Huge downturn since Etsy automatically updated delivery service settings

[#1]

Good afternoon all. I hope you're having a great weekend.

Having had growing concerns with the extremely rapid drop in sales in the last few months I've been doing some investigation into the possible reasons on my store. 

Having looked through erank and checked my listings, key words etc but thought I would compare monthly sales by region. I note that usually my sales to the US (I'm a UK seller) account for roughly 40% of my gross turnover ($) every month for the last 4 years. 

However, for the last 2 - 3 months this has sharply declined to around 13%. Which is a huge drop and is absolutely the reason for my stores low sales figures. As my sales to other regions seem to have a similar revenue to before.

I have 2 possible reasons, either the US market has genuinely declined and I am aware that somebody said tax returns are due soon too (however, this wouldn't account for my US sales being 27% down on the same period last year). 

Alternatively I have noticed that this sharp decline seems to correlate to the same timeframe that Etsy decided to automate our shipping preferences for us. If you recall in late 2023 Etsy decided it knows best and what shipping methods we use and automatically altered our shipping methods. Especially those of us that used the "Other courier" option. 

I have updated my shipping methods to best reflect my store processing times and delivery schedules but I can't help but feel this has had an impact on my store. It seems far too linked in timing to just be a coincidence. Especially for a store that has consistent monthly sales for 4 years to suddenly grind to a halt.

I would be interested in your options on this as I know some of you are very analytical in your approach to your stores?

Thanks in advance

*Edit - what I forgot to include is that I wonder if Etsy are now actively penalising those of us that don't offer free US delivery guarantee and dropping our search ranking for US buyers. I personally can't offer free delivery as the cost of delivery can sometimes exceed the price of the items.

[FancyTogs]

@cindylouwho2

A drop in listing page visits with little drop in sales could be due to the continued testing of the "add to basket" button on some search results pages.

There is sometimes no need to visit listing pages to make a purchase now.

Lawrence (Clare's other half)

[cindylouwho2]

@FancyTogs that certainly could contribute some of it, but conversion rates are not improving anywhere near that amount, and they should also be affected. 

As we've always said, you cannot really trust Etsy stats. 

[MerakiPlanners]

Hello everyone. I can not put my finger on one specific thing as it has been too many changes too often here in Etsy, but I noticed the decline started with the star seller program and other changes in or related to Etsys search. My percentages in search/traffic are bad. I'm bringing in all of the social media traffic, but everything else is down by 50% or more. I have been a star seller and have noticed no difference in incoming orders. I pay little for ads and it does help me. I know other sellers say it does not, but it does for me. Other than this I do not know what else is happening. I do not think its the economy. If we survived the pandemic I dont know why its so difficult now. Something was done in a way that it triggered a domino effect and now its too much all at once. I either create my own artwork or I shop for artwork from other artists along with a commercial license to make a profit. I love supporting other artists, but if there is no money coming in for me how can i go shop around to other artists shops?

I updated some listings and other moves suggested by Etsy that I do in my shop and everything stopped. Views, visits, orders. I have read in other discussions that doing too many movements in the shop can have a negative effect. I still have to do updates on my listings and now people are reporting issues with the new listing form. It's too much! Too many triggers on the site. Too many problems to deal with at once. Been here since 2016 and I have never seen anything like this.

The question is when is anyone in the company going to acknowledge the concerns of us sellers? If there are constant discussions over the same topics it's because we are being ignored. I don't know what else to say. I have so many ideas for new products and services I want to offer, but I question if I should do it here on Etsy. Is Etsy still reliable? Should I just go look for a job and close my shop? That would mean I'm abandoning the ship and I like it here or what it used to be at least. Leaving would also mean that I'm leaving all fellow sellers behind. We are being pushed aside by resellers and whatnot, but are they really or are we letting them? Im down to my last pennies. Ive put 8 years into the shop and I really do not know what else to say. 

[BagmakerSupply]

@MerakiPlanners: It is almost impossible to make cause and effect correlations on Etsy, but fewer buyer dollars spread out over more sellers and changes to search distributing those dollars differently are probably the major reasons for downturns.

