Unusually high traffic is killing my shop's conversion rate....

[TIMATIBO]

Hello,
In June, something drastic happened in my store, leading to a sudden and unnatural spike in visits from direct and other traffic sources. As a result, my store's conversion rate dropped significantly from 1% to 0.2%. This has been ongoing for over two months, and I can't pinpoint a clear reason. I haven't increased my advertising efforts, and there's no unusual traffic from any specific social network.

I need to address this issue urgently, as it’s seriously affecting my store's performance. Before June, I averaged about 6,500 visits per month, but over the last two and a half months, that number has jumped to 35,000. However, this surge in traffic hasn't translated into increased sales, which have remained the same.

It feels like some kind of bot is targeting my store, as the traffic doesn’t seem to be from genuine customers. The views are also general across the store, rather than being focused on specific products.

Etsy’s support chat (which took half an hour to get a response) only resulted in a vague promise that someone would email me... Yay…

Has anyone experienced something like this? Can it be fixed retrospectively?

[Thedinkydoodlestudio]

Posting in the forum adds to your woes if others visit your shop as a result.

[JJewellerySuppliesUK]

Is this helpful?

[HatsForward]

Since July 2024 I've also had a HUGE spike in visits. My conversion rate has dropped significantly as a result too.

I looked at individual day stats over a lengthy number of days and the spike in visits all consistently come at 2am, 5pm, 8pm, and 11pm PST  (these are my times consistently, anyway)

Though I can't prove it, I believe these are mainly bots and not human traffic. Supposedly, Etsy tries to filter out bots, but search engines or other pages can use web crawlers to extract data, without permission.  I've found my listings copied onto other 'fake sites' often.

Hopefully things settle down. I suspect it is not good for the search algorithms as it shows Etsy search only bringing 25% to my shop, whereas before it was always around 75%.

[TheTshirtShack]

I’ve had the same issues since July also. I have raised this on numerous occasions with Etsy support but they do nothing

[BluePoppyBath]

This has happened to me this month.  3500 views in one day. No orders. Very unusual for me as for the last year I barely hit 100.  I believe it is to throw off conversion rate. 

[TheGlowZone]

I've been getting the same.  I'm new so it's only very small numbers, always to the same product, always at 2am.  Does this have any negative on the shop?  I'm wondering if Etsy distribute traffic to give every one a chance.  If they see that you're already getting your share then they won't keep you at the top of the search results.  I know that's sketchy but it's the only motivation I can see for a competitor, for example, to generate fake traffic to my products so that they don't appear so often.

[FloraAndTheFox]

I've had the same issues of direct traffic up 1000% since July. No meaningful reason for why. My conversion rate was destroyed and sales were down. About 1-2 weeks ago all that extra traffic has disappeared and it's gone back to its normal average level the graph of you view it over the course of this year is ridiculous, an undulating steady horizon with a great big steep rise July plateaued till early-mid November and straight back down. Looking at 7 day stats my conversion rate is back to normal so hoping it will improve etsy visibility.

Not sure what's going on if it was based on an Etsy July update or test that has now changed or if its unrelated to Etsy  maybe bots - or the purpose of these? Do competitors deploy bots to damage conversion rates and shop scores ,who knows? 

Has OP noticed their views go back to normal?

[TwiLdCapitHog]

@FloraAndTheFox  I had the same increase in "direct traffic" around the same time frame, which ended a couple of weeks ago, as did many others. I think it was probably a test.

[HatsForward]

Thankfully, since Nov 7th my daily visits and are back down in the normal range and my conversion rate looks better. There will always be ups and downs but such an obvious 1000% spike over a 3 month span makes me want to erase/ignore those surreal stats!

[Liamore]

The same thing happened to me.It went up very suddenly, and then at the end of October it went down suddenly...

[PrintPixelEmporium]

Happened with me today as well. Very unusual direct traffic spike killing my conversation rate.