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That's always an option as well! It can be hard when it comes to customer perceptions for some products though. For example, in our shop, our stickers with shipping included will be around $10 when displayed on search pages. And while customers will ultimately be paying the same price, whether shipping is included or not, it does cause a bit of a disruption in click-habits when compared to other competitive listings on a search page who have listed shipping as a separate price. For lower cost items, including shipping in the overall item price can be challenging, especially when items are shipping "together" and technically the cost of shipping is being applied to every single sticker, rather than being factored into the overall purchase amount. We're going to be running a few different conversion tests with low cost items to see how the differences impact shopper behavior.
This is a big factor for our store, where we sell a mix of prices. Adding shipping to our lower priced items will put us way over our competition's prices. And I've never felt that the resulting overcharge of shipping that would result from someone buying multiple items was fair to the customers either. And we can't do free shipping over 35 because we can't afford to eat the shipping on a piece that's 36.99 and I don't think our customers will get past the initial cringe of a shipping included price of almost $45, even though in the end, they'll be paying the same amount.@@StarlaMoore
Is this bootcamp a specific time everyday. I forgot, you have replays right? Mail carrier so I work everyday until 430 est. Plus I’m trying to actually be involved this time. Lol
Doing crappy stuff before the holiday has always been Etsy's MO. I closed my shop 2 years ago but I still like to watch your videos. Maybe for the nostalgia of the good times. This change is insane and so transparently not about the artisans, vintage and crafters anymore. But that ship sailed a long time ago.
Etsy also charges a 6.5% shipping fee. They are literally making a profit off of shipping prices we can't control. Etsy should have no say in shipping.
I agree that it's not ethically right, but etsy has included shipping fees in their calculation of overall sale price for quite some time, so they're not making more money off the change at this point, they're just sticking it to the Sellers who haven't toed the line yet.
If we add the cost of shipping to total price that means we're paying 15% up front when it sells correct? Will Etsy cover the extra charges? Is that even legal?
The reason for that is so sellers don't bypass the fees by charging less for their product and more for shipping. For example, selling an item for $1 with $100 shipping cost would only incur a % of that $1 with no fees on the $100. People were getting away with this on Ebay until they caught on. I think thats why Etsy takes a % of shipping fees.
@@floursparcelestial it would be nice if Etsy did not charge so much for each listing..like Poshmark.... its free... or with Ebay you can pay $65 for 6k listings... ,or with Mercari its free AND they dont take fees ))
I cater my products to the gothic and witchy crowd and recieved a notice from Etsy telling me to fix my dark moody photography. :P These new updates definitely have me ready to grow my own website. I'm also amazed furniture and sculptures weren't included in those shipping exemptions. Do they really expect someone to ship a dresser for under $6? 🙃
Same with me. They did something to search late May. I noticed the difference immediately. I show up a lot less to maybe only once within the 1st 10 pages of search. And my stats reflect this change… traffic to my shop from search dropped almost 50% since they did whatever they did. Repeat business is pretty much the only thing keeping me going (barely). Thanks to erank, I know for a fact that a lot of the shops they are now spreading the love to are making them $0. I’m just shocked at the lack of common sense with Etsy.
Me too! June , July, August dead! Like a light switch... I average 10k a month for the past three years. The last three months I make half that. My daily traffic is so low, and it's upsetting. I worked hard for what I did. If I'm not making money ... they are not making money. It doesn't make sense.
@AmourFabriQues I saw a clip of the ceo saying they would be highlighting more small businesses on Etsy and making less room for the bigger sellers in search results. As I've done my own shopping on there I've really seen this in practice, usually it's sellers with hardly any reviews coming up in the search results.
@@RexterDoesEverything-2014 I started as a new seller, they suspended my shop in the third day, without any notice, explanation or anything after months of research. I appealed several times and requested a reason. Nothing since March and it is still suspended. So, no; they are flagging a lot of people. ?????
*shaking my head* It's frustrating that Etsy cares more about fat profits for them than for the sellers. There seems to be way more stick and a lot less carrot these days.
We need Etsy to stop listing thieves. Starting to water mark everything even if they won’t include it as an Etsy pick. Better to have something than best sellers constantly taken down
I'm still pretty new on Etsy, but you've already helped me SO much to better understand how to run my shop. Plus, your videos are always informative and not just silly clickbait stuff. Thanks a lot
I sell large expensive metal sculptures. Typically I put for example a $1499 price and $300ish shipping. Personally I like to get the initial click and make them fall in love. $1499 looks more click worthy then $1799 if you ask me. But don’t worry etsy, I’ll make the price $1793 with $6 shipping 😅😂
It may be worth A/B split testing by duplicating a few listings (with and without $6 shipping) just to see how much impact the update has on your search ranking. As long as those listings are within the same shop, you can safely split test them without issue.
@@StarlaMooreYep! I do quite a lot of testing for if people commonly search “under $150” or “free shipping”. Every listing i have 2 of. One with free shipping and one without free shipping under a certain price point. So hopefully I’ll be able to see if shipping price actually affects ranking in my category
Right and I feel if someone is shopping for something that big they know the shipping will be high. Etsy forcing us into this is bad and not fare to someone like you who sells heavy art.
