Losing views of your Etsy shop can make or break the success of your business.
Why do my number of views on Etsy drop?
There are many reasons that views on a shop can go down, whether that be a seasonal shift, lack of social media outreach, or a few bad reviews. While losing views can definitely hurt a shop, there are ways to get those views back up again.
Carefully managing your business on Etsy is crucial to having a successful small business. For those who don’t manage their shops well, they tend to quit or give up on their Etsy business within the first year.
If you don’t want to end up this way, you should consider these few facts:
1. Typical Reasons Your Etsy Views are Dropping
There are many ways that an Etsy shop can start to lose views.
When this happens, shop owners begin to scramble and stress about their product, advertising, and customer reviews.
But losing views from time to time is a normal occurrence and can be managed if you know what you’re looking for.
Here are a few reasons why you might be losing views:
Updated Vs. Outdated Listings
Updating listings is a great way to boost views to your shop.
Renewing or updating the product descriptions on a listing is a great way to “refresh” it, showing up in the system as “new.” That way, when customers search for your shop, you have a better chance of being viewed.
If your listing descriptions or products are six months old or older, you may have to rethink how you are presenting it to your customers.
Customers would like to know that each product is fresh and ready to go when they order it – if there hasn’t been a sale on that listing in a year or more, they’re probably less likely to buy it.
Updating it can also help you when it comes to changing how your shop operates – if you used to ship through FedEx but now ship through USPS, you should be updating all your products to tell your customers that information.
Seasonal and Holiday Items
If you’re a gift and sundries kind of Etsy shop, you probably advertise your products toward Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, or holidays like Christmas, Hannuka, Halloween, and many more.
However, if you are ONLY a gift-type shop, you probably are familiar with having views of your shop drop off every time the seasons change. This means that there are pique seasons for your shop to sell, and if you don’t make enough in that season, the rest of the year is a little harder.
The more troubling thing in regards to this is when your shop is NOT a seasonal, gift-type shop, and yet views still fall off.
If this is the case, you probably have a problem with how you advertise or describe your products. For example, keywords like “gift for mom” or “holiday design” can put your products in a whole different category and make them disappear at different times of the year.
In response to this, you should consider reevaluating your product descriptions and keywords, prepping them to be year-round marketable; otherwise, you may find that your views disappear during the “off-seasons.”
Products Blocked or Under Review
Sometimes your shop could be under review from Etsy support and administration.
When this happens, your products disappear from search results, until a review is completed and decisions are made by Etsy.com.
These situations are usually caused by negative reviews or complaints from customers that require an investigation by Etsy’s support. This can also happen if you decide to sell something or partner with a third-party company that has to be approved by Etsy.
This pause will generally go away once Etsy has made a decision on a dispute or complete their review. If a rule or guideline was broken, though, your shop could be blocked or penalized for a longer period of time.
Make sure to be cooperative in these situations, and work hard to fix any problems or issues.
Expired Listings or Sold Out
If your listings are no longer showing up as “active” or have expired due to forgetting to pay for the $0.20 cent listing fee, your product won’t show up in search results until you renew it.
This means that you will lose a lot of business if your products are not properly managed. These situations can be fixed by keeping your products on auto-renew, which will prevent them from expiring.
Furthermore, if your products are out of stock, customers won’t be interested in continuing to shop further on those items. Instead, they’ll quickly move on to the next person who does have something in stock. This loses you clicks, and therefore views.
Make sure that your bestselling products are always stocked, and if your non-bestsellers aren’t selling, consider revamping them or revisiting what about them may not be selling and how you are advertising them.
This may garner new interest, and help you show up on Etsy search results!
2. How Do I Increase My Views on Etsy?
Increasing your views on Etsy is mostly about managing your shop properly and keeping up on SEO and keywords or search terms that help you sell.
We’ll talk about these ways to increase your views:
- Analyze Popular Keywords & Marketing Trends
- Utilize an Annual Marketing Calendar
- Stay on Top of Expired or Outdated Listings
- Update and Rework Photos
- Advertise and Get Feedback on your Products
Popular Keywords and Etsyrank.com
Etsy has an app called “eRank,” formally known as “EtsyRank,” created by user Anthony Wolf. It helps you figure out what is trending and what might help you get more views on your products.
eRank is a popular topic among Etsy sellers in the industry who try to keep on top of popular SEO keywords and marketing strategies to help get their products to the front of search results.
