Etsy And The Art Of Networking

Who is in your circle? Adding people to your circle can help spread your product. When people add you to their circle they are updated when you add something new or renew an old item or re-list a sold item. When someone favorites one of your items, add the to your circle. About half the time, they will add you back.

Grow your network on Etsy by growing your circle. If you add me to your circle, I will add you to mine. This will help everyone grow! Here is my shop: http://MarketMyShop.etsy.com Feel free to comment with your shop. Let's build a huge network!

Etsy: Less Views Can Mean More Sales!

I have discussed Bounce Rate before but I wanted to revisit it after talking about Etsy's search algorithm. Sometimes when you tighten up your relevancy you actually experience a drop in views, sometimes it is a significant drop in views. Don't panic!

A drop in views means very little unless you have a drop in sales accompanying it. If so, you might need to revisit relevancy in general. If your drop in views does not seem to change your sales rate then you have actually done well. You have dropped your bounce rate. Meaning, those who just click on a listing and leave within seconds because it isn't what they are looking for. Those people rarely buy anyhow. Sure, someone might buy because they randomly landed on one of your products, but the customer you actually want is one that sought out your product because that is what they were looking for.

The better your relevancy the better chance you have at connecting with a customer. So, before you start to panic after making a change, look at the big picture. Give it a little bit of time. If your sales are not dropping you are probably doing okay. You might want to revisit some of my articles on Bounce Rate by clicking on the tag cloud to the right.

Hope this helps a little. Let me know if you have any questions by leaving them in the comments or sending me an email to MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Etsy Search Optimization

Over the weekend I answered someone's question on one of the forums at Etsy. They wanted to know how Etsy's search algorithm worked. So I wrote this up for them. I thought it would be good to share it here with all of you.

Etsy Search algorithm (the formula used to determine relevancy) is said to function like this:
First Etsy looks at the title for EXACT word phrase matches and lists those items as most relevant.
Second it looks for EXACT word phrases in the tags section and lists those matches.
Now, you have probably noticed that most of the listings in a relevant search DO NOT have EXACT keyword phrase matches in their title and maybe not even their tags and here is why:

Etsy also uses USER INPUT to determine relevancy. So, if someone searches for "crochet baby bib" and looks at 3 pages and clicks on a listing from page 3, that listing just got a huge bump in relevancy because someone found it relevant. Though the other listings previous to it were also relevant the one that got clicked became more relevant and jumped up to maybe page 2. It might have been what the user was looking for.

Now, the relevancy of being clicked does not just get a bump in a relevancy search. It gains relevancy if it is clicked on from any spot. If it is clicked on for a treasury or in the Newly listed section of the front page or clicked on from anywhere inside Etsy it gains relevancy based on its title and tags.

Renewing gives your item a small chance of being clicked on from different areas on Etsy. Renewing does not guarantee you a bump in relevancy just by renewing.

There are other aspects of the Etsy Search algorithm that they have not released and probably never will. The best thing to do is to make sure you have a very relevant title (mainly the first 3 words) and relevant tags. The better you are at describing the item in the title and guessing how a customer will search for your item the better chance you have of being found, clicked on and sold.

Lastly, it is far better to work within a niche rather than in the general category. Example:
It is better to optimize for Crochet Baby Bib than Baby Bib. You'll find far less competition the more specific you get with your title and tags.


You may experience a DROP in views but also a DROP in bounce rate. Being more relevant actually keeps those who are not interested in your items off your page and gains the ones that are looking for your items.


I hope you all had a great long weekend. Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment or sending me an email to MarketMyShop@gmail.com

A Change To Facebook You Should Be Aware Of

Facebook recently made a change to the way people see the pages they like. You now need to have pages listed in either "Show in News Feed" or under a list. To make sure your fans see you it might be a good idea to snag the above and post it to your Facebook Page.

Just right click over the image above and "Save As" then log into your Facebook page and upload it to your page. Social media pages like Facebook and Twitter make these changes and don't usually tell anyone about it. I guess they expect us to just notice it. Whatever the case, it is important to know about these changes and do what you can to share them with your fans or followers.

Short blog today. I am very busy these days with the new brick and mortar shop and life in general. If you have any questions put them in the comments or send me an email to MarketMyShop@gmail.com I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Etsy Change To Multiple Quantity Listings

As of May 21st, Etsy changed the way you are charged when listing multiple quantities of a single item. Before the changes you were charged $.20 for each item. So, if you listed a quantity of 10 you were charged a listing fee of $1.00 when you listed or renewed.

The new changes allow you to list as many in the quantity as you like with a single $.20 fee. When you renew you are just charged $.20 as well. The way it works is when you sell one of your quantity you are charged $.20 for the next item in the listing. Or if you sell more than one at a time you are charged the fees on the items sold minus the first one which is already paid for plus a fee for the renewal of the next one if you still have it in stock.

Example:

List 10 of the exact same necklace. Pay $.20 for the entire listing
If 1 sales you are charged $.20 to "auto renew" your listing. You now have 9 necklaces.
Then if 5 sale you are charged $.1.0 ($.20 for the 4 not yet paid for plus $.20 for the next one)
You now have 4 necklaces, of which one already has the listing price paid.

It all reads like an elaborate math word problem but it boils down to this: Etsy has made it easy for people to sell multiple quantities of one item without having to renew it every time one is sold. What is unclear is whether the "auto renew" aspect actually works like an auto renew posting it as a new item to the "What's new in your favorite shop" feed. I will look into that and let you know. If you already have that answer please feel free to share.

I got really busy yesterday and didn't make time to post. Sorry about that. It would seem no matter how much time you budget, sometimes something happens to rearrange your schedule! I will be back tomorrow with more on my series of 'The Magic Numbers Of Etsy.'  Until then, let me know if you have any questions or comments either here on the blog or through email at MarketMyShop@gmail.com