How to Take Etsy Listing Videos With Your Smartphone
Learn how to easily shoot Etsy listing videos with just a smartphone, bringing your products to life.
I use my Canon 80D for listing shots, but you don’t need this kit for your videos to be clean and effective.
Etsy listings and I have a love hate relationship. It’s been an uphill battle getting my listings to look professional and it always seems like my competitors are ahead of the game with brighter, better, more professional photos. With Etsy’s new option to add listing videos, however, you can get ahead just using your smartphone by making clean, simple, and very effective listing videos.
Etsy Listing Videos with iPhone
Set you backdrop
Use clean and simple backgrounds for listing shots and videos. In fact, just use the same background as you do for the listing, it’s all ready. Avoid clutter, even if you style your shots with tools, materials and artsy touches (paint brushes, spools of yarn, etc.) Try plan wood or white paper for a clean, simple look.
Make room on your phone
For a content creator, there is no worse feeling than that little pop up notification that your storage is full. Avoid the inevitable frustration by continuously clearing out phone storage by using an online external drive, and prep you phone with at least 2 gigabytes of free storage before starting your video.
Scene lighting
Your scene should be lit with natural, indirect light. Avoid using a spotlight or direct light to one side as it will warp the image and create a silhouette effect. Ideally, shoot in a bright space that is lit from all angles, with daylight, not artificial lighting. If you’re shooting outside, make sure it’s not too sunny as the same effect will happen.
Steady your phone
Even if you think you’re hand isn’t shaking, it is. Use a tripod or camera phone clip. If you don’t have one, just make your own with a stack of books or a chair, etc. and lean the phone up against it toward your object. For shots from above, I do just hold my phone, but in the editing process, take out any footage that is extra shaky.
Shot details
Going in for the video and then having the wrong dimensions or resolution once you upload them will also cause you a massive amount of frustration. Let’s avoid that!
Resolution: when possible, use the camera on the back of your phone, not the front, as this will give you a better quality. Set your resolution to 1080p HD at 30 frames per second (FPS), on iPhone go to Settings -> Camera -> Record video and then select the option.
Focus: by tapping the screen of your phone, you should be able to auto-focus on your item throughout. Test this as each phone is a bit different, but on iphone hold your finger on the place you want focused on until the camera indicates the AE/AF lock is activated.
Aspect Ratio: It’s very important to keep your listing photos homogeneous throughout, which means that you may need to adjust your video aspect ratio for each listing. Normally phone cameras will shoot an aspect ratio (width to height dimension) of 9:16 which can be viewed oddly once you upload.
Editing
It is totally up to you whether you want to edit your video in an app, but some editing is required regardless.
There are many apps on smartphones that allow simple video editing for free. You can also just use the edit in your iPhone folder settings. Either way, during the editing process, crop or expand the video to fit your listing size (5:4, for example).
Some people recommend not adjusting brightness or saturation on your video, but I would experiment with this. Sometimes, a little brightening, saturation or contrast can make your video a bit more magical. Just make sure it’s not overdone as that can come across as unprofessional, and misleading, especially on a video.
Final Touches
Whether you’re using an editing app or not, make sure there isn’t any filler space at the beginning or end of your video as the video can only be 5 to 15 seconds. By filler I mean space where you item isn’t close enough, is out of focus, etc. There won’t be any sound on the video when you put it into Etsy, but I generally take the sound out of my videos in the editing app/Photo editing settings, for future use.
Uploading
Check our your video a few final times and then it’s time to upload! I generally upload videos to my google drive, download them to my hard drive after, organize them into the same folder as the listing photos for that item, and then I can use them where and whenever I need them.
In your Etsy shop, go to your listing manager, choose the listing you want and click edit listing. Right below the photos section there will be a place to “Upload Video”. Click there, choose your video, and hit publish once it finished uploading.
Best of luck!
Check out my latest listing with my iPhone video here >> https://www.etsy.com/listing/864180812/custom-watercolor-house-art-home