With every Etsy search, there are thousands and thousands of results. If you aren’t paying for advertising to get your products to the top of those results, you’ll be missing out on getting views.
Only those best-selling products are going to show up first, and those that have hundreds or thousands of sales – and those with great keywords to trigger a search result.
If you are utilizing popular trends by doing your own searches on Etsy, or by using sites like eRank, you can help boost views to your products that may be buried under other hundreds of products with better SEO terms and phrases.
Utilize an Annual Marketing Calendar
If you sell seasonally, you know that there are highs and lows to your preferred niche or industry.
This means that your products will have very low lows during the off-season, especially if you sell items geared toward Mother’s and Father’s Day or Christmas or even Halloween.
When this happens, you need to know exactly when to start selling and advertising as the high-seasons start back up again.
Having an annual marketing calendar – either online through Etsy Apps or one that you create yourself – is crucial for seasonal sellers.
Like a farmer’s almanac, you’ll know exactly when to put your products back in the view of customers, when to increase ads and how much you should budget on ad funds to get things moving.
Staying ahead of the game in such a short period of time is difficult, so make sure to stay organized!
Does Etsy Count My Own Views?
Etsy does NOT count your views as views to your shop.
Their program does not count your views if you are logged in as a seller and viewing your own shop. If, however, you are not logged in, Etsy will count those as views.
This means that you can take as many looks at it as you want at your shop to get an idea of what your potential customers can see without changing your view count – as long as you are logged in.
3. Do New Etsy Shops Get a Boost?
Whenever a shop adds new items, the Etsy algorithm will usually send them to the front of search results depending on your shop’s ranking and what item it is.
This means that there is a possibility to get a boost to your products if they are new – or if your shop is new. However, this is not instantaneous, like many people think.
Once your new shop or item is out there, three to four weeks will pass before Etsy ranks them in search engine results. Once they are, they have the potential to be in front of customers’ eyes when searching for something in your category.
Once those items are picked up by search bots and search results, you may see a boost in sales!
Note: This is for a limited amount of time, and does not guarantee that you will get a rise in sales.
Boosting Your Shop Without Overworking
Keep in mind, though, that constantly coming out with new products can be time-consuming and sometimes very difficult or impossible, depending on what you sell.
One way to utilize this feature is to stagger your product reveals over time – like once every two weeks or three times per month.
That way, your shop is still getting to the forefront of Etsy search results, but you have time to make or design a new idea.
Furthermore, if you have any ideas or designs on standby, staggering their reveal onto your shop can help you keep this schedule!
Even if you don’t get many views or search results, you still are rewarding loyal customers with new products on a consistent basis!
4. Do Etsy Shops Currently Grow or Stagnate (on Average)?
According to Google Trends and other research into this question, Etsy has been steady in search results over the past five to six years.
This means that they don’t see the massive growth and search results that they were when they were at their height- around 2011 – 2016 (see image below).
Since then, they’ve become a household name and a staple in the eCommerce community, working hard to adapt and change in a growing market of at-home entrepreneurs.
This makes them steady and reliable but not booming.
As you can see, when the site was growing, it boomed between 2007 and 2011. However, there are some downsides to becoming an “old hat” in the eCommerce industry.
For example, many new eCommerce sites are working hard to be different from Etsy, offering things that Etsy doesn’t do or trying to advertise how they are “better.”
Most Shopify owners attest to having more creative freedom and control with fewer fees over their own shops.
Other sites claim that they are working harder to get their shop owners’ businesses seen more on google, rather than searched within their databases.
Because of this, shop owners are “Graduating” from Etsy and starting their own websites through Squarespace, Wix, and Shopify to have access to domain names and better Google search results.
Moving on From Etsy
This trend of “graduating” from Etsy once your shop grows – or if your shop is already too big for a site like Etsy – is harming the way that people “get big” online.
