You know this will be my third year and I still don't get it. My goal for each month was pretty small. I say was because I have made new plans for growth and new goals as well. Based on my old plans I may be looking at a short month. But not by much.
I can never tell where I am going to end up. There are months where I work hard promoting and marketing and every thing seems to bomb. And there are times when I do next to nothing and I have an amazing month. It is hard to track the flow with Etsy sometimes.
I've had my mind preoccupied with other things since March (my mom fell again and broke her arm and has needed daily help) so I haven't had time to check into my stats for my own shop. But I've been seeing this question so often in the forums, I finally took some time to compare sales /views to last years figures-- and I've noticed a difference in my stats for this year. Especially for May.
So far for May, I've had only half as many orders as I had last May. (I'm over $400 behind last May so far.) As I said, I've been busy taking care of my mom -- so I haven't worried too much about my shop. I've kept up on orders and customer service responsibilities-- but I haven't had any time to add many new things to my shop. I'm not too surprised to see that reflected in my stats-- I don't think many shops can succeed on auto pilot. :)
Now that my mom is in a rehab facility working to get stronger, my plan is to look for ways to strengthen my shop as well. I plan to take advantage of the lull in sales to create as many new things for my shop as possible. I spent last week working on SEO, because I don't think I'll ever find myself satisfied that I've got everything just perfect there! (I used Etsy Rank, Marmalead, and Whatify tools to look at my shop from different perspectives. Very educational!) I also plan to update many of my older photos that aren't quite up to snuff... I just hope there is enough time left in the year to make up the deficit so that I can reach my 2016 goals for my shop!
Only 5 Sales so far... I've been posting dozens of new items too.. Just got over 100 and was expecting my views and sales to be a little bit better than this..
It has been slow ever since the week of Christmas. January - 11 sales Feb - 16 sales March - 16 sales April - 13 sales May - 15 sales...so far. Interestingly tho - I was just complaining that I had only 10 sales this month and suddenly on Friday got an additional 5 sales all in one day! They were sales for all different things such as quilting fabrics, purse handles, a beanie baby, a vintage book, and hand painted gardening gloves. That was such a pleasant surprise and an all time daily sale record for me. Hopefully it's a sign that my sales will be improving. <3 Jewel
Wow! What a weekend! I got 7 more sales of 16 items! I feel so guilty for complaining that it's been slow since Christmas now. I should mention that I've been adding new listings daily for the past couple of weeks and I think that has helped. I now have 300 listings.
I've had 27 sales so while it's a fair bit off my best sale months which were Jan and Feb it wasn't too bad, I noticed sales picked up at the end of the month.
I guess all's well that ends well... I still ended up being behind last May by 10 orders, but I actually ended up only $12 behind in revenue. I have a very loyal customer base, with a good percentage of repeat customers. I'm very thankful for them when the slow times come around, because they can find my shop directly when my shop appears to be invisible in searches.
Hopefully all the time spent working on SEO during the lull in activity will continue to help me in the future. Now I'm working on adding new listings. :)
May was a great month for us and we're ever so grateful.
We've been adding new listings each day and putting in more effort with SEO and photography and have seen some really positive results. We're crossing our fingers and toes that the luck continues for us into June.
Hope you all had a great May and that June is off to a fantastic start! :)
I got 37 sales in May which is a tab bit below average for my shop so far. I have noticed that my views are greater than 50% lower compared to last year. Favorite to view ratio is strong so I expect eventually they will turn into sales. Happy Friday to you all!
I'm new and opened my shop around the middle of April. I've had a lot of views (around 70) but no sales. Does this sound like normal numbers? I'm open to any and all feedback! Thanks!
Elise - That sound normal. I get 2000 views and six sales... so 70 view is really not much. I think shops who have been running for a while tend to get 1 sale per 100 view. Don't give up...the sales do come!
