A message from an Etsy analyst

[stardiamond]

I had an issue with the Etsy star seller program. So I posted it on the Etsy community forum titled does Etsy look at posts on the forum. The specific issue was the message response rate. The target it 95% and mine was 50%. In February, I had two messages regarding a purchase I made from another shop. The first message was a thank you/shipping notification. I do the same thing for all purchases. I responded thanks for the update. The next message was an invoice for the purchase which didn't make sense since I already paid for the item so there was no point responding. I get very few inquiries so the stat won't improve until February stats are outside the 3 month qualification window. A little later I got the following message:

I am an Etsy Specialist. I want to tell you that your listings are not sufficiently SEO optimized, which is why you are not selling well.

I found some problems in your store that caused you to be unable to sell:

* Your entire store is not SEO optimized.
* Your store does not have a banner.
* The store title is not SEO friendly.
* There is no keyword word in the description.
* Your store has no privacy policy, no return policy.
* There is no information about your business in the About section.
* There is also a lack of adequate marketing.


This is why your store doesn't look professional and buyers can't trust to buy something.

If you want I can help you with this.

Please contact me for a detailed discussion....


I sent the following long response:

Hi,

I only sell cabochons. I have been making them for about 20 years as a hobby. I started selling them on Etsy about 3 years ago. Prior to that I gave some away. I decided to start selling on Etsy for two reasons; to have my work seen and to make the hobby self funding. I am not interested in earning an hourly wage for time spent. I've had over 21,000 visits and over $21,000 in revenue. My revenue far exceeds my expenses. I can buy any equipment, material and supplies that I want. Selling is an extension of the hobby. SEO is getting people to look at my items not making them buy. Take a look at a graph of my visits for my time on Etsy. I've figured out ways to move my items to the top of external searches and to some extent Etsy searches without paying additional fees. I price reasonably and don't want to undercut those whose goal is create income. I get a lot of repeat business. One third of my sales are to silversmiths. One I have a standing offer for quantity discounts. The repeat or quantity buyers I include free cabochons. I get excellent reviews and have 316 admirers.

I don't have promotions but am flexible when a buyer asks for a discount.

I am interested in creating and let the sales take care of themselves. I know you are trying to be helpful, but I don't consider my shop an underachiever. I consider my shop an Etsy outlier.


I also mentioned the message response issue and have not got a response to my message.

I was somewhat taken aback but considered the criticisms. SEO is related to people finding my shop and items. I am approaching my third anniversary on Etsy and I don't consider 21,000 visits underachieving. The more significant issue is sales and that is to me only and ego issue. If I doubled my sales, it wouldn't matter. I am not wealthy, but the additional income wouldn't effect my lifestyle. As long as the hobby is self funding I'm ok with it and I buy whatever I need.

I consider myself a smart shopper. I ask questions before buying. I am somewhat surprised that I get so few pre-purchase questions. I could make a statement 'Please contact me if you have any questions regarding this item' and think it would be better to add it to every listing rather than in my shop description. I don't see the significance of a privacy policy. I am somewhat conflicted about adding a return policy. My policy is satisfaction guaranteed. I had one customer make a large purchase and then wanted to return everything even after posting a positive review on some of the items. I don't want to encourage having to do a lot of returns due to buyer's remorse. I don't think the absence of a banner is an issue and I am not convinced that additional marketing is cost effective. I like selling on Etsy because it is easy and the existing fees are not an issue.

Sorry for the long post and I would appreciate feedback.

[Rockoonz]

I don't know, seems like SEO optimized just means you become one of the (usually paid) results at the top of the list that I scroll past looking for meat. People who go with top of page and don't exercize a bit of discernment are going to be the same ones that get burned regularly and are ready to offer retaliatory feedback at the drop of a hat.
Keywords is a good thing, except when it's a huge list including things just barely related to the sale item.
When I sold on ebay I had a description text document with policy info, especially returns.

[stardiamond]

I don't pay anything more than the listing fee. I found that when you have a high percentage of a particular type of material the better the placement. I currently have 25 Mt. Tahoma cabochons listed and with an Etsy search, all of mine are listed first.
I have 31 Blue Mountain listed and they all appear on the first page of Etsy search results. I have 45 Morgan Hill and 38 appear on the first page of results. Why should I pay extra fees?

[herb]

I would consider the "etsy specialist" message spam. They are just looking to make some money off of you doing simple things to your store that may or may not make any real difference.