[StampsAndAll]

2 months ago I was doing well with orders and views, over night it just stopped and since I have had no orders .  have had no orders from my best customers , lots of those buying weekly, some of which bought daily. I  am now lucky to get one view a day and 1 sale a week. My sales are of UK and Commonwealth stamps and orders often  for 10 to 20 items.  now if I'm lucky it may be 1 item per sale.    I do not believe this is due to any shortage of money and I do believe etsy can make it harder to get return sales. All my customers could not  have stopped buying over 1 weekend. We should be told the truth by etsy not palmed of with a load of c..p.How many of you have the problem, It's no wonder we can't talk to them by phone, what are they afraid of. If things don't improve next month I'm off. Come on etsy grow a pair and be honest with us.

John 

[TheNaturalArtGallery]

I sell original art so cannot afford to ship for free to US... having to consider closing my shop finally as now hardly any views and no sales for ages.... I changed all of my tags 4 months ago according to eranking which took forever . This initially seemed to help  but now worse views than ever.my work is very competitively priced  so finally admitting defeat .I cannot afford to keep losing money with Etsy any more 

[BluePigGifts]

As a user who buys frequently from Etsy, I find it frustrating that I get ridiculous costs from Etsy delivery service without any choice to select.

In addition, the shipping transit path location goes around the world. For someone who is in the southeast asia buying something from usa. My product goes from usa transiting to uk and sometimes other weird locations before reaching my country. The map locations transit paths just doesnt work out. The time to receive is sometimes really long than expected. On top of that, if i am gifting, my recipient have to pay a hefty tax amount. It does not seems worth to pay for such shipping compared to a third party forwarder which j may engaged.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

The seller chooses what shipper and method, and if they want to, they can offer additional choices/costs to buyers

It's all the sellers choice.

[sewgrandmacathy]

I wish I knew why so many of us are so slow.  I've been here since 2006 and in my area it seems most of the sales are going to the resellers and those of us offering unique, quality handmade items are missing out.  Very disheartening at best.

[SageVibration]

November of 2023 I had a stellar month! It was literally 5 times my average. However every month since then has dropped to almost nothing. I did some research. read up on etsy ads and how they increase traffic. So I upped my advertising from $1 a day to $5 a day. Well I got tons of views and likes and follows... but NO sales. When I compared my latest stats to past months I found that with the amount of clicks I got I should have about $2,000 in sales. But instead I got nothing. Even if I made a sale... at the cost of ads per day and my profit margin, either i would have lost money or etsy would be the only one making money. So... i brought my budget back to $1 a day. 

My conclusion is that etsy had definitely changed my algorithm. As a result, I believe I am reaching a different demographic. I'm reaching folks that love my work (a nice fealing) but those folks are more likely younger than my last go to demographic so... they are broke.

Doe's anyone know how to actually speak to a representative from etsy to possibly change this situation?

[CraftyCornishMaids]

My conclusion is that etsy had definitely changed my algorithm

you don't have an algorithm

Etsy does, it does change, 

Etsy won't speak to you about their algorithms, they are commercially sensitive

they give what the ranking disclosures are, and what the photographic standards are.

they give guides on seo - which yo may want to read.
for tags, you should use them all, and don't repeat words in different tags, it fills up space you could use for other keywords

if your seo isn't good, it doesn't matter what your ad budget is, it won't work.

seo

https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/366469415790

how search works

https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/375461474487

ranking disclosure

https://www.etsy.com/legal/policy/search-advertisement-recommendation/899478564529

photos

https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115015663347-Requirements-and-Best-Practices-for-Images-in-Y...

more on photos

https://www.etsy.com/legal/policy/listing-image-requirements/253962679005

[MemorialStoneDesigns]

They have changed the system, there is still traffic out there they are just redirecting away from some stores for some odd reason. My shop is down almost 50 percent, but if I want to pay for my own traffic you can still get it. I have been bringing in 70 to 80 percent of my store traffic proving there is traffic out there. I will soon start sending that traffic to my own website. You're right everything was good and then they just turned it off.

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