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? 😢

I’ve bought a necklace and earrings this week.

Yeah I’m the same, plus the fact you know it’s coming the next day rather than (god forbid) 5 days time! It is just convience

Ooh I like the sound of that but no, not me 😂 hope temu don’t catch on to that one!

Pretty sure it's legal if you have it listed at the original price for a certain amount of time before a sale - unethical though, I agree.

I don't think it works really either as most things have a ceiling price - so the stuff I sell normally goes for £35, which is inline with other shops. If I suddenly listed it at £70 and put a 50% sale on customers would know it was only worth £35 and I was trying to con them. Risky strategy - though I see it a lot on sites like Amazon so maybe it works 🤷🏻‍♀️

You say you had regular customers, do you keep in touch with them?

I searched tonight the similar products to mine and mine are all around £30ish, some slightly over. I usually think if it’s for a gift you can’t stretch it much further than that though by the time they add postage or itl be off putting.

The shop similar to me has a 46% off sale and the full price is marked as £75 or something 🫨 they can’t be serious!

If you opened a case Etsy should have refunded you through their protection scheme.

On instagram I do and have lots of the same ones messaging me or coming back but I don’t email them other than Etsy sending thank you offers

I think this is it. Etsy does still have good shops on it, selling genuine handmade goods, but you have to wade through lots of identical mass-produced tat to find them. I don't know what the answer is.

Haha no luckily not 🤣

Create new product lines ?
Branch out to ebay ?

Have you considered selling directly to small retail independents. I sell my items this way.trade prices but bulk orders

This is exactly it and it’s a science degree to keep up with what new thing you’re meant to be doing this week on it. A social media ‘planner’ I saw tonight was suggesting 4 stories a day, 2 reels a week, 3 carousels (didn’t even know what that was) then a poll or something too. That’s fine if you’re a huge company and there’s a team purely doing that but when you’re a one man band and you’re the buyer, photographer, social media person, secretary, accountant etc it is literally impossible to do it all, especially with kids 🤯 I’m scrambling about when they’re in bed trying to think of what I could schedule to post but it’s so hard to stay hip and cool when I don’t have a spare second in the day to study these things 😂

Unfortunately I think it's a sign of the times. I am self employed and work has just fizzled up and died out.

I am trying something new at the moment, but it that also goes tits up then it will be back to paid employment.

I love the idea of Etsy but when I go looking there my searches are swamped with mass produced tat crap temu type stuff, and I can't actually find the decent stuff from genuine good sellers.
I was looking for something specific recently, and only because I was feeling stubborn and had time did I manage to find what I was after. I combed through pages and pages of crap and finally found a seller who made their own stuff and I bought it. Rarely will I manage that though.

My friend makes gorgeous goats milk soap but between Etsy charging her more and sales dropping, she's put it to sleep for now.

When these online things like Etsy, Airbnb, Uber driving, dropshipping, Onlyfans(!) sprung up there was easy money to be made by the early adopters. Then they've taken off enormously and the market gets swamped, or over regulated, or a low cost competitor arrives. (Or all of the above!). I think as an investment or employment strategy they're good for a few years then you're best to move onto the next big thing.

Just adding to the chorus of Etsy being full of crap these days. Its search function is beyond shit. You get tons of irrelevant results, and it's a drag to plough through the crap to find the nice vintage or handmade things you want. I think it's this that has destroyed your business.

Incidentally, I discovered Vinted lately (yes, late to the party) and though it has its drawbacks what is fantastic is that it's almost all private UK sellers, selling their old stuff.

I'm surprised at all these Etsy comments, I have a friend who sells digital products and she's been doing well there with no marketing at all over the past couple of months (due to family issues).

I spend at least £1k a month on there (I buy a lot of bits of homemade furniture and art for different buildings), I'm guessing that most here who think Etsy is in decline is just a mumsnet opinion. I do agree there's more junk on there than there used to be though.

I think most people who are successful take the Etsy sale and use that to get the customer off Etsy and on to their own website for future sales (including cards with free gifts for signing up to their mailing list or shopping via their website for their next order, or offering exclusives only available from your website). You shouldn't be taking orders through Instagram message, direct them to your website. Instagram is no way secure enough to be sending/receiving personal data on people either; you want to be using it for giveaways so people tag friends. Most people batch their content shoots and schedule out a month ahead (or at least a week). I even know someone who does six months' worth of shoots in a day for content.

Basically you want small Etsy items to get the customer and brand awareness, and then get them to your website however you can for the big orders, mystery boxes, sales, 3-for-2 deals etc.

Boohooman always say that they're having a 50%-60% sale but they never ever ever have the items at the full price. Not sure how they get away with it.

I went on Etsy tonight for a particular porcelain platter I'd seen when googling. The amount of irrelevant stuff I had to search through. I gave up. Found it on eBay

I shop on line all the time, but don’t use Etsy as I find it overwhelming. Perhaps there are just too many sellers on there?

I also think etsy has had its day. I used to buy from sellers on there ALL THE TiME. But then I noticed more and more lower quality stuff infiltrating, with so much coming from Chinese factories.

Do you just sell on Etsy? If you do, maybe you need to think about selling across a range of outlets. I sell antiques and vintage. I sell online through eBay and Etsy, but I also rent space in 3 different shops and I do Fairs as well. I find that they slow down and pick up at different times so they balance each other out.

DO NOT do PPC/Google ads unless you hire a reputable marketing agency to help you with this. It’s the easiest way to loose money, OP.

I say this as an experienced digital marketer…