Most sellers claim that staying on Etsy is great for small businesses or a few physical locations and small teams. But those who are looking to become a worldwide or national corporation are saying goodbye to Etsy and its small-time services.
Etsy has tried to counteract this by using their programs like “Etsy Pattern,” which gives you a domain name and a new place to host your shop, rather than just within the Etsy database.
While this is a great way to begin moving on to a new system, many shop owners will still move on to other things.
However, almost all Etsy shops that “graduate” from the Etsy platform will still keep their fully-operating Etsy shop to remind their loyal customers where the brand started, and to keep making sales that way.
5. What is a Good Etsy Conversion Rate
Even if you are getting 1,000 views per day or even a week in your shop, each visitor isn’t always going to make a purchase.
This means that the number of visitors that actually buy, or the “Conversion Rate” is much lower than your view count. You always want to have more than one hundred views per day to your shop in order to keep traffic going for that one potential sale.
However, if you find that your shop gets less than 100 views per day, your sales will most likely be very few over the course of the month.
The way to calculate your conversion rate goes like this:
Sales (or conversions)/views x100 = conversion rate
A recommended conversion rate should fall around 3%, which is standard.
Anything less than that is below-average and higher than that is fantastic when it comes to Etsy selling.
An Example and Numbers
Let’s break this down with some concrete numbers.
Say you make handmade bookmarks and sell them in packs of five. Each pack costs $10 plus $3 in shipping for a total of $13 to your customers.
Each of those listings cost about $0.20 cents in listing fees, which ads up to $2 in fees every four months on your account.
Furthermore, your shop has 1,000 visitors per day, which includes clicking around and viewing your products, but your actual sales are only about 20 packs of bookmarks per month.
Your conversion rate is about 2% in this scenario – which is below-average in Etsy seller standards.
If this is the case, you may need to consider revamping your products and figure out what 980 visitors don’t like about your bookmarks that the other 20 people are.
6. Are Views or Visits More Important on Etsy?
Visits are going to be more important for your Etsy shop, but that doesn’t mean that views aren’t helpful!
If ten people visit your shop but view it multiple times, that equates to ten “visits” but could be over fifty “views” from those ten people.
Those visits are more important because that means an actual individual has come to your shop and has been browsing around – and may buy your product.
However, if that person is clicking around on multiple products without buying all of them, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Those views can lead to “favorites,” which can lead to sales later down the road from that one person.
Keep an Eye on Analytics
If you are going to keep an eye on your shop, the number of views is something you definitely want to keep an eye on.
For example, if you have 1,000 visits to your shop each month, but over 5,000 views, you know that those 1,000 people are very interested in what you have to sell and want to look at many of your products.
However, if after those 5,000 views, there are only 20 purchases, you may be missing a special “something” that gets those visitors to buy from you.
Consider checking out your competition and see what’s going on in their shops that you aren’t doing in yours!
7. Is Etsy Plus Worth it?
In our article, “Does Etsy Plus Help Sales? Here’s What to Expect,” we discuss the possibility that investing in a premium version of Etsy is a great way to get your shop jumpstarted on the right track.
However, depending on your vision for your shop and how new you are, it may not be for you.
For example, new shops tend to lose money after investing in Etsy Plus if their sales aren’t skyrocketing within the first three to six months. Established shops do have much better luck with it, and it helps get their products in front of new customers!
For more information, check out our article on Etsy Plus and see if it is right for you!
8. Are Etsy Ads Worth it?
Getting ads to help your shop grow in views and visits isn’t a bad idea – if you have the budget for it.
In our article, “Do Etsy Ads (Really) Work? Here Are the Facts”, we discuss how bidding for Etsy Ads work and whether or not investing in them is a good idea if you are a new or established shop.
Furthermore, you should consider what it is about your shop that might be failing – if it isn’t view counts, it could be your SEO, keywords, phrases, or photographs that aren’t getting you sales.
If that’s the case, Ads aren’t going to help much.
Make sure to do your research and stay on top of your merchandise and reviews – you may learn something from customers that you can’t learn from paying for Ads alone.