My Etsy shop is sooo quiet now

[WeRD]

I opened my Etsy shop a few years ago and was blown away by the success of it. I managed to leave my 9-5 and live off of it alone. It was great, so flexible and I was making enough money not to need anything else, I couldn’t believe it. Fast forward a few years and the sales have all but dried up. I don’t know if it’s mainly that people just don’t have the extra cash anymore to spend on ‘nice things’. I’ve had to put my prices up a bit due to my increasing costs or it’s hardly worthwhile selling my items. I don’t know what to do 😞 I have a fairly decent social media following but it doesn’t seem to convert to sales anymore. I pay for ads sometimes but it’s not worth it for the number of orders I get in return. Do I need to shut up shop and go back to a ‘proper job’? How else could I save it now? 😢

After buying so many shoddily made things from sellers on Etsy that have rave reviews I now give it a wide berth. The platform is a shambles now. If you’re selling items that people need and want then I’d suggest finding an alternative platform to sell through.

@SpidersAreShitheads that's such a kind helpful post.

Echoing what others have said - Etsy is not what it used to be and the promoted posts you have to wade through really put me off. Amazon is the same but the convenience of it outweighs the frustration.

I think making it as easy as possible for the customer to buy is key - if I have to click around to find info or discover loads of extra charges at checkout I just wont bother.

I've been put off buying any marketplace stuff, because its become such a chore trying to determine the wheat from the chaff.
Delivery is often an issue too, items from independent sellers generally incur a delivery cost, and can take ages. If I'm paying a delivery cost I want it quickly, ie next or named day (I'm happy to pay an extra quid or whatever for next day).
I also have amazon prime, and I always check the prime box in searches so I know I'll get 'free' one day delivery (and I only buy things that are sold and dispatched by amazon, I don't buy from independent sellers on amazon for the aforementioned reasons).

I no longer buy or sell on Etsy. Too much tat, too many fake goods and their charges are too high.

As you have a good social media following already have you thought of your own website? They don’t cost a lot to set up and you have complete control. Also having done the work of finding a potential customer, you don’t have the platform dangling your competitors in front of then!

Depending on what you sell have you tried Folksy, I hear it’s what Etsy used to be like in the good old days.

I know this probably isn't relevant in your case but I dont buy from Etsy much anymore as the majority of items/sellers are in the US and the delivery costs are very high. I know you can filter to UK only but the choice then goes down massively. Etsy just doesn't work as a buying platform for me.

Etsy is overloaded and messy and algorithms will be making it hard for your products to get visibility. Still it might be worth asking a friend to do a bit of a mystery shopper process - get them to look for an item you sell (in incognito mode, to imitate a new customer), see what they come across, get them to find your products and competing products and read the descriptions, prices etc and see how they measure up? It can be very enlightening and you might find a few small changes you can make to make your products more appealing.

Have you ever sold on street markets? They vary hugely in terms of success but they give you good visibility and once people know you they are more likely to look for you and buy direct.

Depending on what you sell, I know an Etsy jewellery seller who got fed up of it and now sells mostly through Instagram/facebook/craft fairs and direct to shops.

As @StripyBathTowel says plan a launch soon. This seller I know is always launching new ranges not necessarily limited edition but to tie in with eg the Barbie film.

I love street markets! There was a great one local to me in South Norwood by the clocktower but it’s now closed! I bought some glass and metal jewellery, a fabric cover for plates etc and an aromatherapy massage oil there last time I was there plus other bits. Great at eg Christmas for gifts.

I stopped using Etsy when it became swamped with fake shops pretending to be the artistic handmade sellers I used to love. They all seem to be based in China with fake reviews.

I used to love it and bought loads of gifts and household decorations from there.

They should have a way of filtering out these kinds of businesses so only the truly independent ones can thrive again. I might actually email them to complain!

I’ll also add the few jewellery designers and small businesses I know have found it incredibly hard in the past few years and post Covid/Brexit especially. These are people who had shops in streets, an online shop and had good business and customers. Greedy landlords and rising bills and costs mean about 3 independent shops (hairdressers, vintage shop and interior design/furniture shop) all either closed down or gone online. Shame really.

Someone should send this thread to Etsy! Although they must be making money from the crappy fake sellers.

I'm sorry I haven't read the whole thread so if I'm repeating I apologise but if I go on Etsy and the seller hasn't got in the spiel that they are UK based then I don't buy anything after being hit with customs duties after stupid Brexit. Also it has to be front and centre because I'm not trawling though every word written to find the info - I'll just swap to a page I know that is. It has stopped me buying a lot of things recently, I've just decided I'll go without.

This isn't about misleading customers. This is about sellers having to find ways around Etsys ever growing list of filters. We can list something for €20 with no sale on and it gets pushed down in the search and never sells or we can list it for €22 with a 10% off coupon and it will get many more views and sell far quicker. Either way, the customer pays the same. We price our items very reasonably so I have no qualms about it.

I have an Etsy shop, and keep an eye on the Etsy forums. Most sellers are having a quiet time at the moment - December was the quietest one in 10 years. Etsy have recently changed their policies to exclude drop shipping and the influx of tat to return to their original ethos of handmade goods, so it will take a while to turn that around; and of course it depends on what you sell and make, whether your market is saturated, and whether you can adapt.

The scarcity thing definitely works - and is very much A Thing in Marketing. I know this from my job.