@@StarlaMoore that's a good point, I have oversized items too, not as heavy as furniture though. Still I like to keep the product prices lower to get the first click. Also for items larger than shirts, I'd think users understand why prices are over 6 USD. I was hesitant to change my prices for existing products, but I could definitely start doing A/B testing now to see if Etsy was right 🥲
My views have tanked. I went from multiple sales everyday to almost zero views. Dashboard says my store is completely optimized. I sell in an ever green niche. Brightside, I have time to work on my other shop but I'm afraid of this being the norm.
I had 82 photos that didn't meet the photo resolution requirements. I did notice a dramatic dip in traffic and sales right after these notices appeared. I updated a bunch, but with that many to upgrade I tried an experiment. I deactivated these until I can update them (I have over 2500 active listings, so I decided this wasn't an issue for sales since most are actually not the best-selling listings.) I immediately got an overall boost in traffic and sales. I'll update again as I relist these with updated photos and let you know how it goes.
Haha, like, sellers are the ones deciding on the shipping prices. This is such a stupid decision. In the last few years, we have been witnessing a lot of non logical decisions from lots of big companies.
This is ESTY in control. It’s a reminder that customers you receive are ETSY customers - not yours. Therefore they can dictate and tell sellers what to do. You either do it or get your own shop and leave. Kinda sad that big brother continues to crack the whip.
@@nobleguy37 They view us as "churn" not as the faithful workers and producers that we really are. All they care about is pleasing the investor class now.
Just a thought here - I feel like Etsy is pushing to lower the shipping prices for their own benefit since they are piloting that subscription model when Etsy would cover shipping fees for the customers who subscribed (not sure how the program was called). Somehow before that shipping price wasn't Etsy's concern, but it became one as soon as they started piloting the program. I could definitely see Etsy not wanting to cover shipping fees for oversized and heavy items, which could be well over 100 USD per package. And I believe it's unfair they are making it sellers' problems, when it's been very well known that lower product prices in search are more attractive to buyers. I'm personally not happy about this changes, especially with some of my best sellers being larger items, I'll have to rise my prices by 40 percent to get to shipping price below 6 USD.
I was waiting for this video! The new shipping rule actually helps our business, but I wish they had a higher threshold as many sellers sell heavy items and can't afford to lower shipping costs.
We will be setting our shipping at $5 flat then absorbing the remainder into our item prices. The only major downside is that customers will be paying for shipping g on each item, even when products are bundled in the same package (like sticker sheets). 🫤
There's no way I can ship my packages for under $6. There's times that my package is way 18 lbs. It's going to kill a lot of sellers businesses. And if I try to incorporate that amount into my prices, no customers going to want to buy my product. It may be good for some, but it's going to shut down a lot of shops of sellers who can't comply.
The 5 listing images used to be in the help article on Etsy titled 'Requirements and Best Practices for Images in' Your Etsy Shop Requirements and Best Practices for Images in Your Etsy Shop'. It used to say this: (summarized) Size: at least 1000 pixels wide; 3000 x 2250 pixels recommended Number of images: up to 10; at least 5 recommended Aspect ratio: 4:3 recommended Orientation: landscape or square for the first image; recommend using the same orientation for all listing images File type: JPG, GIF, or PNG Color mode: sRGB Resolution: 72PPI File size: less than 1 MB for faster uploading
@@StarlaMoore you're welcome :) I was sure I had read it too and luckily I could find it back in my notes. they deleted that from the article now though.
I don't think it's fair to add shipping to our prices to offset shipping, especially for local customers. Not doing it. I took those items out of my Etsy shop and put them on my website. I will only direct shoppers to my website. I can't help how much shipping costs.
This is SO DISGUSTING of Etsy to do! Some people ship items that cost WAY more than $6 to ship all the way across the country... They are LITERALLY just trying to pad their pockets more, while making sellers MAKE LESS MONEY! They make me SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for condensing this down for us!! I have 5 images on each listing so I am hoping this works. Seems crazy to clutter up all my images just for them. I've worked hard on making things clean and streamlined.
That under $6 thing is such poop. They do not take into consideration of what it cost to ship. a 16x20 painting can cost up to 50-70 bucks and adding that into the cost Will make some of are painting unsellable especially when somepople will sell a 16x20 painting for for like 20 bucks with free shipping. I do not get that it cost way more than that to ship those. In some places you do not have to pay sales tax on shipping. So when they take out the sales tax you will end up getting more deducted from your profit. I got that 6 dollar notice but can not afford to do that on those items. 😡
Thanks Starla! This was super helpful. I have been stressing because the only risk factor warning I have is on collage photos. Reason is because I am a POD seller who sells a lot of front and back shirts. In fact, my top selling shirts are front and back designs. I don’t know how else to display the first photo without a collage. I always make sure it’s visible in search.
I had two of mine flagged but basically I'm curious or trying to figure out how they flag them. So I'm curious what you did in your listings? I'm thinking there's a way around it. In the two that got flagged, I spliced two jpgs together in Canva and put a solid line between them, which were the two to get flagged. On the flip side, I have multiple Christmas listings, multiple with 3 people in it and another that actually has 4 in it, which these didn't get flagged. So I'm thinking if we use jpegs/png files that have the front and back without the line showing, maybe that won't trigger it? Just feeling out what you did in yours to see if splicing two together might be the reason or adding the line between them.
@@Tsmiejek oh that’s interesting. Yes all of mine are png’s with a white line between the two pictures. And they all got flagged. Maybe I’ll try without the line and see if that prevents the images from being flagged. I watched “By ChristinaNicole’s” video that Starla recommended. She said if it’s an intentional front and back shirt then to leave it because it accurately displays the item. 🤷🏻♀️
@@Jessyoutube4 we’ve got listings that include items that have 2 ways to wear it (a set of cosplay shoulder armor that come with an emblem plate but can be worn with or without). The images got flagged with the “collage” issue, and there’s no lines - just the 2 options next to each other.
