Etsy Shop Losing Money For The First Time

[BadBob]

Since the first of January, my sales have been dropping steadily. It is now at the point where my expense is greater than my revenue. I have lots of lookers but no buyers. I started the year with sales up 40% over last year. Since then, sales have been in a slow death spiral. This isn't the typical slowdown most shops experience during this time. I always have sales in the dead zone, as I like to call it. Not this time. I did the math today, and I'm in the red for the last 30 days. I have had my shop since 2017 and have always made a small profit. I sold enough to pay for the expenses. With my conversion rate approaching zero, Etsy will likely be billing me unless something happens soon.

Are you experiencing this?

Edited May 10, 2022 by BadBob
Corrections

[kmmcrafts]

Sales have been a little down for me on etsy as well, I feel like it may be a kind of off year ( or at least until fall ) this year because of a couple reasons.

First we have a lot of people who have been cooped up for a couple years due to the pandemic. Lot's of people getting out now and spending their funds on vacations and "doing things" rather than setting home on their computers shopping. The last couple years have been way above my " normal" sales.. I still ran business as if it was a "normal year" and put extra income away for that year that maybe isn't as good as a "normal" year because it's going to happen sooner or later.. business doesn't always have to have a growth year. I'm down in sales this year but was way up the last two years. 

I also feel like with the inflation and the prices of everything going up etc.. there is going to be less " extra" cash left to buy un-necessary items so I'm not certain I'll do as good as a "normal year" 

Personally where etsy has dropped off some for me Amazon and ebay are picking up that slack some.. which is 100% why I run more than 1-2 shops.. I've also started selling "more" craft supply items etc. on my ebay etc.. so where crafts might not be selling my supply shops are picking up steam. Many folks that can't afford to buy ready made products might by supplies so they can do their own crafts.. 

I personally have really enjoyed the slow down because I'm reworking my shop, I've bought some new equipment and trying to change up the layout and get my dust collector hooked up to all the machines, and taking the slow down to re-group and maybe learn to master the CNC and the laser so I can offer new / different products. Being so busy the last couple years opened my eyes to the fact that I'm one person and those last couple years I've been about max capacity to fulfill my orders with very little time to do any learning on those machines. Also showed me that if I had them both up and running they could be running in the background making products while I handle messages and pack orders etc. I'm seeing that I need to either hire part time help OR run these machines IF I want to expand business and still have a home type life like a regular day job. Money was good the last couple years but I seen that I can't continue to grow beyond that without the machines running or a hired helper.  

Anyway, I hope your sales pick up later in the year and make up you're short comings that are happening right now.. Normally I'd say it will.. but with all the prices of everything going up.. who knows how it'll turn out. If you don't have any low cost items it might be time to find some cheap items quick to make that'll be more appealing to a budget minded person.. that could help you out.. Sometimes raising a price and then showing it as "on sale" makes people feel like they're getting a deal, LOL funny how that works sometimes but.. 

[BadBob]

17 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

If you don't have any low cost items it might be time to find some cheap items quick to make that'll be more appealing to a budget minded person.

I have some low cost items and working on more. So far they are paying their way, but that is about all.

I posted on this topic in an Etsy group mostly because I could not find any mention of it and wanted to see if anyone else was seeing what I was. They were. Lots of them. A few have closed shop because they haven't had a sale in weeks and many were struggling. I'm happy this is not my meal ticket or I would be in big trouble.

[kmmcrafts]

10 hours ago, BadBob said:

I have some low cost items and working on more. So far they are paying their way, but that is about all.

I posted on this topic in an Etsy group mostly because I could not find any mention of it and wanted to see if anyone else was seeing what I was. They were. Lots of them. A few have closed shop because they haven't had a sale in weeks and many were struggling. I'm happy this is not my meal ticket or I would be in big trouble.

Like I've always said.. diversify.. I'd have been in trouble a lot of different times throughout the years if I had put all my efforts solely into etsy.. In fact to be quite honest.. I rarely put effort to sell on etsy other than making the pictures and listing.. Most times when it's slow on etsy then amazon picks up that slack etc. 

While the dollar is weakening and I think we are heading into a slow down.. expect to have things slow up in sales for a couple years.. hopefully those of us that rely on this income have taken advantage to put money away so they can ride out the slow down because it gets crazy busy when it picks back up.. Take advantage of that slow time to make new products.. Lot's of self employed folks make extra money and spend it.. then they can't ride out the slow times.. too bad to see shops closing up that was once a booming business.. poor management makes these times way too tough and they have to close up and get a job.. they blame that on etsy..  

[barb.j.enders]

Interesting read.  I do not sell on any platform so I can't/shouldn't really comment.  I am wondering though, is it a slow down, from the buyers, to protest the fees.  I read recently about all the additional fees that Etsy is charging and I understand that a lot of makers were pulling their shop in protest.  Just a random thought.

