WHY is Etsy constantly 'testing'?

[Former_Member]

Anyone else sick of the constant 'testing' that Etsy subjects us to?
We're in a niche market, and people that buy our products are people that use very specific search words. We average daily views in the high 100's, but every single time Etsy announces their idiotic testing crap, we get knocked down to 20-60 views per day for weeks on end. The difference is like night & day.
One can only assume that Etsy is being run by a bunch of people who have zero experience in anything other than IT work, so they focus on making constant changes to the system, because they're too stupid to listen to their sellers and do something that would actually be helpful; like putting that money to good use and getting us some damn phone support, and adding categories and variations to our listings, etc. Their one trick pony show is completely unbalanced and absurd.
*Idiocracy has become a documentary*

[ThreeRiversForge]

I was just talking about this with another shop owner.

I have no idea what etsy is thinking, but I also have no idea how you're getting daily views over 100. I've tried everything I can think of to get views/traffic, but breaking 60 in a day is something remarkable for me.

Looking at the stats from last year, views steadily increased month after month. This would lead you to think I had a pretty good handle on the matter and what I was doing was working.

This year, though, shows a strong downward trend in views starting in January. If things continue apace, I'll end the year at the same point I started two years ago.

Sales on etsy have only been slightly better and I attribute that to my adding more products to the Catalog of Iron Goodness. One can only imagine where sales would have been if all the testing hadn't messed things up.

It's pure speculation, of course, but something has been driving views down because I haven't really changed what I do in terms of networking and advertising. If I'm doing the same thing I did last year, you'd think that views would remain relatively level rather than declining. As far as I can tell, the only thing that saved my bacon was offering new products.