Etsy Seller Blog

Slow Etsy sales in 2023?

For those who have been around for a while...

In the Etsy community, a number of sellers have enjoyed moderate to fairly good success in terms of sales for a few years now. However, you may have noticed a pattern over the last couple years. It seems your normal number of sales have slowed down. This is despite the feeling that there is more interest and action on the website itself. You've tried everything the experts suggest: better keywords, optimizing your SEO, more listings (and relistings).

But the truth is, that's not the whole picture.

We've got a different angle to suggest (with the research and stats to back it up).

First, some Etsy facts to see what the market is currently like:

1. 64% of visits to an Etsy shop is done from a mobile -- but only 47% are buying on their mobile. This means that customers are finding you on their phones but buying your products from their computer.
2. 87% of Etsy sellers are women and 73% of all Etsy sellers consider their shop a business.
3. For every hour spent making a product, an Etsy seller will match that on business or other related activities to maintain their shop. This NEEDS to be taken into account when pricing products.
   
   Source: http://bit.ly/2vxgd4X

A snapshot of how Etsy sellers spend their time:

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  Source: http://bit.ly/2vxgd4X

Consumers are bargain hungry

From the data, we can gather that while Etsy continues to attract new customers...they're actually less valuable customers in the long run than those that previously spent on the platform. Each of these customers are less willing to spend a large amount of capital. This, in turn, is great for Etsy as they receive a $0.20 kickback of every listing sold. More sales at a lesser dollar amount means more in listing fees earned for Etsy as a platform.

Additionally, this could affect the search engine optimization that the platform is providing customers searching for items as well. We won't dwell on this for too long though. Algorithms are almost always impossible for the everyday user to figure out -- only the wizards who developed them are able to fully understand how they work.

After ALL THIS INFORMATION... how do you turn around low Etsy sales?

The answer is simple: provide some bargain items in addition to your high priced merchandise. Consider offering less expensive, ready to ship options in conjunction with your usual product line. We don't suggest that you cut corners or quality, but instead, offer items with your style that are just less expensive.

Additionally, offering sales or discounts on multiple products/shipping may persuade your customers to make more purchases. EtsyMarketingTool can help you change prices across all of your products or specific sections of products within your shop with their Sale Event Manager and/or Repricing Tool. Heavily promote price changes and bargains on social media to capture the "low spend" audience that may be watching your shop but haven't made a purchase yet.

Use automation tools to cut down on shop management

In addition to using tools to change prices in your shop (and test the waters of the bargain hunters) you can also reduce prices on your items by automating your shop management. Specific tools, such as EtsyMarketingTool, can help to seriously cut down on product management in your shop. With tools like automatic social media posting, holiday banners, keyword tag tool, and automatic listing renewal...your shop management time cost can seriously decrease. Take advantage of software like SellerMarketingTool to truly drive traffic and boost sales on auto-pilot!