[kmmcrafts]

2 hours ago, barb.j.enders said:

Interesting read.  I do not sell on any platform so I can't/shouldn't really comment.  I am wondering though, is it a slow down, from the buyers, to protest the fees.  I read recently about all the additional fees that Etsy is charging and I understand that a lot of makers were pulling their shop in protest.  Just a random thought.

My sales was way up that week of the so-called protest / strike.. LOL.. Etsy put out a statement saying that the impact of the protest didn't hurt them in the least bit.. The sellers that partook in the protest were mostly the lower 1% of the sellers that would likely not of had any sales or minimal sales to begin with. 

Any business that's been around the block with selling would quickly know that even with the fee hike Etsy is the cheapest marketplace to offer goods online with a good sized customer base. While a stand alone website is a cheap monthly bill.. with only the payment processing fee, there is no big advertising or any customer base unless you have the funds to advertise heavily to be able to do it and be profitable.. even if you do the whole blogging and social media thing to bring customers to your site.. That's a lot of time to spend to do that and time is money.. I'd rather spend my time in the shop making something. They only raised the price to 6.5% as it was 5% of the total sale... still pretty cheap in comparison to amazon which is 15%.. and while they've waived the $40 a month fee on amazon for the entire time I've sold there.. any year now they could say okay $40 a month plus that 15%.. These website / venues have to grow..  BIG reason to diversify on multiple sites.. Poor managed business's rely on one venue then when something goes in a different direction they are struck with a big blow to their livelihood and many times go out of business.. At the end of the day you have to price your products to make money.. If etsy needs to raise their prices then you have to follow suit or eat the cost. There is a lot of hobbyist that way under charge.. are they really competition to other sellers? maybe a bit but most of them either go out of business or give up. I've been selling products online since 1998.. there is slow years and busy years.. a lot of small time shops closed up during the 2008 recession.. Too many business's spend all their earnings or don't make a enough of a profit of their goods to absorb those slow times.. I see a couple slow years in our future.. Not many are prepared for it..

Ebay fees aren't too far behind amazon's.. the issue with both these sites is... everyone goes there to find "cheaper" prices and it's almost like trying to sell high end art at a flee market.. you're working with the wrong customers.. that said though, I do fairly well with Amazon.. Etsy customers are willing to spend a little more on custom made and personalized type items..   

[BadBob]

10 hours ago, kmmcrafts said:

put money away so they can ride out the slow down

My Etsy money goes into a bank account; I still have every bit of it. I was saving it for a big purchase. One of those scrolling handsaw or maybe a new scroll saw if I ever get to the point where I need one. I have other income, so it isn't going to hurt me too badly. But I really would sell enough for it to pay for itself.

My revenue was steadily going up until January, and at first, I thought it was the usual after Christmas slow down, but now I am convinced it is not.

My Etsy views are way up and still climbing reasonably steadily. My Etsy views are up 517%, and My Direct Views are up 218% over last year. Even the SEO Views are up 153%. So it isn't for lack of people looking.

[BadBob]

9 hours ago, barb.j.enders said:

Interesting read.  I do not sell on any platform so I can't/shouldn't really comment.  I am wondering though, is it a slow down, from the buyers, to protest the fees.  I read recently about all the additional fees that Etsy is charging and I understand that a lot of makers were pulling their shop in protest.  Just a random thought.

The sellers pay the fees. Many people complain about them, but I add them into my pricing. I did not include the fees when I first started, but the fees were much lower then.

Typically there is a slow time after Christmas, but it depends on your business. I usually sell items in the dead zone, and I have had sales the week after Christmas. My biggest month so far has been August.

[kmmcrafts]

@BadBob Sales pick up for you? I was enjoying the slow time.. took the engine out of my car and have the engine torn down to the bare engine block for a performance engine build.. now all of a sudden I'm so fricken busy with Etsy orders can hardly keep up with what's happening.. Thankfully Amazon sales have died out to almost nothing, and that's what seems to happen with selling on two different platforms.. most times ( other than holidays ) they both are not super busy and when one place has the down time the other almost always picks up or at least carries the weight for a overall business profit each month. Anyway, hoping your sales have also jumped up and hopefully another slow down so I can get this engine put back together and back in the car, LOL. I knew it was going to happen because I had planned for a extended slow down and knew as soon as I'd get into a car build I'd get busy with business.  

[BadBob]

27 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

@BadBob Sales pick up for you? I was enjoying the slow time.. took the engine out of my car and have the engine torn down to the bare engine block for a performance engine build.. now all of a sudden I'm so fricken busy with Etsy orders can hardly keep up with what's happening.. Thankfully Amazon sales have died out to almost nothing, and that's what seems to happen with selling on two different platforms.. most times ( other than holidays ) they both are not super busy and when one place has the down time the other almost always picks up or at least carries the weight for a overall business profit each month. Anyway, hoping your sales have also jumped up and hopefully another slow down so I can get this engine put back together and back in the car, LOL. I knew it was going to happen because I had planned for a extended slow down and knew as soon as I'd get into a car build I'd get busy with business.  

