Etsy Insights: Tips for submitting to the Etsy Design Awards

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Hi everyone! I’m Dayna Isom Johnson, Etsy’s Trend Expert and a returning judge for the Etsy Design Awards. We’re back for the seventh year, searching for the most special items and there are so many opportunities to win.

Whether you’re a seasoned shop owner or in your first year, take a chance and apply This year, alongside fellow judges Molly Baz and Willett, I'll be choosing the Grand Prize Award Winner and the 10 Category Award Winners.

Today I want to share one thing that can help your application stand out: Spotlighting your unique story! We want to learn more about you and your item and understand the why behind what you’re submitting. A compelling story can make the difference between a good entry and an unforgettable one.

Be sure to include your shop’s story in your about section and don’t hold back on the details in your application. Consider describing where you draw inspiration, what makes your process truly yours, how your shop came to be, how you go from idea to execution, the ways your items tell a story, and any other interesting tidbits you think will help your application stand out. Read this article in the Seller Handbook for more tips on sharing your story.

Additional listing optimization recommendations:

- Submit your shining star item: It should be exceptionally handcrafted or an original vintage item with that "wow factor."

- Use high-quality visuals: Your photos and visuals should have a solid aesthetic that tell a cohesive story. In your application, include up to five photos from various angles and a listing video that showcases your process or artistry

- Optimize your listing: Ensure your listing description is clear and informative

- Complete your shop setup: Make sure you’ve added complete shop policies and have at least four active listings in your shop. Consider shipping globally or offering free shipping (while not required for entry, but can enhance your shop's appeal to potential buyers).

Peer-to-peer listing critiques in the forums are also a great way to get feedback before you enter. Learn more here. You should also follow @etsysuccess for more inspiration!

Be sure to enter here by August 25. To ensure your shop is eligible for consideration, read our submission terms here.

So, what items in your shop will you spotlight? Tell us all about it. And if you’ve already entered, we want to hear about your submission too!

daynaisom

Admin

Resident Trend Expert

Posted 1 year ago · Edited 1 year ago·Last reply 11 months ago

148 comments

TopLabLibrary1

·11 months ago

its amazingg looking forward to it

Thumbwick

·11 months ago

Owner and Crafter

I have submitted my Handmade Dollhouse Miniature Rustic Sailboat for consideration: https://thumbwick.etsy.com/listing/1850195918. My first time entering, but I've always loved seeing all the entries in past years. Good luck to all!

MrMintzCrafts

·1 year ago

Thanks so much for the insights, Dayna! We opened our Etsy shop during the pandemic to help families connect through creativity. Our 3D Solar System craft started at the kitchen table with our kids — and today it’s one of our most loved designs. Your reminder to tell the story behind our work really resonated

ImperiumShaving

·1 year ago

Awesome!

JSdoll

·1 year ago

could someone help me ' when i try to download my application Etsy gives me an error that "This item does not belong to this shop". i"ve thried all my listings and the error is the same. Who can help me?

KalynovskaStudio

·1 year ago

Hi! I have listings with digital vintage cross stitch patterns: https://www.etsy.com/shop/KalynovskaStudio?ref=profile_header

Please tell me, can I take part in this course?

Jewelnour

·1 year ago

That's great! Welcome back Etsy Design Awards! Thanks for the information, wishing everyone the best of luck

SarasCozyShop

·1 year ago

woww!! lets gooo!!

CHUNKUA

·1 year ago

Good. Thank you

Petalsbysf

·1 year ago

Wish you all the best

VERMEIREcycle

·1 year ago

Hello, I'd love to submit a listing from our shop 'vermeirecycle' (bags made from upcycled food containers), but the Czech Republic is not eligible for submitting any entry. If I may ask, why are residents if the Czech Republic not allowed to take part (just put of curiosity, not complaining at all)? :-). Do you know if we (Czechs) will also get a chance to take part in the design award in the future? Any feedback is very appreciated, Manuel

LearnersByAniqa

·1 year ago

“Thank you so much for your valuable advice—it’s truly encouraging and I really appreciate it. I also want to mention that I’m based in Pakistan, and unfortunately, Pakistan is not on the list of countries eligible for the Etsy Design Awards. This means I currently cannot participate in the competition.”

LearnersByAniqa

·1 year ago

ARACraftedPrints

·1 year ago

Thank you for sharing that. While the Etsy Design Awards may be out of reach for now, your creativity knows no borders. Keep shining—your talent will find its way to the world in even greater ways.

BloomNestPrintsCo

·1 year ago

Nice!