All the stuff they mention you can do yourself without any real effort. If you are happy with how your doing on etsy, then there's no need to worry about it, but it wouldn't hurt to do some of the suggestions. Particularly the Return and Privacy policies and a little blurb about yourself or what you do in an About section. I'm no SEO expert but simple things like making sure the word "cabochon" is in the title of all your cab listings etc. Also things like "agate" or "jasper" or the name of a particular stone, the color etc should all be in the title.

You can take the money that the esty specialist would have charged and buy yourself some nice slabs

[stardiamond]

It might be marketing but not typical spam. The person visited my shop and favored an item and my shop. I use all the key words you mentioned in my listing title. Searches can be finnicky so I check search results after listing, make changes and check results.

My visits are way up and my sales are down. I'm considering adding wording to each listing that shows my current policies; bonuses for repeat buyers and multi item purchases. Satisfaction guaranteed.

[drocknut]

As a seller on Etsy myself I would say that 21,000 visits is outstanding. Please don't ask how many my shop has but suffice it to say a whole lot less than yours. I also don't get pre-purchase questions or any messages at all so I basically gave up on being a "star seller". All my listings used to have a comment at the end of the description that said, "If you have any questions or comments please contact me", but I took that off of most of them because it didn't seem to make a difference. I sell some cabochons but not exclusively. I started out selling my wire wraps but changed to try to get more sales. It seems like the more I try to do things to increase visits to my shop the lower my visits become. I was even a member of a FB group that I paid about $15 per month subscription fee to that was supposed to help me with my Etsy shop. I quit that last year because I wasn't making enough money through the shop to pay for listing fees let alone paying for subscriptions to groups that I wasn't getting anything out of in the first place. I'd hate to see what an "Etsy Specialist" would say about my shop. I believe some of the downward slump in sales is because of the economy plus all of the mass produced goods that are allowed to be sold on Etsy now. I'm sure there are other factors too. I'm definitely not wealthy either however I'm not even making it with a self-funding hobby right now. I'd say you are way ahead of a lot of shops. I am even surprised you got a response at all.

[stardiamond]

I updated my store page. The info displays after all the listings so I wasn't sure anyone would see it. I added the following to about 40 of my most active listings (views and likes):

My return policy is satisfaction guaranteed.

I don't have sales. I do reward repeat customers and will offer a quantity discount depending on quantity and replaceability. I am flexible and willing to respond to offers.

I have a lot more cabochons than those listed. Please contact when you would like something not listed.

Please contact me if you have any questions. I currently receive very few pre-sale messages.

[stardiamond]

The visits line shows an increase over time which is probably because I have some history and increased number of items listed.
Revenue has been flat with the exception of the first year of the pandemic. Maybe competition has increased.

[drocknut]

Competition has definitely increased especially from overseas sellers.

[stardiamond]

For what I sell, overseas made items are not competition. I think there a significant increase in the interest in lapidary and there is the natural progression from making to selling. It took me 17 years to make the progression. I had limited free time and my experiences buying and selling other items on ebay was a pain in the ass. I had never heard of Etsy because ebay was/is a better source for lapidary material.

[Tommy]

stardiamond this is just FYI at this point but I agree 100% with what herb said above about this being spam - the person who contacted you is absolutely trying to get money out of you to 'optimize' your store. They are very sneaky at it and seem to have your best interest at heart.

Back when I used to frequent the Etsy echo chamber called the forum, I used to get contacted by these spammers all the time. As an experienced shop owner there is NOTHING they can tell you that you don't already know - or could find out about with a small amount of watching YT videos or reading on the internet. I still get private messages from them and I just report them as spam to Etsy and delete it.

[stardiamond]

Spam means to me throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hope that some of it sticks. Marketing is trying to sell to a customer. Someone took the time to look at my shop and then make a sales pitch. Etsy constantly markets (sends spam and it is embedded on their site) and I don't buy because I didn't think I'm getting value. If I wasn't drafted I might have had a career in statistics. I am trying to figure out why views are up and sales are flat. The proposals from the analyst are standard Etsy rhetoric and don't address my issue. I added more information to my shop description and individual listings. No immediate reaction so I can just wait. I price by slotting against similar items I have sold or listed and similar items from other Etsy sellers. I don't think a 10% discount is significant. I combine shipping so I save 10% when I sell more than one item. I give my best customer, a silversmith 25% off. A typical order is over $1000 and she doesn't cherry pick.