I've had a few sales, but not enough to call it a comeback. My conversion rate dropped to zero for about a week. That hasn't happened since I made my first sale.

[Puzzleguy]

I think sometimes its just hit and miss - and what the news reports on the economy

when it say things are getting bad , people stop buying . when they say things are getting better

stuff starts moving - my thoughs on this are :  they should keep saying -THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER !

[kmmcrafts]

It really is hit and miss sometimes.. I've found that selling on more than one marketplace helps.. If one site is having issues with their platform, search function etc. the other site still getting sales "hopefully" .. This summer was a bit slow for me on etsy but to be fair I also lost 18-20% of my sales because I stopped shipping worldwide.. Plus I took most of the summer off and didn't advertise or do much to try to get sales.. Where etsy slacked Amazon seemed to have picked up.. Many times over the past 13 years of selling crafts online I'd have lost my behind if I had only relied on one marketplace to sell on... 

[Peter N White]

What is the issue with shipping world wide some big companies wont ship either, just curious.

[kmmcrafts]

First off is you have to watch for all the rules and regulations of what can ship or not ship to each location. Big fines if you ship something that isn't allowed to be in that country. etc.. Batteries is one bigger one that isn't to be shipped, some types of wood not allowed in other areas etc... and those items can change from one year to the next so it's a constant looking up what can and cannot ship.. selling clocks I have to take out batteries etc. for most locations. 

What put me and many others over the top is now we have to apply every year for a tax number or customs number or something, for I think it was the E.U. and it's a yearly $10? fee.. I have not read up on this so I may be wrong. Last summer this came up and I had to do it or stop selling to that location. I was in the middle of some other things and just shut down shipping worldwide until I could get a better look at what it was all about. I still haven't looked into it yet and won't get a chance to until next spring when things slow up a little at best.. I've read talks about this and many say other locations will follow suit of this so then sellers will have to be doing this for multiple locations.. It has made a lot of sellers and big companies to just stop sending to them locations.. Maybe it'll hurt them and they'll rethink what they're doing, lol  

It's a whole lot of work to do for 15-20% of my sales.. Even though I was getting more and more international business.. Maybe I would be loosing 20-25% this year since I shut it all down.. I don't know

[BadBob]

I too stopped selling outside the US for much the same reasons. It got way to complicated and not worth the effort. 

[Scrappile]

Could it also be related to inflation,,, people do not have as much money to spend on non-essentials right now.  I certainly know I don't!

[Peter N White]

kmmm crafts thanks for enlightening me everything is getting harder to do. 

[kmmcrafts]

8 hours ago, Scrappile said:

Could it also be related to inflation,,, people do not have as much money to spend on non-essentials right now.  I certainly know I don't!

That's a good possibility.. I seem to be spending a lot more this year than normal.. just to eat.. and not getting fat either, 

[BadBob]

I'm still trending downward. My page views are double what they were last year.

 

[Puzzleguy]

On 10/29/2022 at 7:55 AM, BadBob said:

I'm still trending downward. My page views are double what they were last year.

 

Bob , do you do any promoting or show some of your pieces on social media like facebook ,

or instagram . you can promote threw facebook , sometimes on the cheap sometimes not

but what do you have to loose . also check your listing description -sometimes thats the ticket 

 

[BadBob]

17 hours ago, Puzzleguy said:

Bob , do you do any promoting or show some of your pieces on social media like facebook

 

Yes, All of these. Visits are up 90% over last year. Etsy listing views are steadily increasing so listings and tags are fine.

 

• Blogger
• Google Business
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Rumble
• Vimeo
• Facebook Business and Personal
• Instagram
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Parler
• LinkedIn
• CloutHub
• Gab
• MeWe
• Truth Social
• Getter
• Reddit
• Flickr
• MyAlbum

[kmmcrafts]

21 hours ago, BadBob said:

 

Yes, All of these. Visits are up 90% over last year. Etsy listing views are steadily increasing so listings and tags are fine.

 

• Blogger
• Google Business
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Rumble
• Vimeo
• Facebook Business and Personal
• Instagram
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Parler
• LinkedIn
• CloutHub
• Gab
• MeWe
• Truth Social
• Getter
• Reddit
• Flickr
• MyAlbum

Are they genuine visits or bot visits? what is the bounce rate on your site? do people come and bounce out or are they finding a page and then looking through your other items.. Who are you marketing too? Is most your traffic brought in by you or through etsy? 