No402Studio

·1 year ago

No402Studio

Awesome

PremiumselectionsUS

·1 year ago

Perfectly helped us

LearnersByAniqa

·1 year ago

Nice!

ABCJewelryMart

·1 year ago

good

KnobsNPulls

·1 year ago

Nice !!!

EDCKIDS

·1 year ago

sounds great!

hmadekor

·1 year ago

Hello, I'm Hande. I have dozens of products I make myself to bring a new style to our homes. I make them myself and share how they're made. I want them to be unique to each person, to reflect their true selves, and I value your stories. I work with great care, creating whatever you envision and offering it to you. Best regards.

hmadekor

·1 year ago

ARACraftedPrints

·1 year ago

Hello Hande, your passion shines through every word! Creating with care and purpose is a rare gift. Keep bringing beauty and meaning into homes—your work is more than decor; it's a reflection of the soul. Keep inspiring!

HellasDesign

·1 year ago

Thank for the tips!

AnilaDigitalinvites

·1 year ago

I'm so excited my best wishes to all of us

https://aniladigitalinvites.etsy.com/listing/4351913326

AnilaDigitalinvites

·1 year ago

Hey fellows best of luck to all of us

NATALYartUKRAINE

·1 year ago

Дякую за пораду, всім бажаю удачі.

WeddingGardenArt

·1 year ago

Good luck everyone!

GOLDENRATIOWALLART

·1 year ago

<span class="">I m excited to hear about the Etsy design awards</span>

MJMPotteryDesigns

·1 year ago

What an incredible opportunity! 🤩 Thank you for the great insights. Wishing everyone the best in the competition. 🥰 I’m building my submission today.

https://mjmpotterydesigns.etsy.com

ALSABAGEMSARTS

·1 year ago

Hello Assalamu Alykum, I am opening my new shop. I sell gemstones at my shop. I am the responsible person of my house. To take my shop to the top level, please tell me some tips by which I can start selling at my shop. Will you help me in this?

ALSABAGEMSARTS

·1 year ago

Hello team, my products are not appearing in searching and my sales are not coming.

clickhaniyah

·1 year ago

Looking forward to it!

GemstoneRealShop

·1 year ago

GemstoneRealShop

·1 year ago

ARACraftedPrints

·1 year ago

Wa Alaikum Assalam!
MashaAllah, congratulations on your new shop!

Yes, I will help you. Here’s a short tip to inspire your journey:

“Start with honesty, deal with passion, and serve with a smile — success will follow, InshaAllah.”

Let’s make your gemstone shop shine!

MaraBellaPaperArt

·1 year ago

AMAZING! Great for highlighting people's art, it is always fun and wonderful.

Gemscollectionart

·1 year ago

amazing

ARACraftedPrints

·1 year ago

Thanks for the awesome tips, Dayna! This is such an exciting opportunity to showcase creativity and passion. To anyone thinking about entering: your story matters—let it shine as brightly as your craft. Believe in your work and go for it!

mintymiin

·1 year ago

Lovely good luck everyone!

This is my first business I'm so excited working here!

BillionaireDayDreams

·1 year ago

I will be entering for the first time!!

LuxuryMirrorTR

·1 year ago

Nice

StrattonSuspenderCo

·1 year ago

My wife and I wanted to do this last year but we were so busy we just missed the deadline. This year, we can't to give credit to our incredible customers; which is our "favorite part about selling on Etsy." We brag that we have the best customers on the internet, but I'm sure most of you have experienced the incredible graciousness and support of the Etsy Customer base. Thanks for the opportunity Etsy, we appreciate what you do for handcrafted items.

DMTCOPPERHOME

·1 year ago

thanks

WellnessVibePrints

·1 year ago

Hello! I have a question about digital products. I create various diet guides, i research all the information myself, i design it myself and create custom illustrations. May such items take part in the contest?

PihuHandmadeCrafts

·1 year ago

Nice

WhiskandWhirlDesigns

·1 year ago

Great.

MwahSupply

·1 year ago

Ooo sounds fun!

ManoAurea

·1 year ago

When crafting our unique story for the Etsy Design Awards, do you recommend focusing more on our creative process or on the emotional connection our products bring to customers?

GratefulCsByDiane

·1 year ago

Looking forward to the results. Thank you for the tips!

