Stats… what does that mean to you today? I’m guessing it’s not the statistics class you were trying to get through in high school or college. It’s something us Etsy sellers maaaay obsess over. It’s amazing that Etsy gives us visibility to so many stats within our shop! There are two main areas where you can view your shop data! In case this is all new to you… your dashboard (navigate to shop manager>dashboard) and your Stats (navigate to shop manager>stats). I have to admit over the past ten years one of my top sites I have visited is my etsy dashboard! When I hear the cha-things. I proudly announce to my husband, my children, even my dogs Oliver & Willow. “I’ve made 10 sales today, $800!” My next breath will likely be, “that’s up 87% compared to last year). I love looking at the % growth year over year! 

WHAT STATS SHOULD YOU FOCUS ON?

Who doesn’t love digging in and seeing how many people have visited their shop, how many people have viewed their items and how many sales they’ve got?! While there are many other numbers that you can dig in to as an Etsy Shop owner these three give you a high level story of how your shop is doing: VISITS (people visiting your shop), VIEWS (how many times your listings have been viewed) and ORDERS (how many items have been purchased). If you find yourself focusing on other numbers such as social media followers, likes, comments, etc. these are secondary metrics, don’t obsess over these! Some call them vanity metrics, while they may lead to sales, it’s best to spend time ensuring that your Etsy Shop is as on brand and optimized for the Etsy search engine. When you do this you are working on attracting people who are already on the Etsy Platform and ready to shop. The work you do here on your Etsy Shop will also pay off in your social media platforms. Example: If you look to optimize your thumbnail picture for etsy search. You take a picture, up close, in natural light, it looks amazing…. people start seeing it in etsy search and click through. Well, you could also post that new picture on Instagram! Boom you’ve focused on optimizing your etsy shop and you’ve also used it on Instagram. 

IS YOUR ETSY SHOP PERFORMING ABOVE OR BELOW THE AVERAGE ETSY SHOP?

So let’s talk about views and what that means in relation to sales. People often wonder how they are doing. I find some people (especially those who have just opened their store) notice they have let’s say 5 views and then get disappointed that they didn’t get a sale. They think, “why didn’t that person buy, what have I done wrong.” They start to question themselves and find themselves changing things in their listing. My advice is stop and know that the average conversion rate on Etsy is 1% (stated by Etsy SEO Tool Marmalead). So if you are like the average Etsy Store this means you will need about 100 views in order to get a sale. You can of course get this conversion rate hight! If you want to ensure your listings are optimized download my ideal etsy listing worksheet, to give you want you need to optimize your listings.  

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TIMEFRAME WHEN VIEWING STATS

While I love to check in on my Etsy Dashboard and hit the filters for “today, last 7 days, last 30 days, this year and all time” and proudly announce to who ever is in ear shot my numbers; I really try to sit down and look at the stats page instead of the dashboard. I try and look at yearly trends which will give me a trend by month, this will average out those days that I make lots of sales and the days that I make none. So expand your view, widen your lens. What are you seeing? Are you really seeing drops in your visits, views or orders? If yes, here are some reasons why and what you can do to increase your views. Let’s start there! With views because that’s step one, get your listings seen by the people! 

If you do see a large drop:

1. ISSUE: DID YOUR RELEVANCY SCORE (HOW OFTEN YOUR LISTING ARE SELLING) GO DOWN WITHIN THE SEARCH ALGORITHM?

Meaning… relevancy is one of the key metrics within the search algorithm (not the only one). Relevancy is how often your listings are selling so if you havn’t had any sales in a while your listing may not rank as high in search, therefore your listings aren’t getting seen. 

What action should you take? Easy… market your products! It’s important to have your own traffic coming in to your etsy shop. So list a fresh new item (this helps with the search algorithm) and promote it on your social media channels, by email, etc. Try and get a sale. MOMENTUM is everything! Once your sales start coming in, your views will likely go up as well. 

2. ISSUE: COULD YOU HAVE BEEN IMPACTED BY A CHANGE IN ETY’S SEARCH ALGORITHM?

There are a few times when Etsy has published that they are changing their search algorithm. For example In July 2019 Etsy stated that sellers would get priority placement in search with a free shipping guarantee for US buyers for orders over $35. A change like this COULD have happened but Etsy changes their search algorithm so infrequently that this is unlikely. 

What action should you take? First ensure you keep up to date on Etsy’s latest changes. This can be a drag to sift through all the information Etsy releases… I can help with this join my email list https://view.flodesk.com/pages/5e22e984830fff002625406c and you’ll stay in the know  

3. ISSUE: DID YOU HAVE A DECREASE IN VIEWS FROM OUTSIDE SOURCES?

You should know where your traffic is coming from and your dashboard can show you this: 

Did you spend lots of time promoting your items on Facebook or Instagram last month and now you have been focusing on other priorities so you are seeing less of your views coming from these platforms? This could often be the case for Facebook and Instagram, posts there convert for approximately 24 hours. 

What action should you take? You may want to start promoting in those avenues again to increase your views. Top Tip: Unlike Instagram and Facebook where posts usually only convert for a short amount of time, Pinterest is gold for Etsy sellers! Pins gain visibility over time and keep bringing in traffic. One of my top pins was created years ago. 

4. ISSUE: ARE ALL YOUR LISTINGS ACTIVE?

Perhaps one or a few of your listings are no longer active in your shop, they normally bring in views but for some reason they are now inactive. 

What action should you take? Do a quick check by navigating to your shop manager>listings. Select your expired, sold-out and inactive listings to see which listings are not showing in your shop. Perhaps you forgot to renew a listing. Top tip: you can edit your individual listings to auto renew, If you enable Auto-renew, you’ll be charged $0.20 USD every four months when the listing renews. You won’t have to worry about your listings not being active. You can bulk update your renew setting on all your listings when you select all your listings on all pages>editing options>change renewal options>automatic>apply

So there you have it the four reasons your Etsy views may be down and what you can do about it. The amount of data that Etsy provides its sellers is wonderful! Use this data to celebrate and to identify when things may need to change! Go out there and get those cha-chings and remember widen your lens and look at long term trends, don’t obsess on the daily and optimize your shop!