Frequency capping, does this ever end for a shop?

[BluePoppyBath]

It's been obvious to me for a few years now that my shop has frequency capping.  It stares me in the face everyday when I see my orders.  Repeatedly I get 2 orders, in a row, with the same item.   Once this happens, I won't get an order for that item again for a week or so.  This basically has killed my shop.  It has gone on for several years, chat is no help.  While I see a lot of my competitors just killing it with the same type of items as me, my store languishes.  I have tried different things with different sections of my shop, to see if if makes a difference.  Nothing seems to work. Does it ever go away or is my only option to close this store and open a new one?

[vintageNCtreasures]

Opening a new shop, won't help, the same thing can happen to it. 

With 70,000+ sales, I wouldn't close this shop. You'll start over from scratch, you'd also end up on payment reserve being a "new" seller, money held for weeks, maybe months.

ETA: chat won't help, plus there're outsourced. 

Do you sell on other websites and do you have a standalone site? If not, I'd definitely look into having a standalone site.

Do you do any social media?

[BluePoppyBath]

I don't want to start over from scratch.  I would like to know why my shop is targeted but not similar shops.  Etsy needs to be a little more transparent on how frequency capping works.

[vintageNCtreasures]

Etsy won't tell you anything about why you get sales then no sales.

Other shops might be targeted and you might not know it unless you keep up with what they sell every day.

Maybe it's because there's SO many more sellers now than used to be. 

I searched for holiday hand and body lotion and you were on the 1st page, 3rd row. 

Not every one sees the same results someone else might search for that and not see you on page 1.

Have you tried changing up some of your titles? I noticed some of the titles are not that long and are terms that would yield a LOT of results, and not specific enough like "holiday perfume gift box". 
What scents are in it? sizes? for men or women? 

[BluePoppyBath]

@vintageNCtreasuresI do sell on other sites, but nothing compares to Etsy.  Social media is hard for me, I can't seem to get the clicks or get noticed. Sales were down 45% last year, 44% this year. 

[PoochandTabby]

I am just going to hazard a guess, but frequency capping an item after 2 of them are sold....there is not much 'frequency' happening there.

In the legal disclosure on search, they state:

• Frequency Capping: to limit the number of times the same listing or shop appears at the top of results for a specific user or keyword.

So the three distinct things are "top of results" for a "specific user" or "keyword." The only thing that is unclear is what is considered "top of results" but no where do they say they remove you completely.

So if 'top of results' is the first page, you may still be on the second page or later pages. Search is still geared towards what the customer is most likely to buy. If you're hitting all the requirements for the recommendation module for that customers, they're most likely still going to show you.

And since search is tailored to each individual user, what one person sees is different from what another person sees, so that doesn't apply to what they're showing to each and every user. And with the keyword, if the majority of your items are associated with just a few keywords, then in general that's going to hurt you now, with Etsy moving more and more to showing less of the same thing. 

But I would point out that in the legal disclosure for Etsy Payments, they do state that they can and do limit not just buyers but also sellers, at their sole discretion, so there are different ways besides frequency capping that sellers may see limitations. 

[BluePoppyBath]

I'm stating that I see this after 2 of the same item is purchased.  I used to sell hundreds of certain products every day during the holidays.  Now I sell only 2 and then I don't sell again for that item.  When I used to sell a lot of these items every day, now I only get to sell 2.