@IndustrialBlonde Have you experienced it too? I have a few times but never as long as this. You seem to be the first person in this thread apart from me who has acknowledged it.
@DarkWilds I don’t know that my rotation (rotations?) have been as extended as yours have been but I can tell by the lack of favorites that my items are not being shown. And if there are no favs, there are no sales. Makes me sad.
It might feel like it but there is no 'shop rotation' as such.
I did a search for 'witchy vest top' and several of your items appeared on the first pages, however I had have just viewed your shop so Etsy algorithm now thinks I favour your items.
@Amaradorn Yes, that's exactly what happens when you have viewed someone's shop - you can then see their items in your search results as a priority. Thanks anyway. How do you know there is no shop rotation? Do you work for Etsy?
@DarkWilds no I don't work for Etsy but I've been selling here for 10 years so I've heard all the theories regarding shop visibility. 'Shop rotation' implies that shops are turned off for an amount of time. This was happening on eBay at one time. There is no evidence that this is occurring on Etsy. However there are other factors which might be influencing your visibility such a frequency capping, which I don't really understand, but it has something to do with listings not being shown for a relevant search term if they fail to convert. I don't know how long that lasts. Also consider that ranking doesn't really exist. Search placement is fluid and changes according to the buyer's search history and other factors. So listings are in effect constantly moving around.
My sales slumped badly in January. I even had to keep checking that my shop was still indexed. I managed to turn it around by listing new items regularly and promoting on social media, but it takes several weeks to see any effects and you have to keep up the momentum otherwise it slows down again.
p.s. I searched for 'witchy vest top green' on my test browser (not signed in) and found 5 of your items on page 1. How many buyers search for 'witchy' is another question, but it's a word I personally use frequently when looking for clothes.
I like the style of your clothes, I just don't have the budget. This year I have bought a grand total of one maxi dress from eBay. That's it. I don't have a clothing budget. Meanwhile my mortgage payments have increased by around £300 per month in the last couple of years. It's just another thing to consider when analysing decreasing sales numbers. I hope you manage to turn it around.
Frequency capping here on Etsy is very real and I think this is what is happening with your shop. I also think once you start going down the stairs the only way to get back at the front line is sales. No sales during the exposure days, lower you go on the search results. This is what I think is happening, but of course it is just my opinion based on couple of months looking at my shop stats plus sales, and also looking at the the sales of some other shops.
In my case the rotation last around two weeks off, then I have a weekend and sometimes 4 to 5 days visibility.
I understand the capping is necessary, but if you don't gain sales on the "good days", then you are faced with sort of a double capping...
Your shop looks great. Hope it will recover very soon.
I don't think it's related but I'm curious about why some of your first photos have a massive white border around them making the image appear really small when I view the actual listing. I can imagine that this will not look good on a mobile phone.
