How Quickly Do New Etsy Listings Show Up? (Explained)

There’s a lot of debate online as to when your shop listings show up after you first list them.

Some believe that a new listing will show up four weeks after you publish it to your account, while others believe that it’s instantaneous and will take only a day at most. However, it is more likely that the change is an instantaneous one, but that Etsy search results are so difficult to navigate that you probably won’t see your listings until much later.

Furthermore, many new sellers find it very difficult to search for themselves even after they’ve been operating for six months or more. Even if I tried to search into the Etsy search bar today for one of the more popular shops on Etsy, most likely, I would be greeted with hundreds of search results before I find the shop that I’m looking for.

Even if I search the shop by name, it’s incredibly difficult to find them.

How quickly do new Etsy listings show up?

Once your Etsy account is fully set up, and you have published your listings to the shop, your listings should show up instantaneously in search results and are open to the public. However, the Etsy algorithm makes it very difficult for new sellers to be found In their category.

There are some sources that state that new listings are more likely to be at the front of search results, but that is not necessarily proven. For more information on this subject, check out our article, “Does Renewing Etsy Listings Help? 7 Tips to Know,”.

Let’s continue our dive into new Etsy listings and their timeline for publishing!

How Long Before a New Listing Shows Up on Etsy?

It is generally assumed that once you properly publish your listing on Etsy that it will instantaneously upload to the site. Once there, customers should be able to find you and check out your new items.

But it’s not that simple.

The reason that many Etsy sellers believe that it takes four to six weeks before your listings show up on Etsy search results is that the Etsy algorithm will try to use proper SEO to get you where you want to go faster.

However, the SEO results lead many customers astray depending on what people post to the “title” of their product or what is in their product descriptions.

For example, if you sell knitting patterns, you designed yourself, searching for your pattern by typing “knitting patterns” on the Etsy search bar is a disaster waiting to happen.

Instead, you will see:

• Listings that have been there longer than yours
• Listings with better SEO utilization than yours
• Listings with higher star-ratings than yours

If you want to find your shop, you would instead have to search for your own shop in quotation marks (“myshopname”), and then hopefully it would be able to take you to where you want to go.

If that doesn’t work for you, you may have to consider posting direct links from your product to your social media, and as fans and potential customers to follow the link exactly.

So while listings do show up instantaneously to your shop for viewing, customers may not be able to find it in the Etsy search until they’ve gone down a rabbit hole in your category.

Why Is My Listing Not Showing up in Etsy Search?

There are a few potential reasons why your products aren’t showing up in your shop yet. If they aren’t showing up on your shop front, even to you, then it may be a technical problem, or you might not have met some requirements for Etsy’s terms of service.

For example, many sellers have issues getting their shops started when their payment information or emails have not verified yet online. Once they do get over those initial obstacles, the next step is setting up their listings and “publishing” them to Etsy.com.

Your listings will not show up on Etsy until they are in a published status, so make sure that you don’t miss this as a step!

Furthermore, if you’ve taken all the necessary precautions and the item still won’t show up on your shop front, consider sending the link to a friend to ask if they can see the item. Your shop may just not have loaded properly on your end yet.

Finally, if that still isn’t working, consider contacting Etsy’s support in order to fix the issue.

Can You Do Something to Speed Things Up?

Speeding up your search results can come from a few business tactics or strategies that you can utilize to your advantage.

SEO and Marketing

If you haven’t learned about proper SEO and category search results, you should start studying products like your own.

Many shop owners will connect as many categories and keywords as their products qualify for in order to get them in front of customers. They will make sure that any time someone searches for a keyword, their product is most likely going to show up in that result.

However, some shops do this too much. Be careful about how you are representing your products. For example, if you’re trying to find a knitting pattern, and you come across someone’s diamond rings for sale, you are more likely to suspect that their product isn’t trustworthy.

Shops that over-categorize their products lose faith with their customers, so make sure you’re only using SEO and keywords that work well with your products.

Posting to Social Media & Star Ratings

Often, to get your product off the ground, you need to get a buzz going about it first.

If you are a creator without a social media platform, get one. This is hard to hear for creative types, who would rather make the product than try to be a business person behind the scenes. However, in order to get sales on your products, you need to be marketing that product to the world!

If you have a preexisting fan base, use that! Once you’ve got a few sales and great star ratings from those fans, more fans are more likely to develop over time!

The more you sell and the more your star rating climbs, the more likely you are to show up in search results.

Furthermore, if you do show up in search results already, but are on the lower end of the totem pole, customers are more likely to click on five-star shops than three stars or less.

Paying For Ads & Top Spots

One of the less popular ways to boost sales is to purchase ads on Etsy.com with Etsy Ads or by subscribing to Etsy Plus.

Etsy Plus is $10 per month to subscribe and provides $5 in credits each month for Etsy Ad space, as well as 15 listing credits per month that you don’t have to pay for. You do still have to pay for other listing fees and transaction fees, though.

See our article for more information: “Does Etsy Plus Help Sales? Here’s What to Expect”

This is a great way to get the name of your product out into the world and to show up in the rows of ads on Etsy search results.

This means that no matter what your sales rate or star-rating, your item will show up over other shops.

However, the problem with relying on Etsy ads is that it can cost quite a lot for you to be seen on a daily basis. Often, people will spend upwards of $5 or $10 per DAY to get their products out there.

If you are already a booming business, this may not seem like much. But if you’re just starting out, this is a steep fee.

See our article for more information: “Do Etsy Ads (Really) Work? Here Are the Facts”

Consider your budget and give it a try if you like. If it doesn’t work out, consider the free options before that we talked about instead.

How Long Does it Typically Take Before the First Sale?

Sales on Etsy can take between two weeks to one month after a listing, depending on your status as a seller or your popularity.

For those top-ten, popular shops with huge followings, sales can happen within minutes to hours. For someone just starting out, you shouldn’t get too excited about a potential sale until a month or so. Unless you’re spreading the word, it will take a lot of time.

Often, sellers will see sales within a week or two, if they’re lucky,  but mostly you just want to keep posting about what you’re selling and make sure your products are as polished and ready-to-go as possible for that coveted first sale!

How Do I Get my Listing Higher on Etsy Results?

Boosting your listing comes down to how it is perceived by your audience, whether through higher star-ratings or through word of mouth.

Like we mentioned before, investing in your products is a great way to get them higher on search results. Whether that’s investing your time to better, write a product description with SEO keywords and phrases, or investing money into Etsy ads or search result space.

If you leave your products and shop alone, hoping it’ll make money overnight without you, you’re going to be disappointed.

Instead, stay on top of your product, your marketing, and your inventory, and keep working hard to get your products out there in front of the public eye!

Checklist to Make Sure You’ve Listed Your Item Right

Here is a list of things that you’ll want to check to make sure you’ve done all you can to set yourself up for success:

1. Utilize SEO Marketing, Keywords, Phrases and Categories
2. Use Great Photos that Showcase your Product Fully
3. Check for All Typos and Inconsistencies in Your Product Descriptions
4. Polish Your Product Descriptions to Their Fullest Potential
5. Post Listings to Family and Friends
6. Notify Your Online Social Media Following about New Items
7. Include All Dimensions, Sizes, Materials & Shipping Information
8. Answer FAQs About Product in Product Description

Once you’ve done all you can, send your product out into the world!

You’ll be glad you took the time to make it everything that it can be before you try to get views on it. Once views roll in, hopefully, you can expect a few sales!