@@TheRisingFenix was it 2 jpegs/pngs spliced together and then uploaded or just a single jpeg/png file? I'm wondering if somehow they can figure out if it's two combined and that's what's flagging it. I just say that because I have a 6 shirt listing, a listing with 4 people, and so many couple pictures that it didn't flag. In a way the couple pictures are almost similar to the front and back pictures I have, spaced apart, etc... but are single jpegs I used. So just figured I'd ask.
@@Jessyoutube4 I'm not going to touch my listings with the flagged on them because I have no other way to showcase them and it honestly is the best way to show them. They are the sports apparel/custom options where you can add team/sport on the front and then player/number on the back. I think without showing that, at least as a custom item and on the first picture, it would hurt the visibility in a way too. But I guess we'll see how this plays out.
Hi Starla.Would you focus on Sweatshirts rather t-shirts since we are approaching Q4 Or do you recommend focussing on t-shirts only for now?l for a new and General POD apparel store? Or do you recommend opening only a niche store?
@@StarlaMoore thanks Starla. Between opening broad niche store (e.g PPD store for dog moms with top 20 breeds as sections) and a general POD store (e.g all 20 sections being different like Hobbies, occupations, sports, pets etc.) which one do you suggest opening?
Thankfully Etsy changed their absurd "no more than 4 reviews under 3-stars" rule soon after to "no more than 10% of the reviews" which is much more reasonable this time of year. 😅 Now hoping pod providers have better quality control this Q4 🙏
Ok according to Etsy for any given 3-month period "If you have less than 40 reviews, no more than 4 reviews should be 3 stars or less. If you have more than 40 reviews, less than 10% of your reviews should be 3 stars or less. " So there was no change, I just got a few more reviews😅 I really need to start asking for reviews now😭
They tried that visibility shipping game and it quietly went away because it didn’t work. I don’t think you can give thousands of sellers priority for that. I mean logically everyone can’t be on the first few pages.
Do you have a tutorial on how to adjust shipping to split the cost between a custom 5.99 shipping profile and your product price ? I’m not understanding how to set a profile this way
The 2k pixels wide is for the listing photo, not all right? I sell digital patterns, at that size nobody needs to buy but can just work from screen enlargement...
I'm very concerned. My current best-sellers all have collage photos as the main photo. Over years these have outperformed otherwise identical listings with a single main photo. Since I sell yarn kits, the collage photo helps buyers realize how the yarn they're purchasing will knit up.
The collage photo thing is ridiculous. I have an item I sell that *is* a collage. There is no way to take a picture of it to show it otherwise. They need to stop using AI to pinpoint these listings or have a way to tell the algorithm that the item being sold is a collage and to exclude it from that search listing criteria. SMH
Hey Starla, the exclusion of “Sellers outside the US”, is this based on the shop location or the “shipped from” data? I am an Australian store but sell POD shipped from US print providers. This seems to be a grey area. Any thoughts?
I think this is very silly.... most shipping i use is between 6 and 13 bucks. Priority 1st class 1-3 day... when they first announced the Boost if you have free shipping, I just added 10 bucks to the listing. It's literally the same exact thing... its not deceitful. They were going to pay it anyways! And im definitely NOT giving stuff away for free.... Funny how they told me don't raise your prices to offset free shipping...... yeah okay buddy. And now in this update, they're saying "yeah sure! go and just add the difference to your listing, its no big deal!"😂😂😂
They did not exclude POD unfortunately, so my whole shop will suffer bc of a few Printful items in my shop. Sucks. Guess I will have to focus on a Printify shop instead.... THANK YOU Starla!!!!
A bit worried about the shipping with tracking tbh. Not everyone wants it, so if I set it as a default option (which would be more expensive than standard shipping obv), it would penalise customers who don't want/need tracked delivery and, potentially, turn some customers away due to the shipping cost higher than they expected. But this update - and your video - came up at the perfect time, because I was in the process of configuring my delivery profile.
It would help if etsy actually updated their calculated shipping section as you still can't select ground advantage. Also all the priority ones I have switched to calculated are turning out 2-3 dollars more than I was charging to begin with. This is just a giant headache as I probably will just have to add the shipping to the product and select free under shipping. As it is I had the least amount of sales in August in over 5 years on Etsy (so I think they lied about giving us warning time cause my traffic was down).
Yes, the Ground Advantage thing is getting ridiculous now. They've had plenty of time to reconcile that, and yet they haven't. I'm very new to Etsy, and so because of that issue I'm only confident in offering priority as I'm too nervous to try G.A. only to possibly find delivery goes "out of range" and I lose out on the sale. Can't have that when I'm just starting up selling.
I am a new Etsy seller. I opened my shop at the end of last year. A couple of my products were scaling up on sales and suddenly, I stopped making sales. I wonder why. I haven’t done anything differently from what I have been doing. I follow the recommendations of Starla and another Etsy expert that I follow. Everything was working well. I wonder if these changes Etsy has made have affected my shop. How would I know? 😢
great video Starla as always! one question: about the 1st picture being a collage, does it actually affect ranking (as of: a listing with a collage as a first picture will automatically go down in etsy search) or is it an advice from Etsy to not use collage as a first picture for the reasons you have stated but wouldn't affect ranking?
