Worst November So Far?

[MythOfTheWild]

Hi all - I'm not here to complain, I'm just wondering if many other people are having a bad November?
I'm usually doing three to four times better than I presently am with orders coming in from overseas (domestic orders usually come in at the end of November and through December) but so far this month - and we're half way through - I'm doing terribly.

I think (and I'm so sorry to bring it up) it may have something to do with the political turmoil in the US, because most of my sales come from there at this time of the year.
I was wondering if anyone was noticing the same thing? Or perhaps this is just going to be a bad season for me - slipped off of relevancy or something frustrating like that...

[Former_Member]

November has pretty slow for me so far, so was October. It's a bit out of the ordinary - this summer I was selling everything left and right, and usually that's a slow time because most people are on vacation. But for the holiday season, I'm not faring as well as I used to - I'm working on adding more variety to my store and better designs too that might make a more cohesive look and style.

[AngelaGrahamPottery]

so far i have had 2 orders.... one of which i need to replace one of the items, as he didn't think it was up to snuff.
lots of viewings... but not much action.

[StripesAndChevron]

My views are way down but number of orders and revenue is up...go figure?

[fishcouple]

I am sorry to hear that.

I had a very slow November last year but my revenue this year is fairly good (more than doubled) compared to the same period last year.

Hope everyone's sale will pick up soon!

[HildaLea]

My sales are down this November compared to last year. I was wondering the same thing re: politics possibly impacting things, Kim. Lots of folks have their mind elsewhere right now (which is fair!).

Hoping things turn around, though they aren't terrible so far -- just less than last year.

[Former_Member]

It's been very slow for me too. I'm loosing all faith in Etsy. This time last year I was overloaded with orders :(

[TwistsnGems]

Had record sales in October, and not even 1 since the first of Nov. Last year Nov. was my record month, so I am still hoping for a rush of orders in the next 2 weeks.

Don't lose heart, Maja. . .You can never tell which moment those sales will turn around. At least the views are up, and you never know who is just waiting until pay day.

[Former_Member]

Thank you Melinda! You are probably right.

[BeBunny]

It's been very slow for me too. I'm loosing all faith in Etsy. I am starting in february and I have only 2 sales. Very bad.

[SageNThymeDesigns]

I have a friend that's been in the handmade biz for a long time and he's noticed a trend that folks tend to stop making purchases when there's an election or lots of 'scary' news floating about. No clue if that's a real trend or not, but I love the idea of blaming the election for my slower than normal sales!

My sales finally picked up a bit this past week.

[BlackCatStudio98]

My sales aren't as high as they are in an average month let alone in November.

[Former_Member]

November is usually slow in the first half of the month!
Families can feel the debt of the beginning of the school year come in, the pre holiday itch, halloween could be a busy week, thanksgiving etc.
It usually always picks up a littler past midway through the month of november!
Like now!! :-)
Keep up the good work everyone

John
Aries Den

[CircusOfCelebrations]

My sales are just as good or better than last year so far in November, all but one in the US, and I only sell a couple of items in Canada, and no where else internationally. I think that part of the Etsy algorithm that changed this year puts people in the shopper's home country, higher up in the search, right? Perhaps that is one big thing that has changed and resulted in your drop in sales. I hope things turn around for you. I do think the election and all the protesting afterwards has been a distraction from the Holiday shopping season, but I saw a big upswing last week, and then drop off now while people are preparing for Thanksgiving. Then everyone is going to want everything "yesterday" so get your products and shipping supplies ready! Good luck everyone!

[Former_Member]

This is definitely the worst November ever since I started here on Etsy, because I haven´t had a sale since September and I feel like it has a lot to do with Etsys search algorithm.
Until last year the majority of my customers came from the US, this year the gap between views from overseas and Europe is not that big. Unfortunately Etsy is not that popular in Europe, let alone Austria.

[littleglamour]

My views are down a bit but everything else is way up - I have been here for 7 holiday seasons so far....after this weekend it usually gets crazy for everyone so don't lose faith! (and I am in good old Canada and most of my sales have always been to the US)

[Former_Member]

Worst season ever. Crazy bad. : (

Seems like we aren't the only ones, I've read similar comments on other threads.

[peaceandstitches]

Sorry to hear about the slow sales.

I've been so inundated with orders during the month I've had to close my shop to keep up and get orders sent before the end of the year.

[LovgrenandDaughter]

Worst year ever since 2011. And whomever started the beard thing, please stop.

[Emporium314]

It's strange, as we all are having different experiences for sure! I re-opened my shop 33 days ago (after having it closed for 40 days) and I've had 39 sales in that time. More than one per day numbers-wise but I'm just not making much revenue. So lots of action just not much $
I'm still thankful cause it helps me pay the bills!

[Pookieandness]

Sorry that people havent had great sales. My November has been super busy. Hope things pick up for everyone from now on 😊

[hooknsaw]

We had our best month ever and this is our 6th November on etsy. This year has been down for the most part, but this month has been great for our shop.
We kept adding items all year long and it is paying off now, during the Holiday / cold- weather season. I should also add that we deactivated all of our made to order items (1/3 of our shop 2 weeks ago) and we are still busy with the ready to ship.

[Former_Member]

I am having a (deeply discounted) Holiday Sale so November has been my best month this year. For other shops it may be a terribly low number, but for me 9 sales is great compared to my other months. I so hope sales continue to increase. I have worked so very hard on this shop.

[LeedsRadio]

Early this year I was averaging 2 orders per calendar day (60 a month) and then when Etsy made all those change it dropped by half. I knew then that I had to be much more aggressive as the game had changed.

I did more experiments with search, increased the items count in a slow but steady way and I took a serious look at how information is displayed now on Etsy. Consider this; If you have a banner and a customer with a 1920x1080 monitor goes to your shop's front page, they will not see ANY items until they scroll down. I no longer have a banner.

In any case it worked. In November I ended up with just under 60 sales

[Former_Member]

Same here - I did fairly well over the summer, but if it weren't for a few large sales recently, I'd be in the red. I've also been wondering what possible purpose the teams serve, now that there's no way to make treasuries & Etsy has changed its algorithm to ignore "click farming"? I mean, why bother even visiting my teams any more? Why bother clicking, liking, favoriting, etc.? Why am I even here? That's what I've been trying to figure out. Etsy used to be a lot of fun.