DesignoraGifts

·1 year ago

I create printable planners because I struggled to stay organized as a freelance designer, and I wanted tools that were as inspiring as they were functional

Digitalproduct313

·1 year ago

Hello judges, how are you all? My name is Ghulam Fatima and I am a jewelry designer. I am also very fond of jewelry, so I thought of doing jewelry work on Etsy. The biggest story of my selling jewelry on Etsy is that we are very poor and we do not have our own house, so with great difficulty we bought a mobile and created an Etsy account in it and started listing jewelry by designing it so that we can earn some money and build our own house. And the jewelry designs we make are made of diamonds, pearls and gems. And especially the ones I have listed today are made of unique and rare stones. If we win the award, it will become our house. We will be very grateful to all of you judges. This was my story and I don't want to lie, so I can't tell you fabricated stories. We never learned to lie. Thank you very much.

RainTimeShop

·1 year ago

I'm very curious to see who will win.

BBhandmades

·1 year ago

Hi Dayna, It's going to be great!!!. Looking forward. Thank you for the tips.

HinaCrafted

·1 year ago

NICE

XStone

·1 year ago

Thanks for the great tips.

ArtBerimor

·1 year ago

good luck to all participants

VintageLadybyTiffany

·1 year ago

What if the items submitted sale prior to the judging? Does it matter.

ReFurrrbished

·1 year ago

Can anyone on the Etsy team confirm if my submission was received? I clicked submit and nothing confirmed on the next page, and no emails confirmed either. Any help would be appreciated.

RootedSkull

·1 year ago

You have to be kidding

ProsLab

·1 year ago

Manager

Thank you!

ZionPrintingStudio

·1 year ago

Awesome!

IndexPaper

·1 year ago

Thanks for the insight! Good luck everyone!

MinniepixarStudio

·1 year ago

Awesome

ArmstrongArtistryShp

·1 year ago

Great tips! Thank you for sharing,

MyDanawe

·1 year ago

Salamat

BottegaKrua

·1 year ago

Honestly I don’t understand why Italy is never on the list of eligible countries. Hey but Israel is present, maybe because they are great children killers.

Terust

·1 year ago

nice^^

WakeUpVio

·1 year ago

Nice

AnthonysStickersShop

·1 year ago

Awesome, thank you for sharing with us!

Roaringimaginations

·1 year ago

Is anyone else getting a red error message saying all required fields need to be filled in when trying to upload photo and video? I have triple checked and everything is filled in.

ASAFAADESIGN

·1 year ago

Hello, I design digital products such as coloring books and educational activities. Can I participate?

HaoiStore

·1 year ago

Amazing! Good luck everyone

PamsPawsJewelry

·1 year ago

Sadly, I am not trying to enter this year. It became too political with black owned shops and LGBTQ shops etc. and seriously, we are all businesses trying to sell. When I buy from someone I dont care what their background, culture, or where they live is. If I like something I will buy it. Everyone should be treated equally, and promoted equally on here.

I sell handmade jewelry and it never wins, jewelry.

They should have winners in different categories.

Usually, high priced furniture, or paper items win, or stuff that is plain and bland without much color.

In the past these Design Award contests seem to have everything in a same shape and or color scheme which would have been nice to know ahead of time.

Videos are hard to get when alone and using a phone camera and basically things like jewelry do not need videos to sell.

Most of these posts by Etsy Admins do not allow replies which stinks because we cannot give feedback and they dont listen anyway.

It has gotten impossible to sell on here and Etsy keeps making it harder.

Now they want to change promoting teams! We like it and of course it has to be changed to be worse.

We enjoy the friendships and help of other sellers but teams just for info are mostly useless.

We sellers NEED a way on here to sell and be seen and get promoted. Why doesnt Etsy ever listen to us?

Most of us have jobs to support ourselves and making more time consuming stuff on here is not helpful, like videos, and all the listing stuff, and promoting, and social media which doesnt seem to help, making shops less visible, now no way to promote, trying to force us to offer "free shipping" when costs keep going up, we pay to be on here and yet cannot be seen??

The visibility stuff is illegal as we are paying to list and sell on here.

Teams cannot promote to be seen????

I recently saw a promo on Celestial jewelry and yet not one of my Celestial items was on there!

Have a revolving front page with all shops and items so buyers can see new things and different things when they come on! I am speaking from a buyers point of view because you had that when I first came on here in 2011 and it was great for finding things to buy.

For this contest have new judges with new and a more variety of a way of looking at and choosing things, not same old same old types of items and colors.

Have separate Jewelry and vintage category winners.

Separate furniture and clothing, and other item categories so people have a chance to win, maybe 10 different categories with finalists and winners.