@StarlaMoore I was wondering; do you recommend the Holiday Bootcamp for small businesses that [not only have an Etsy store, but also] have their own website as their main point of sale? I assume it would almost all be beneficial but I'm curious!
Me: That shipping thing is so ridiculous -- do buyers really care?? Also me: This Amazon seller is charging $4.99 for shipping?? I'm sooooo not buying the item. So, yeah. I guess Etsy may be right about shoppers and shipping prices, unfortunately. I would love to see results of shops who do A/B testing with the different things Etsy says to implement, just to see what sort of impacts (if any) happen.
That’s one reason I avoid Etsy as a buyer unless it’s something I can’t get elsewhere like a vintage item or super special handmade item. I get free shipping almost everywhere now and it makes it hard to pull the trigger when I see expensive shipping. Even when I know the price with free shipping will be higher than the price with expensive shipping, I’m conditioned to hate shipping charges now.
I have a/b results (first listing is $30 and customer pays shipping. Second is $36 (shipping included) the A listing is older as I didn’t implement the free shipping test until maybe a year into my shop opening. Shop is 4 years old. Listing A without free shipping all time revenue -$55,384 Listing B with free shipping all time revenue -$4,615 This product sells insanely well around Christmas and I use exact photos and descriptions. I’ve down the A/B testing w other products and the free shipping doesn’t seem to help. But w Etsys change maybe I’ll change price to include now as my sales have slowed way down as of late.
Because I had an accident that kept me from sewing for the last 12 weeks, I put my shop on Vacation (for the first time in 12 years). Coming back now and started to update items yesterday. Imagine my surprise when I found that anyt shipping over $4.00 (not $6) was considered "too high" by Etsy. Looks like some broad price revisions will need to be done .........
To my knowledge, they are giving preference to items with shipping less than $6, not $4. We did $5.99 for our shop and added the difference into the item price.
Hello Starla, I have been using FREE SHIPPING, 30 DAY RETURNSand use all 10 photos and I can't believe that all 190 vintage listings are lousy and nor wanted. I average 1 sale every 2 weeks. I don't think my photos are that bad.....HELP....I also answer any questions from sellers within 2 hours and I always send a note to buyer that their purchase is on there way with 1 day shipping...thank you.
If you lower your shipping prices to under $6 but remove your shop from participating in Etsy’s free shipping under $35 guarantee, will that also negatively impact your ranking? I’m trying to figure out how to lower my shipping without it costing me money since the prices on the items I sell most are close to the $35 mark. If I raise my prices $2.50 to cover the shipping cost then I’d essentially be giving free shipping and losing money if I still participate. 😅😬
Collages: I get the reason for not having it as the first image, but isn't it also going to confuse, or rather turn buyers away (due to their own assumptions), from further viewing your listing, when the listing has several options, but only one version shows in the first image? And what if your listing has more versions than the 10 image limit? If those versions are all the same theme, you basically have to start using collages to keep them all in the same listing. I'm still very new to Etsy, and the items (earrings) I've got up, each have less than 10 versions. So I could do that now. But what if in my future designing process, I come up with, say 11 or 12 Christmas themed earrings?
I recently learned that issuing refunds can negatively impact my shop’s ranking. I run a digital shop, and a customer purchased an item, then messaged me saying they ordered by mistake and requested a refund. Wanting to be prompt and courteous, I processed the refund. However, I later noticed they had downloaded all the items before requesting it. Although my shop policy states “no refunds,” declining a customer’s request risks receiving a negative review. It’s tough to decide which is worse. I've had a couple of incidents where customers have acted unfairly, and it's been frustrating.
I can get into my etsy store on my computer. I have not been able to get into my etsy seller app. Changed password, reset browser. Nothing works. Is there a newer one?
Has anyone else's sales tanked since about the beginning of Sept. 2024? I was up anywhere from 75 to 105% YOY revenue. Then since Sept. 1st, over the last 40 days my views and visits are down 25% YOY and my sales and revenue are down 50% YOY. And I'm seeing a lot of sellers ($10K or more a week type sellers) saying the same thing. WTF is going on?
This rubs me the wrong way because Etsy directly benefits from higher listing prices. I don’t think they collect any profit from shipping, but please correct me if I’m wrong. So my question is: is there verifiable data that says $6 shipping really means more sales for sellers?
Where they will really make the money is if you - don't do it. They are promoting using Etsy ads to boost your search placement. They suggest starting with $5/ day on ads ... So, basically straight out telling us, if we don't "comply" it will cost us upwards of $150/ month to still get our listings visible. Since the recent changes, I get more visits from direct traffic than from Etsy search. It's infuriating.
I'm having trouble with fixed shipping profiles that printify and printful have created for each specific item. I can't go in and change the shipping cost manually Do i need to make a new shipping profile for all of my items? Will this confuse the POD companies when I make a sale?
I feel like you've answered this somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it. Does the time it takes to fulfill factor in? Example: custom, handmade item needs 7-10 days to be fulfilled, THEN it will ship (free with tracking) - Does a "long" fulfillment time hurt us?
Thank you so much for this Starla. In my dashboard it says 'Your shop is set up for success' and I have no remarks on anything... so I should be good... BUT I worry about the return policy. Etsy has stated that returns are not for digital items because of the fact that they are digital... Do you know if this still remains so?
Etsy doesn't state that you need to accept returns. You just need to make sure all of your listings state that you do not accept returns (located at the bottom of your listing editor). In terms of EU law, digital items are exempt from the required 14-day return policy.
