), opening a second Etsy shop may be a good idea if you’ve done all you can for the first one.
Just make sure you have enough time and resources to actually do well with both of them. It’s better to work hard on one shop, than mediocre on several.
2. More Marketing And Branding Efforts
If you are actively marketing your Etsy store on other channels (such as social media), your work doubles when you introduce a second store.
This means twice the social media posting, twice the community interaction, and twice the time spent creating other content.
It can be exhausting!
You need to take a realistic look at your level of ambition, your amount of free time, and how much money you’re actually trying to make on Etsy. There is nothing wrong with using Etsy to make just a few extra hundred dollars a month.
Don’t start a second store if it compromises your peace of mind and enjoyment of life!
3. Policy Violations Are Tied To All Accounts
When you’re running multiple Etsy shops, you’ve got to be extra careful.
If you break Etsy’s rules on one account, this transfers over to all of your other accounts as well.
This means that violations can lead to the shut down of all of your accounts, and if one store is closed for violating policy, all of your others may be as well.
This is particularly a problem for those breaking rules in their shops without realizing it. If you are doing something that goes against policy on both shops, it may be treated as two separate violations rather than just one – both contributing to your account closure.
Therefore, you’ve really got to be diligent and err on the side of caution when it comes to interpreting Etsy’s policies. Once your account is closed, you’re unable to open a new one.
4. Shops Are Ranked Separately In Etsy’s Algorithm
Did you know that Etsy assigns an invisible ‘score’ to your shop, that helps lift up or suppress all of your listings?
Etsy wants buyers to have the best experience on their platform, while also making the most amount of money possible. Therefore, they award sellers who actually make sales, have good customer service and reviews, clear out non-selling items from their shop, and overall provide a good shopping experience on Etsy.
This is part of the reason why new stores often get off to a slow start. Etsy is kind of a ‘rich get richer’ sort of ecosystem – shops that are already making sales get a search presence boost, which in turn helps them receive even more sales.
All of your shops will be ranked separately, meaning that the new shop won’t benefit from all of the good performance your original shop acquired. Likewise, a lack of focus (causing you to not put as much effort into your original shop) may cause it to slip in rankings as well.
Listings are judged on an individual level as well, and there are a lot of factors that go into Etsy’s search algorithm. Still, this is important note to keep in mind!
5. Tools May Require An Additional Subscription
If you use any third-party tools to run your Etsy business, many of them only support one Etsy account at a time.
This means that if you open a second store, you may be required to purchase an additional subscription in order to fully integrate it with your Etsy account.
That being said, if full account integration isn’t a priority, then an additional subscription / license may not be necessary. For example, if you only use tools like Erank or Marmalead for their search analysis, you can obviously do this without needing to switch accounts.
Therefore, this may or may not be an important factor depending on how you use these tools to manage your Etsy stores.
Drawbacks – Recap
You may have noticed that there are more drawbacks listed than benefits, though that doesn’t mean this isn’t a good idea! Many of these drawbacks can be taken care of with a bit of planning and aren’t quite as big of a deal as they may seem.
I just wanted to highlight all of them so you have a clear picture of what it will be like once your second store is up and running.
Additional Tips
Now that we’ve covered the benefits and drawbacks of opening a 2nd shop, let’s go over some additional tips.
These tips will not only save you time, but they will also help you manage both shops at the same time, without any additional stress or headaches.
Use Separate Internet Browsers For Each Shop
Unfortunately, there is no built-in way to quickly switch between Etsy shops.
This means that in order to toggle between them, you have to sign out of one, and then sign into the other. This doesn’t take very long, but it’s kind of annoying – especially if you check your shops multiple times a day.
One solution to this is to use separate internet browsers for each shop – for example, Google Chrome for shop #1 and Firefox for shop #2.
This way, you can stay signed in to both and never have to log out – just open the browser for the shop you’re working on and you’re good to go!
Use Separate Passwords + A Password Manager
Reusing passwords across multiple websites is a security issue, and truth be told you should never do it.
This is because if one account is compromised, it is easy for a hacker to proceed to take over all of your other accounts as well.
Therefore, the best thing you can do is to use something called a password manager. My employees and I all use Lastpass. Password managers like Lastpass allow you to…
- Randomly generate a new password for each new account you have.
- Automatically fill in your username and password when you visit each website.
- Quickly select the account that you want to log into.
In addition to two-factor authentication, this is by far the safest way to protect your Etsy accounts (and all of your other online accounts as well.)
Own Both A Phone And A Tablet? Use Both!
Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of having multiple Etsy shops is that you can only be signed into one at a time on the Sell on Etsy app.
This means you’ll only receive push notifications on one account.
However, if you have a second device, you can sign into it with the other account and still receive notifications for both.
Personally, I recommend keeping whichever store has the most customers on your phone, since you’re likely to have it with you more frequently.
Use An Email Client That Supports Multiple Email Addresses
Opening a 2nd Etsy shop requires you to sign up for an additional Etsy account, which requires an additional email.
Checking multiple emails individually is a hassle, and something you’ll probably want to avoid.
Fortunately, there are several email clients out there that let you plug all of your email addresses into them, then view all of your email at once.
Your phone may already have something like this built-in. For PC, I use and recommend the email client Mailbird.
Schedule Social Media In Advance
Finally, if you plan on building any sort of social media presence for both shops, I recommend scheduling out all of your posts in advance.
It is just too much pressure to spontaneously post for one brand, let alone several.
Scheduling out your social media in advance using a tool like Later or Hootsuite is much more efficient, and makes it so much easier to maintain a consistent posting schedule.
Personally, I schedule about a month’s worth at a time so I don’t have to think about it for a while. This leaves my mind clear to focus on other areas of growing my business.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a lot that goes into opening a 2nd shop on Etsy, and being able to run it successfully.
While opening a second store isn’t right for everyone, there are a lot of clear benefits, and many people consider it to be a huge step forward in their Etsy career.
Of course, I’d love to help in any way that I can. If you have any questions about opening a second Etsy store and how to juggle multiple stores successfully, please feel free to ask them using the comment form below. I will get back to you straight away with my best advice.
Wishing you the best with your new shop!
– James McAllister
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