If we cannot be seen and sell no reason to join this

If they fix it and all the other stuff like allowing shops to be able to see all their pages and easily click on a page, and well, makes sense, fix the search button in our shops to work so customers can search in our shop!

Right now you have to click enter to search on your computer and many buyers might not know that and just leave shops.

Fix the stats and have them update faster and show the world again, and show back farther days like it used to so we can see if buyers came on.

Take out the stupid statement in shops: "Shipping closer is better for the environment" because businesses want to sell everywhere!

The trucks and planes still go everywhere even if our packages are not on them. Stop discouraging buyers from far away to buy from us!

Please stop all the silly, annoying changes and actually do something to help us sell!

Fix searches and make them fair for all shops!!

Thanks,

Pam, PamsPawsJewelry

TheCottonLane

·1 year ago

Hooray! So excited to apply this year! Thanks for the tips!

MixiMerchCo

·1 year ago

Yay! I’m thrilled the Etsy Design Awards are back — couldn’t be happier!

DigitalGoodx

·1 year ago

Thanks for the great tips, Dayna! I’m excited to apply this year and will definitely highlight my story and process. Can’t wait to share my favorite item!

PrintableBreathing

·1 year ago

Thank you

EtnaLavaRockShop

·1 year ago

I'm sorry I can't participate; Italy is not one of the countries eligible to participate in this extraordinary competition. But I wish everyone, and the best artisans, success! Good luck!

EtnaLavaRockShop

·1 year ago

I'm sorry I can't participate; Italy is not one of the countries eligible to participate in this extraordinary competition. But I wish everyone, and the best artisans, success! Good luck!

BottegaKrua

·1 year ago

Però Israele che ammazza i bambini è nella lista dei partecipanti. Loro vanno bene

PieceByPeaceCanadian

·1 year ago

Thank you for your help Dayna! Good luck to everyone!

EvolmissingCo

·1 year ago

Yay! I'm so excited! So happy Etsy Design Awards are back.

Sanacreativerugs

·1 year ago

Thanks for the tips! I’ll be entering one of my most unique handcrafted rugs, inspired by my family’s weaving tradition and made with sustainable materials. I’ll share my process through photos and video, and make sure my listing tells the full story behind the piece. Excited to join and see all the amazing entries!

Kifzza

Sanacreativerugs

VivienFrankDesigns

·1 year ago

Looking forward. Thank you!!

SpiceUpYourStitchery

·1 year ago

I have submitted my listing, but I did not receive any confirmation after, as per my understanding, (I think I saw written somewhere while reading the guidelines), that I will receive a confirmation after I submit; yet nothing so far. I submitted it yesterday morning. Anybody with the same problem? Or is this normal, I should not worry?

INeedMamaBs

·1 year ago

Thank you Dayna for this wonderful information!

RhondasOriginals

·1 year ago

I rarely see a digital product featured, which is disappointing. I don't see people in the Etsy commercials making up any digital crafting products either. So I don't feel represented.

TheRegalScript

·1 year ago

So excited to join this year’s Etsy Design Awards! I’ll be submitting my most luxurious and unique wedding invitation design, created with timeless elegance and a personal story behind every detail. Can’t wait to share my journey with the world! #EtsyDesignAwards

SpiritualSHIMAYA

·1 year ago

I’ve been looking forward to this — thank you for the update, Daynaisom! I’ve joined every Etsy Design Awards except 2022 - I’m from Ukraine, so you can imagine why. I’ve got a special twist ready for the 7th contest. Wishing the best of luck to all participants!

DrunkCraft

·1 year ago

So exciting!

Can’t wait to see all the incredible stories and creations from this year’s entries.

Good luck to everyone entering!

theleaderleathercraf

·1 year ago

It's going to be a great year, I can't wait.

No402Studio

·1 year ago

No402Studio

Thank you for the information

LuxeStudio20

·1 year ago

Organic cotton bohenian dress

Thank you for the information!!

MiniDeviations

·1 year ago

Good luck all!!! I’m planning on submitting an original Lino art!

CozyCrochetingCorner

·1 year ago

Thank you looking forward to it!!! https://cozycrochetingcorner.etsy.com/

OldSchoolOddButCool

·1 year ago

After watching resellers win with items from China - Ali express, Temu and DH Gate, I will be passing. So many talented people and artists applied and not only was it heartbreaking to see them being completely ignored for the cheap Chinese & not handmade items , it also made it a joke of a contest.

PeachPause

·1 year ago

nice!

CeramicHandcraftVN

·1 year ago

I joined