How to protect my work from being copied

[GirdThySword]

I just began with Etsy not too long ago and I have listed over 30 items. No sales yet but I am concerned with how to protect my work. Anyone can simply copy-paste what I have shown and I am wondering what other people do to protect their work. I tried sort of pasting some red letters with my store name across the work on one item but it looks bad and you can't see my work very well. Since I have been developing my things for over 20 years and don't want to just let anyone copy it, how do I protect it while still showing what I have for sale? I probably could list over 900 items but since I haven't sold anything on Etsy yet, I don't know if I should keep listing more items. Maybe there is something I'm supposed to be doing that I don't know? Can anyone help me with this concern?

[SnarkFactory]

You can't truly avoid the threat of someone copying your work. Your number one concern should be making your listings beautiful. I tried doing watermarks, but watermarks will prevent me from being on the home page (if I could ever be lucky enough to be considered). I threw out the watermarks and put low res images up of my art. A potential customer could download the picture and make their own prints, but they'd be crap quality. So I figure, any person that's cheap enough to do that probably isn't worth my time as a seller anyway. As far as artists stealing my work, that'll always be a threat to any artist. You've got to be pretty successful for someone to consider replicating your stuff in an effort to make money. By that time, you'll already be successful enough that you probably won't be too concerned about their cheap replicas.
Also, you should keep listing. You've got to really dive head first into etsy to be successful. At about 100 listings, and countless hours of promoting, take a step back and see if it's worth it to you. I like it, it's thrilling knowing that my work is slowly be scattered around the US. From the research I've done, with 900 listings you're pretty much guaranteed sales.

[HeritageCurrentCo]

I don't watermark, but I do digitally sign my prints in the bottom corner.

Ditto to the low-resolution images as well. If anyone steals them, they can't print them at the correct size without them looking terrible.

[GigisHandcrafts]

To address the latter part of what I think you're asking in regard to whether or not you are doing something you are supposed to be doing, if I may, here are a few things that I've learned by researching the web, reading the Etsy Seller's Handbook and watching some of the Online Labs here at Etsy.

I am in no way an expert, and forgive me if you've heard any of this before, but in case you haven't (and feel overwhelmed like I do - even still after a year at this), please read on...

Look at your Shop and item-specific stats that are already available to you at no cost; no additional set up. These will provide you details about your overall shop and item views, where the traffic came from (inside / outside Etsy, i.e., Google search results), stats on what Tags or Keywords drove the highest views, came up in searches the most often and how many people favorited / curated in treasuries.

You can use these stats to determine what keywords / item titles and descriptions are bringing you the most viewers. If you are unhappy with the numbers, here are some things I have found helpful:

Your page / item titles count towards finding you in search just like the first 15 or so letters of your Item Descriptions and your individual Keyword/Tags. From time to time Etsy updates the mechanics of how searches are performed, but the last time I checked, it was a well known fact that Etsy bases their searches on different criteria than Google search does. So you need to be aware of how to be found in both and modify accordingly.

There is one particular external tool that I use that is free and yet provides a wealth of information on popularity of keywords in Google searches (and Tags on Etsy), including estimated competition and number of global and local searches. It is the Keyword Planner by Google Adwords. The Keyword Planner provides robust filtering capabilities so you can be super picky with what keywords you choose to add. For example, you can filter keywords based on the following ways:
•Estimated Search Volume: include or exclude keywords that fall above or below a desired monthly search volume
•Keyword Competition: you can narrow your list based on estimated advertiser competition
•Filter by Keyword: you can specify to include or exclude keywords containing specific terms

I think its intended purpose was to help advertisers who pay Google per click (they are the annoying pop up and static ads on the right hand side of most web pages you visit) determine the best way to drive the most relevant consumers to their websites. However, I found it extremely useful in targeting keywords / tags to use on my Etsy item listings.

For example, I searched for the generic word “Christian” and it provided the following:

Competition: Low
Global monthly searches: 37,200,000
Local monthly searches: 13,600,000

It also provided 100 additional similar keywords/various forms of my keyword and their competition level, global and local search numbers. So for example when I looked back at your item listings, I don’t think I ever saw the word "Christian" used in any of your listings. But from what the Google keyword tool shows, the competition for this word is low (which means you won’t be competing with a billion other people to be listed first in the search results) AND it is a very popular search term. Thirty-seven BILLION people search that word per month.

Lastly, to your question of listing new items – I believe people like to see LOTS of choices because it makes your shop more enticing. I don't know what it's called, but the basic psychology of it goes like this:

Think about your reaction when you go to Hallmark or wherever and there is only 1 or 2 greeting cards left in the Mother’s Day section…do you think, “(shew) there’s one left for me!” or do you think, “dang, all the good ones are gone?” It’s all about perception.