[Tommy]

Apr 6, 2022 10:59:21 GMT -5 stardiamond said:

Spam means to me throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hope that some of it sticks. Marketing is trying to sell to a customer. Someone took the time to look at my shop and then make a sales pitch.

I hear you and I'm not trying to devalue what you have learned from the experience. Your subject line is about an "Etsy analyst" so I don't think I'm veering off topic. If you think I am then I apologize and won't say any more.

In my opinion and experience as a seller on Etsy for seven years, unsolicited looking at your shop and making a sales pitch - trying to get money from you - based on a post you made in the forum is the exact definition of spam.

It also violates Etsy's Community Policy section 1.6

6. Don't spam. This includes unsolicited or duplicate posts or links to your shop, fundraisers, surveys, social media or other promotional content.

These so called "analysts" used to piss me off. They sit in the forum there and watch for people who post questions and then come in like they are in a position of great knowledge. Where I drew the line was when they would spam me via private message - that action warrants reporting (and more) every time.

[stardiamond]

I posted on the community forum about the stupid star seller policy on messages. I was hoping to get Etsy's attention to start a dialog and that worked. Unfortunately, it didn't help, no response. Etsy's goal like most businesses is to generate income. There are a lot of things I don't like about Etsy. What I do like is it makes selling easy. ebay has been dead to cab sales for a long time but it is a better place to buy and sell slabs, but requires more effort to sell.

I've been spending more time on facebook. A good place to look at other peoples work and more active than here. Without a dedicated customer base not a particularly good place to sell; bad search results make it a bad place to buy. ebay searches are the best around.

Your posts have been helpful and spot on.

[stardiamond]

July is done. My stats were visits up 57%, revenue up 244%. For the year, visits up 81%, revenue down 17% and last year I had less revenue than the year before. This month had a lot of repeat buyers. I don't think of July as a big month. What have you experienced this year?

[Pat]

I have learned that sometimes you should not follow the advice of the experts; and sometimes you ought to.

[stardiamond]

Same pattern as previous; views and visits way up and sales are flat.

I received a code from Etsy for 20% off up to $50. The discount is paid by Etsy not the seller. I used mine on a slab from another Etsy shop. I made one sale today from a new customer and am guessing it was from the code promotion. I didn't ask the customer.

[gemfeller]

Jul 31, 2022 22:46:03 GMT -5 Pat said:

I have learned that sometimes you should not follow the advice of the experts; and sometimes you ought to.

[broseph82]

Sept 27, 2022 14:45:08 GMT -5 stardiamond said:

Same pattern as previous; views and visits way up and sales are flat.

I received a code from Etsy for 20% off up to $50. The discount is paid by Etsy not the seller. I used mine on a slab from another Etsy shop. I made one sale today from a new customer and am guessing it was from the code promotion. I didn't ask the customer.

From what I've seen SEO folks are shams in terms of Etsy. I have a friend who has a reaching 50k (yes 50,000) sales and all SEO people he contacted all said they couldn't help him. They only "help" people that are struggling and have no way to help people who are clearly doing something right. Hearing that was a huge disappointment but a real eye opener.

Everyone over the summer was struggling it seemed. People are outside more and doing stuff rather than inside spending and shopping on Etsy. My sales are always almost nil during the June-August months.

Star seller doesn't mean anything. Yeah you get a cut little star and star seller badge but truly doesn't mean anything. More or less Etsy wants you to bend over backwards for everyone. Also, when it comes to messaging, just make sure you respond to the initial starting message within 24hrs. Any messages after that done affect the star seller ratings.

I can't even belong to the FB Etsy sellers groups any longer. Was part of one until everyday someone is on there whining about "I just opened my Etsy this morning and I don't have a single sale. I think I just need to close my shop." That crap got so annoying and was offering no benefit for me to see literally every day.

Anyway, hope some of this helps. Etsy ads do work during the holiday months around Christmas. Make sure your keywords line up with your listing title. They also take into account your listing words now. So that'll help some. Take care

[opalpyrexia]

Sounds like you must have met a new hire who recently graduated with a marketing degree. I think that your post does a fine job of blowing it off.

Aside from the Etsy mailings that announce site or procedural changes, I've not received any that were worth my time to read. I just delete them. They also keep promoting advertising, but $2 in sales for a $1 expense is a terrible return.