The logic re shipping is a bit weird. Ok, let's 'demote' US sellers with high shipping rates but let's show the non-US sellers... with even higher shipping rates. How is it helpful to the buyer? The buyer would be like, whisky tango foxtrot, why everything suddenly costs so much to ship? I'll go shop elsewhere then. I think US sellers just need to stay firm and not drop their shipping costs.
So the crazy thing is I have $9 flat rate shipping on items that fit in a small flat rate box but would cost substantially more ($12) when shipped First Class based on weight. I have items without flat rate shipping that may cost $6 or $7 to ship domestically which will be apparently be unaffected. I can only speculate how well they'd sell if the shipping was $6 or free, but they sell fine at $9 and I have some wordage that's like "this guy ships in a small flat rate box"
They do, however, these are not algorithmic factors that contribute to your search ranking. Videos need to have a direct purpose/benefit to the shopper in order for them to increase conversions. It's not just about having a video. It's about having a video that aids in the decision for that specific customer to buy by "telling them something they don't know" about your item, such as the scale, size, or how it will look naturally in it's intended environment/being used. :)
Ive always done free shipping and ust priced it into my product. Etsy says my shop is set up for success according to their visibility meter. I would agree, I get 10-15, orders a day. Customers love free shipping so just charge more lol.
exactly nothing is FREE...it just increases the price of the product. I guess it's psychological thing to think you're getting free shipping for a customer because nothing is FREE
Have you ever done a video on shops being shut down without warning or explanation and the lack of communication? I’ve seen a lot of videos about this.
@@StarlaMoore oh great I’ll take a look! Can you think of any titles of your videos I should look out for about this? I keep thinking that I want to try and sell things online, and keep seeing videos about Etsy being a good place to do it but then other ones showing the frustration about it.
I sell digital items and sell bundles of baby shower stationery.....these listings have collage photos as the main photo so customers know that it is a bundle of products.... what are we supposed to do with these listings? I haven't received any messages from etsy about them so are they ok?
I already lost traffic for some reason. I just changed the shipping on two items but I charge higher shipping for other countries and I think that’s affecting me. I changed what they suggested. I’m 100 on messaging and 5.0 on reviews but my shipping isn’t 95 so they cut my visibility and yes I realize it isn’t October 1st but it’s already affected my shop. I was getting steady sales and now I go days without anything. 😔
About the photos --- for those of us who've been around a while, Etsy took it upon themselves to increase the size of listing photos multiple times. So, it you have a photo that looked absolutely great in 2014, and it's a good-selling item, the photo may not look as great now, bc your pixel count was lower when you first posted it. Also, white background was not a requirement in the past. But now, anything with a strong color there seems to be "too dark". Yes, the obvious answer is to retake photos, but for some of us (me!) that's a painful process that I avoid when possible. It would just be nice if etsy stopped changing the rules, and let the Sellers decide what was working or not.
Ugh this is irritating. I have a shop selling digital downloads. Etsy advised not to use watermarks on the main photo as their ads won't pick it up for Google etc. and it specifically said on Etsy for digital downloads to do the image at 1500 pixels so if people steal it it won't be high quality. I see a ton of high selling digital downloads with watermarks on their main images but tbh I hate the look of that...and at the same time I don't want my work being stolen. I am so confused what to do...
Do you have any experience with pattern? For some reason my pattern only photos will not load onto my site. If I add them on my regular Etsy page then they show up on my pattern!? Seems lame to be paying 15.00/month if I am still having to pay to list them and that they expire... I called support and got nowhere! 😤
I sell digital. My listing photos are set to 800x800 pixels. I don't have any impact notices on my seller dashboard for updating my listings. Am I in the clear? The things I create digitally are small in nature so when making the original Its only about 600x600. So when I put it on my template I don't have to upscale it. It would make the resolution blurry.
Does anyone know why Etsy doesn’t have USPS Ground shipping option with the calculated shipping? This is the cheapest shipping option for items that do not meet first class weight requirements and the priority option makes the shipping price more than the product cost for my shop items 🤦🏻♀️
Well I got hit on I am not using enough categories. Etsy does not have a category for my items. So do I just put them in areas that no one will find them?
Why do we need 5 pictures? We are forced to do 2 pictures now before I get a warning now with the new changes. My competition makes 3 times as much money as I do, and they only ever have one picture... Taking pictures really is time consuming and the less pictures you add... the more items you can list... My items are low cost and one of a kind... and it seems dumb to spend so much time taking pictures of something you're only going to make like 20 dollars on.
I'd say collages are definitely a problem and often misleading. For example, some images show several items but the price is for 1 item. You only know it's for 1 item if you did some prior research and know how much on average items in this category are priced for. Otherwise, you open the listing expecting that you would get this nice set of X items for $Y and then it turns out it's just one item that is $X. If you want all of them, you have to fork out $X*Y. I'd close such listing more often than not as a buyer. Suspecting I'm not the only one and Etsy data crunch identified a correlation between clicked on and closed listings and such listings having collages/multiple items displayed on a thumbnail.
So, do we lower our shipping cost to 5.99 if printify charges us significantly more? Do we just take a hit on profit margin? Can you address this issue?
Never ever take a hit on your profits. Instead, factor your shipping prices into the overall cost of your items. You can either offer free shipping and add the total shipping cost to your item prices, or absorb just enough of the shipping cost into your item price so you can offer shipping below $6, which is what we are personally doing in our own shop. We'll be charging $5 flat shipping for all items, then absorbing the extra into the item price by increasing our prices just slightly.