You don't really need to answer these questions to me but ask them of yourself.. I know you sell on etsy and I know a pretty good idea of what you sell but when I try to find your shop I can never find it unless I type in your exact shop name or a exact title of a product in your store.. so this tells me you need work on SEO.. 

I just did a search for "wood toy car" went back more than 10 pages and never found a item of yours.. Ideally you want to work / strive to be within the first couple pages and if you can't achieve that then paid ads will sometimes help put you there.. do you ever do any paid ads on or off etsy? 

Several years ago I won $200 in free etsy ads credit.. That boosted my business big time.. we should all know that more traffic helps with google and etsy search.. etsy puts out the popular items because those are popular and people want to see the popular stuff.. I don't remember now how much money I made from those sales.. BUT it did boost my shop to rake higher and has helped me.. I left paid ads on for several years because not only does it help you get higher ranking from all the click throughs it also brought me in more money than the ads cost. I only kept a very small daily budget of $1, LOL I turned off ad's over the pandemic because I couldn't keep up with business.. I recently turned ads back on a couple weeks ago.. yes there is a slow down.. my sales dropped about 23% but not all of it is what I consider a huge drop because I also shut down international selling which was around 18 - 25% of my sales. I have my ads max daily at $2 a day..  check out the stats of how much I've spent and my revenue.. I'm not claiming to know what I'm doing or trying to brag or be a no-it-all.. just sharing what I've sort of learned through trial and error for the last 15 years, LOL.. Like I said.. I don't know your business and how to sell what you make and sell.. everyone's business works differently and even if we sold the same exact things we'd have two different levels of sales and expenses.. I'm merely just throwing up some suggestions. Lots of people say they can't afford ads.. OR try it for a week and loose money because of paying for clicks that doesn't bring sales.. a week isn't long enough.. nor is a month really to be honest.. without the ad credit I got years ago I wouldn't have stepped outside and tried ads.. or I would have been that same person trying it for a couple weeks.. doesn't work over-all that way.. Long term thinking.. this time of year ads usually pay off more so than through the slower times.. ( for me anyway ) Paid ads are only going to work as good as your title and tags too so don't think you can get away with not trying SEO and just paying for the ads.. 

What kind of content do you make for your social media? Is it "entertainment style" or more like a commercial on TV? people just scroll past the commercials.. so make something that is entertaining.. takes time to build up a fan base.. I struggle with this part myself so I don't have a lot to offer here.. I just know when i myself go look on social sites.. I scroll on past the commercials and look at things that are more entertainment base. 

When people say to me on these sites, you're prices are higher than others.. no way I could get that much money for the same thing at a craft show.. your right.. it's a lot of work to "get sales" or a lot of money goes back into advertising.. if you can't afford the time to do "good social" stuff then pay for ads.. can't afford ads raise prices.. you have to find the mix of what works for you.. and keep working at it every day.. no days off.. skip a day of social media posting and people forget who you are.. either way time is money so either paid ads or time making content and editing videos etc for social sites.. doing neither will net you very close to 0 sales.. 

 

 

 

[rjweb]

Kevin,

Did you ever think of writing a book on your online sales tactics might be a best seller plus more income. I don’t do any online sales but always enjoy your read, thx RJ 

[kmmcrafts]

40 minutes ago, rjweb said:

Kevin,

Did you ever think of writing a book on your online sales tactics might be a best seller plus more income. I don’t do any online sales but always enjoy your read, thx RJ 

You know, IF I thought I knew what I was doing would work for everyone I'd do that.. I'm really just flying by the seat of my pants just like everyone else. The issue is the internet changes all the time.. what works today may not work next week.. I mean there is  "general" things to do.. that other issue is.. yeah I might write a book but by the time I get it done and published there is good chance the info in the book is already outdated.. I started this journey in around 2008.. having your website set up so buyers could use a phone to shop wasn't a thing.. so not only do trendy things change from year to year so does technology and the way people shop.. I used to run my own stand alone website but it's never ending trying to keep up with the tech changes that evolve and I finally gave up on it.. My .com is now just a copy of my etsy shop through etsy and I let them do that background work.. 

Most if not all the info I give here is general info and can be found all over the internet for free.. Just do YouTube videos on whatever selling tips / topics you like and there is a lot of how too videos etc. already out there. The issue is.. "WORK".. it's way easier to complain about no sales than it is to "work" to find out WHY.. Instead of wasting 10 minutes to complain take that 10 minutes and make a sales ad or a piece of social media content to bring people to your store.. The more visits you get on a item that isn't just a quick click through and bounce out.. that kind of view hurts a seller.. but if they take a look for a couple minutes and then look through some "other items " you offer both etsy and google picks up on that.. so they'll show it more and move it up from the last page to the front page if it keeps happening..  

[BadBob]

@kmmcrafts How did you decide which items to put the ads on?