I agree with the poster upthread re shipping times

I stopped using Etsy a while back as I had two bad experiences back to back with this. One seller was incredibly rude to me and took two months to refund me. The other item arrived two weeks after Christmas.

Unfairly probably I now associate Etsy with unreliability.

Isn't it? It's what DFS/SCS do all the time and they're still going.

OP, I've never bought from Etsy before because the last time I looked it seemed full of mass-produced stuff, which I don't want. I want the handmade items if that's what I'm on there for.

Etsy, as a brand, should be reviewing what's being listed on their site. It seems to be the same issue as on Ebay where tat from China is being listed as located in the UK. Very irritating.

Can you complain to Etsy, ask what they're doing to help the sellers they set up the platform for?

Do you ship overseas? If you do/did, Brexit must have had a huge impact. I ordered a picture to be delivered as a Xmas gift to the EU. On the Etsy page, there was a paragraph saying that customs fees were covered by the seller. When it arrived, customs fees were still due. The seller did reimburse but I was left with the impression that the paragraph about custom charges being covered was not genuine.

I was recently looking for a silver ring - budget £150. Most of what I saw was cheap crap that was available for less elsewhere.

I have lost all trust in Etsy and associate it with cheap tat mostly nowadays.

Between custom charges and cheap tat, it put me off buying from Etsy completely.

Etsy tried to expand massively riding the Covid wave/demand and doesn't like paying for staff to moderate/control the content or for customer service.
Then they invited in the drop shippers and now are trying to close the stable door when the horse has bolted!
They had issues in the US and that didn't help, I'm not sure which direction they want to take the business, but it's a wake-up call for anyone who relies on one platform to sell their wares. Etsy are either going to be like eBay (but less user friendly) or they are going to have to clear the decks and try and rebuilt customer and suppliers trust in them which will involve a big injection of cash and I'm not sure they have it in the UK.

Wolf & Badger is great if you have the kind of product that would sell on there and can increase your brand profile, I've spotted designers on there out in real life shopping and it gives them credibility and also will see brands etc one there and find their social media/websites etc.

Yes get your own website if you tend to sell to anyone over 30 - we want to see a website (younger market just need SM)
If you have a decent SM following then you are halfway there, so that's brilliant news.

I used to work in a craft business which only sold online, they didn't invest in new products, development or marketing and assumed they could coast once their business got to a certain size, unfortunately this isn't the case and most businesses have to work really hard to reach new customers and retain them.
I'm now working for a similar craft business who do run it properly and have a much more solid/stable and diverse customer base including working with some high end retailers.
It's hard work, and not what you would want to be spending your time doing when you probably would like to be making instead.

PM me your site if you want me to have a look and give you some suggestions because I know a few niche high end retail buyers who I may be able to suggest to you

I used to buy a lot on Etsy but some of the sellers I used quit mentioning that Etsy was making it impossible to function, exploiting their work etc. Put me off using the platform to be honest.

I think this is it - it was a great space for artisan items and for creative’s to market themselves when it started. Now you get pages and pages of anyone and everyone selling home made soaps n candles from kits at Hobbycraft and it’s just too much effort to wade through.

The most successful arty people I know, now pitch up at all the Farmers markets and craft fares, have their own websites, do workshops etc., ie, they don’t rely on Etsy as their way of getting customers any more.

It's like "influencers", there were a few back in the day so their presence was notable, now everyone wants to be "famous" and the market is saturated by idiots, doing stupid little dances in public, or talking to their phones with a stupid affectation and making stupid hand signals while sticking their tongues out and blinking.

There is very little money in stupidity.

Your shop is also suffering from the same problem, there are now too may other shops online so nobody ever gets the chance to see yours.

I second ppl who recommend you switch to Shopify and open elsewhere
With Shopify, you can manage at the same time your own shop, IG, Facebook, TikTok, Amazon(?) in one place

If all your sales are coming from Instagram as I believe I have read, Etsy is actually not doing anything for your except hosting your listings (and taking large fees for it)

If you have a decent amount of faithful followers you have never really interacted with, you can start with them to build deeper engagement via email/newsletter/etc.

But platforms charge very high fees to host listings and drive traffic, it s crazy
I sell online directly via Ebay, Etsy
For the same product, to make the same exact ££ net profit,
I need to sell
45% more on eBay
75% more on Etsy than my price on Shopify (Shopify does not charge a lot because they won t drive traffic to you, it s up to you to bring ppl to your shop)

Sadly, clients fleece themselves when they shop via big platforms, sponsored items, etc. 45% or 75% is a high price to pay for convenience...

If you want to save ££ and support independent businesses, look them out outside of Amazon, ebay, Etsy, etc.
You ll get a better price and the independent seller a better profit

I agree that the British Craft House is great to buy from, but I can't recommend it as a seller.

There's a FB group for help and the other sellers there are very friendly and helpful, but the owner keeps things pretty cliquey. Her favourite handful of sellers get tons of exposure, prime positions every Christmas/Easter etc, and the rest really have to do a LOT to gain any visibility.

I got tired of snippy/defensive remarks at any perceived criticism, irritated at the constant promotion of her favourites, and - most importantly - my sales were nowhere near as good as on other platforms, despite doing all SEO and following the site guidelines.

So sorry to be a downer OP, but just my two penneth! I would reiterate though that's it's a fabulous site for people buying - I still use BCH for nearly all my purchases, rather than Etsy, but can't recommend as a seller.