I think my shop has too many listings and is overwhelming my customers

[NaughtyNaughty]

I started my shop in 09 way before the marvelous drop down menu options were introduced.I originally created a separate listing for each color and size I would offer in that design . Now I have around 10 pages of listings where if I narrowed it down it would probably cut in half. I think having so many listing is creating confusions and it is just overwhelming my customers. The problem is I have built up pretty good ranks in the searches and I am afraid I will lose those standings by deactivating some listings, as well as lose customers who might have favorited them with the intentions of coming back later to purchase.

Does anyone have advice on what I should do?

Thanks
Terry
"Pantymaker " :)

[Former_Member]

maybe you could start to narrow it down slowly?? like get rid of a few listings a month??

[Former_Member]

Hi Terry, I am new at Etsy but I try to analyse your problem thinking: "sometimes new look can help". What I noticed that some of your items are the same or look the same. As these one that is taken from different pages http://www.etsy.com/listing/36078432/tan-panties-lingerie-boyshort-small?ref=shop_home_active. Maybe it is my computer's fault?

[Former_Member]

Or from the 2nd page
http://www.etsy.com/listing/55847657/pink-lingerie-panties-boyshort-medium?ref=shop_home_active
and from the 5th page
http://www.etsy.com/listing/56721157/pink-lingerie-panties-boyshorts-small?ref=shop_home_active
You can easily cut one off :)

[Former_Member]

Hi Terry,

I am a much newer shop than you, so take it for what is worth.
I would not deactivate any listings yet. I've heard that each of your listings works as a piece of marketing bringing different people based on their SEO. Maybe you don't want to deactivate a bunch of listings and just have one per style.
First I would add all option to all of your listings (I see you already did that in some) and remove some details from your tittles. For example, in this listing:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/73806581/aqua-blue-sleepwear-lingerie-retro-bra?ref=shop_home_active
the tittle specify that this item is aqua blue and small, but you give the options to pick other colors and sizes.
I would also add a picture of the colors you have available.
After that you'll be able to see which listings do better, and deactivate slowly. Maybe you'll want to keep a couple of your better performing listings per style.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[NaughtyNaughty]

The example with the pink is exactly why I want to whittle these listing downs. It is just hard to tell which one is the best preforming listing. It is strange but I could have a listing that has more views,sales and favorites but it pages behind the exact same listings under a different size with much fewer views, sales, and favorites. Then there are some that have high stats and are much higher than the others. I just feel like it is a gamble.

I have a color card that I am going to be adding to each of the listings. and I agree I am going to take the color and size out of the listings.

Thanks for the advice! It is nice to have some fresh eyes on my baby :)

[NaughtyNaughty]

I have a color card that I am going to be adding to each of the listings. and I agree I am going to take the color and size out of the listings. ** Take it out of the listing title is what I meant**

[WhatCandySays]

No, I don't think there are too many listings in your store.

Last year, I had more than 600 items in my store. I believe it was the main reason that I got great sales for V-Day. There were soooooooo many V-Day items when that time, the more listings I had, the more chance they could show up in the first page when customers did search.

This year I am going to have more than 800 items, I wish I can have more!

[Limitz]

Why won't you change the first image and show one from the rest of the 4 photographs? this way, u'll still have this amount of items, but you will show the same items in various ways...