ETSY - You Try My Patience!

I have had a shop on ETSY since 2010.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/sanderswoodworking

It has been a love hate relationship. They constantly tweak their algorithm and I have to make changes to my listings to get found when people do a search for items like mine. Now, if I only had 8-10 listings, that wouldn’t be so bad but I have 180 listings. For a small store like mine, that’s a lot of listings. To edit every listing takes a considerable amount of time.

A few years ago they wanted changes to the titles of the listings. Then they wanted free shipping. They run sales and suggest the percentage discount (currently 20% off) and now they want short videos of each item. The penalty for not following along is not being found by their search and only making sales to people who have purchased from you before.

There are 7.5 million shops on ETSY today (October 2022). There are thousands of shops that sell items like wooden bowls and cutting boards. With all of that competition, it’s hard to get found.

The latest “strong encouragement” from ETSY is short videos of each listing. You’re kidding, really? I know the penalty for not taking the hint. With ETSY the spigot is either on or off. If you don’t follow their suggestions, it’s off.

Love/hate.

It is a relationship though!