Is anyone else discouraged by low views and low sales this season

[#1]

Since Etsy made changes to relevance search, my views and sales went way down. Usually, at this time of the year, I get enough views from search that I am overwhelmed with orders. Now, many of my items are hard to find inspite of my best efforts at good SEO. Even the items that come up well in relevance search, are getting really low views and low sales. I keep reworking my SEO and doing other promotion, but, it doesn't seem to help.

[AutumnsEchoShoppe]

So I have now purchased some valuable info on SEO's from Mary !!!! :)

[Former_Member]

I just began loading all of my jewelry as a new member, and I am also very disappointed with the results. Etsy doesn't advertise at all in the US as far a I know, so, out of 320 million people in the US, 6 people view my work??? Sounds just like doing an art show: the 'promoters' make all the money...plus the market is being saturated by clothing from a 'certain country' that has ruined our labor market in general already...Etsy may just end up being my personal website for a year, and if it doesn't pay off, I'll close it. It seems only other artists know about Etsy...not fair!

[RomaMiaTradingCo]

@Celeste, we pay Etsy to promote on Google Ads. Besides that, we have to pay additional for Etsy promotional ads.

Promotion falls strictly on the shop owners. There are plenty of ways to promote off of Etsy, including social media.

And I know plenty of people who are not shop owners who know about Etsy. It is a pretty well known site.

[PithAndRootStudio]

It's really nice to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'm really glad I found this thread. I felt like the first couple of years on Etsy my sales, views, and my own savvy and reach grew steadily. This year has been a totally different story. After a lot of work in the past few months, I feel like I've regained some of the views I lost since Etsy made changes, but my sales are still dismal. Usually my sales uptick this time of year but this year I've made only one sale since October.

I will say that I think people are coming to Etsy looking for much different things than they used to. Etsy has become a way to marshal thousands of makers to make similar "trending" items that all look alike and fit in with certain fads. At the beginning, Etsy was a place to find unique items made by creative people who had distinct visions. Now there are a few trendsetters, here and there, but mostly legions of people making similar items, and Etsy wants it that way. If most buyers are coming onto Etsy to buy clutch purses or personalized jewelry, anyone who doesn't meet that demand is going to be left in the dark. I also think those kinds of buyers are looking for low prices and are not willing to pay more for unique, handmade items.