We sellers should all boycott Etsy and demand them to change. Sellers should all go on strike. It’s not only their stupid rules but the unanswered emails when there’s issues! No one gets back to you. No one gives a s--!The unfair reviews from unfair customers. I have too many long lists! I’m glad I start my Shopify store. Screw these greedy pigs!!!
I have dark/moody photos too, I only had 1 of them flagged as 'too dark' and it was one where I thought I actually *had* gone a little too dark. It's something you have to experiment with, they're using AI to measure it so it's more about 'can a bot see what this is'. Its all about training their machine, the customer is just an excuse.
So, basically, they are less interested in supporting small businesses, allowing for equal opportunity, less inclusive, shifting more and more with every policy modification, towards a profit-driven mentality. Looks like it might open up an opportunity for someone to create a less self- motivated, less mnit making, at least in these spaces, for the rich alternate creative platform from which to sell, that doesnt keep lowering the opportunity to monetize by ensuring they do. It oftentimes feels like a group of children are seller opportunity and
Nope! The only thing you'll need to keep an eye on are the search visibility standards within your seller dashboard, which will indicate if you have any issues in your shop that may be negatively influencing your search ranking. :)
This is the dumbest thing I have heard. If shoppers have issues with the cost of shipping then they should talk to usps. The price of shipping keeps increasing so what are we as sellers supposed to do?
I note that, after a very bad experience with UPS importing something into Canada, I will choose any other option and avoid UPS like the plague. Their "lower" shipping cost is more than negated by the extortionate "customs brokerage fees" that they charge. The only one that won't screw you with customs duties is USPS/ Canada Post or Purolator(a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada Post) for shipping things across the Canada/US border. I expect that USPS in cooperation with other national postal services will be similar when it comes to customs duties and brokerage fees.
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Wouldn't it just make sense for sellers to raise their prices and offer free shipping to get prioritized?
That's always an option as well! It can be hard when it comes to customer perceptions for some products though. For example, in our shop, our stickers with shipping included will be around $10 when displayed on search pages. And while customers will ultimately be paying the same price, whether shipping is included or not, it does cause a bit of a disruption in click-habits when compared to other competitive listings on a search page who have listed shipping as a separate price. For lower cost items, including shipping in the overall item price can be challenging, especially when items are shipping "together" and technically the cost of shipping is being applied to every single sticker, rather than being factored into the overall purchase amount. We're going to be running a few different conversion tests with low cost items to see how the differences impact shopper behavior.
This is a big factor for our store, where we sell a mix of prices. Adding shipping to our lower priced items will put us way over our competition's prices. And I've never felt that the resulting overcharge of shipping that would result from someone buying multiple items was fair to the customers either. And we can't do free shipping over 35 because we can't afford to eat the shipping on a piece that's 36.99 and I don't think our customers will get past the initial cringe of a shipping included price of almost $45, even though in the end, they'll be paying the same amount.@@StarlaMoore
Is this bootcamp a specific time everyday. I forgot, you have replays right? Mail carrier so I work everyday until 430 est.
Plus I’m trying to actually be involved this time. Lol
When will etsy account be opened in india?
Doing crappy stuff before the holiday has always been Etsy's MO. I closed my shop 2 years ago but I still like to watch your videos. Maybe for the nostalgia of the good times. This change is insane and so transparently not about the artisans, vintage and crafters anymore. But that ship sailed a long time ago.
Etsy also charges a 6.5% shipping fee. They are literally making a profit off of shipping prices we can't control. Etsy should have no say in shipping.
I agree that it's not ethically right, but etsy has included shipping fees in their calculation of overall sale price for quite some time, so they're not making more money off the change at this point, they're just sticking it to the Sellers who haven't toed the line yet.
If we add the cost of shipping to total price that means we're paying 15% up front when it sells correct? Will Etsy cover the extra charges? Is that even legal?
The reason for that is so sellers don't bypass the fees by charging less for their product and more for shipping. For example, selling an item for $1 with $100 shipping cost would only incur a % of that $1 with no fees on the $100. People were getting away with this on Ebay until they caught on. I think thats why Etsy takes a % of shipping fees.
@@floursparcelestial it would be nice if Etsy did not charge so much for each listing..like Poshmark.... its free... or with Ebay you can pay $65 for 6k listings... ,or with Mercari its free AND they dont take fees ))
I cater my products to the gothic and witchy crowd and recieved a notice from Etsy telling me to fix my dark moody photography. :P These new updates definitely have me ready to grow my own website. I'm also amazed furniture and sculptures weren't included in those shipping exemptions. Do they really expect someone to ship a dresser for under $6? 🙃
I have seen a 75% decrease in revenue. I am a 6 figure seller, making 300k+ this year. Since June, my shop has fallen off a cliff.
Same with me. They did something to search late May. I noticed the difference immediately. I show up a lot less to maybe only once within the 1st 10 pages of search. And my stats reflect this change… traffic to my shop from search dropped almost 50% since they did whatever they did. Repeat business is pretty much the only thing keeping me going (barely). Thanks to erank, I know for a fact that a lot of the shops they are now spreading the love to are making them $0. I’m just shocked at the lack of common sense with Etsy.
Me too! June , July, August dead! Like a light switch... I average 10k a month for the past three years. The last three months I make half that. My daily traffic is so low, and it's upsetting. I worked hard for what I did. If I'm not making money ... they are not making money. It doesn't make sense.
@AmourFabriQues I saw a clip of the ceo saying they would be highlighting more small businesses on Etsy and making less room for the bigger sellers in search results. As I've done my own shopping on there I've really seen this in practice, usually it's sellers with hardly any reviews coming up in the search results.
@@RexterDoesEverything-2014 I started as a new seller, they suspended my shop in the third day, without any notice, explanation or anything after months of research. I appealed several times and requested a reason. Nothing since March and it is still suspended. So, no; they are flagging a lot of people. ?????
After reading your comment I checked my stats from April until now and yes, June is where it tanked.
*shaking my head* It's frustrating that Etsy cares more about fat profits for them than for the sellers. There seems to be way more stick and a lot less carrot these days.
We need Etsy to stop listing thieves. Starting to water mark everything even if they won’t include it as an Etsy pick. Better to have something than best sellers constantly taken down
I'm still pretty new on Etsy, but you've already helped me SO much to better understand how to run my shop. Plus, your videos are always informative and not just silly clickbait stuff. Thanks a lot
Awww, I appreciate this so much!!! I always try to keep my videos quick and to the point! 💙💙💙
I sell large expensive metal sculptures. Typically I put for example a $1499 price and $300ish shipping. Personally I like to get the initial click and make them fall in love. $1499 looks more click worthy then $1799 if you ask me. But don’t worry etsy, I’ll make the price $1793 with $6 shipping 😅😂
It may be worth A/B split testing by duplicating a few listings (with and without $6 shipping) just to see how much impact the update has on your search ranking. As long as those listings are within the same shop, you can safely split test them without issue.
@@StarlaMooreYep! I do quite a lot of testing for if people commonly search “under $150” or “free shipping”. Every listing i have 2 of. One with free shipping and one without free shipping under a certain price point. So hopefully I’ll be able to see if shipping price actually affects ranking in my category
Right and I feel if someone is shopping for something that big they know the shipping will be high. Etsy forcing us into this is bad and not fare to someone like you who sells heavy art.
@@StarlaMoore that's a good point, I have oversized items too, not as heavy as furniture though. Still I like to keep the product prices lower to get the first click. Also for items larger than shirts, I'd think users understand why prices are over 6 USD. I was hesitant to change my prices for existing products, but I could definitely start doing A/B testing now to see if Etsy was right 🥲
It says if you use the shipping calculator it won't affect you - that covers you if you tweak it to fit your needs
My views have tanked. I went from multiple sales everyday to almost zero views. Dashboard says my store is completely optimized. I sell in an ever green niche. Brightside, I have time to work on my other shop but I'm afraid of this being the norm.
Same I’ve lost 1k a week. Started about 1.5 weeks ago
Me too!! The past 6 months maybe a little more
Same here. Started August 25th for me.
Same here! I've been noticing that on some days my views get turned off and go to ZERO randomly.
Same :(
I had 82 photos that didn't meet the photo resolution requirements. I did notice a dramatic dip in traffic and sales right after these notices appeared. I updated a bunch, but with that many to upgrade I tried an experiment. I deactivated these until I can update them (I have over 2500 active listings, so I decided this wasn't an issue for sales since most are actually not the best-selling listings.) I immediately got an overall boost in traffic and sales. I'll update again as I relist these with updated photos and let you know how it goes.
Haha, like, sellers are the ones deciding on the shipping prices. This is such a stupid decision. In the last few years, we have been witnessing a lot of non logical decisions from lots of big companies.
This video is really helpful. Thanks, Starla, for doing the "heavy lifting."
This is ESTY in control. It’s a reminder that customers you receive are ETSY customers - not yours. Therefore they can dictate and tell sellers what to do. You either do it or get your own shop and leave. Kinda sad that big brother continues to crack the whip.
Its techno feudalism... where only a few companies control everything... and we have no say in anything.
@@nobleguy37 They view us as "churn" not as the faithful workers and producers that we really are. All they care about is pleasing the investor class now.
Just a thought here - I feel like Etsy is pushing to lower the shipping prices for their own benefit since they are piloting that subscription model when Etsy would cover shipping fees for the customers who subscribed (not sure how the program was called). Somehow before that shipping price wasn't Etsy's concern, but it became one as soon as they started piloting the program. I could definitely see Etsy not wanting to cover shipping fees for oversized and heavy items, which could be well over 100 USD per package. And I believe it's unfair they are making it sellers' problems, when it's been very well known that lower product prices in search are more attractive to buyers. I'm personally not happy about this changes, especially with some of my best sellers being larger items, I'll have to rise my prices by 40 percent to get to shipping price below 6 USD.
Thanks for this video, Starla! It was extremely helpful!
You're so welcome!
I was waiting for this video! The new shipping rule actually helps our business, but I wish they had a higher threshold as many sellers sell heavy items and can't afford to lower shipping costs.
We will be setting our shipping at $5 flat then absorbing the remainder into our item prices. The only major downside is that customers will be paying for shipping g on each item, even when products are bundled in the same package (like sticker sheets). 🫤
And how is it that you think the new rule helps Sellers??
There's no way I can ship my packages for under $6. There's times that my package is way 18 lbs. It's going to kill a lot of sellers businesses. And if I try to incorporate that amount into my prices, no customers going to want to buy my product. It may be good for some, but it's going to shut down a lot of shops of sellers who can't comply.
The 5 listing images used to be in the help article on Etsy titled 'Requirements and Best Practices for Images in' Your Etsy Shop Requirements and Best Practices for Images in Your Etsy Shop'.
It used to say this: (summarized)
Size: at least 1000 pixels wide; 3000 x 2250 pixels recommended
Number of images: up to 10; at least 5 recommended
Aspect ratio: 4:3 recommended
Orientation: landscape or square for the first image; recommend using the same orientation for all listing images
File type: JPG, GIF, or PNG
Color mode: sRGB
Resolution: 72PPI
File size: less than 1 MB for faster uploading
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! Pam and I have been going MAD trying to find this article!
@@StarlaMoore you're welcome :) I was sure I had read it too and luckily I could find it back in my notes. they deleted that from the article now though.
Yup. All that changed when they decided customers like square photos. @@lindedesigns
I don't think it's fair to add shipping to our prices to offset shipping, especially for local customers. Not doing it. I took those items out of my Etsy shop and put them on my website. I will only direct shoppers to my website. I can't help how much shipping costs.
Good Luck what server are you using if I may ask please?
This is SO DISGUSTING of Etsy to do! Some people ship items that cost WAY more than $6 to ship all the way across the country... They are LITERALLY just trying to pad their pockets more, while making sellers MAKE LESS MONEY! They make me SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fully agree!!! There is no way I can ship my stuff for under $6. Some of my packages weigh 18 lbs or more. It's going to break my business. 😞
@@michelerenem That’s fine, just use calculated shipping. Then buyers are paying what they need to and you’re covered.
@@michelerenem I have always spent more than 10$ shipping priority not to mention ups 2 days as I ship plants
Thank you for condensing this down for us!! I have 5 images on each listing so I am hoping this works. Seems crazy to clutter up all my images just for them. I've worked hard on making things clean and streamlined.
I can appreciate that these alerts started to shop up the end of August so I had time to make adjustments as needed
this shipping thing is BS. is Etsy gonna ask USPS/ UPS/FEDEX to lower their prices?
That under $6 thing is such poop. They do not take into consideration of what it cost to ship. a 16x20 painting can cost up to 50-70 bucks and adding that into the cost Will make some of are painting unsellable especially when somepople will sell a 16x20 painting for for like 20 bucks with free shipping. I do not get that it cost way more than that to ship those. In some places you do not have to pay sales tax on shipping. So when they take out the sales tax you will end up getting more deducted from your profit. I got that 6 dollar notice but can not afford to do that on those items. 😡
Customers are gonna just love it when they send us an offer and we ask where they live before accepting the offer.
@@bonniepiehler693 new to Etsy here… do you mean “order” not offer?
I get your point!
Thanks Starla! This was super helpful. I have been stressing because the only risk factor warning I have is on collage photos. Reason is because I am a POD seller who sells a lot of front and back shirts. In fact, my top selling shirts are front and back designs. I don’t know how else to display the first photo without a collage. I always make sure it’s visible in search.
I had two of mine flagged but basically I'm curious or trying to figure out how they flag them. So I'm curious what you did in your listings? I'm thinking there's a way around it. In the two that got flagged, I spliced two jpgs together in Canva and put a solid line between them, which were the two to get flagged. On the flip side, I have multiple Christmas listings, multiple with 3 people in it and another that actually has 4 in it, which these didn't get flagged. So I'm thinking if we use jpegs/png files that have the front and back without the line showing, maybe that won't trigger it? Just feeling out what you did in yours to see if splicing two together might be the reason or adding the line between them.
@@Tsmiejek oh that’s interesting. Yes all of mine are png’s with a white line between the two pictures. And they all got flagged. Maybe I’ll try without the line and see if that prevents the images from being flagged. I watched “By ChristinaNicole’s” video that Starla recommended. She said if it’s an intentional front and back shirt then to leave it because it accurately displays the item. 🤷🏻♀️
@@Jessyoutube4 we’ve got listings that include items that have 2 ways to wear it (a set of cosplay shoulder armor that come with an emblem plate but can be worn with or without). The images got flagged with the “collage” issue, and there’s no lines - just the 2 options next to each other.
@@TheRisingFenix was it 2 jpegs/pngs spliced together and then uploaded or just a single jpeg/png file? I'm wondering if somehow they can figure out if it's two combined and that's what's flagging it. I just say that because I have a 6 shirt listing, a listing with 4 people, and so many couple pictures that it didn't flag. In a way the couple pictures are almost similar to the front and back pictures I have, spaced apart, etc... but are single jpegs I used. So just figured I'd ask.
@@Jessyoutube4 I'm not going to touch my listings with the flagged on them because I have no other way to showcase them and it honestly is the best way to show them. They are the sports apparel/custom options where you can add team/sport on the front and then player/number on the back. I think without showing that, at least as a custom item and on the first picture, it would hurt the visibility in a way too. But I guess we'll see how this plays out.
Thank you for posting this. I was wondering why I was seeing that Listing Alert. Thankfully I didnt have too many. =)
Hi Starla.Would you focus on Sweatshirts rather t-shirts since we are approaching Q4 Or do you recommend focussing on t-shirts only for now?l for a new and General POD apparel store? Or do you recommend opening only a niche store?
You can have a shop with both Tshirts and sweatshirts in it for your niche. I have a mix of both in my shop.
@@StarlaMoore thanks Starla. Between opening broad niche store (e.g PPD store for dog moms with top 20 breeds as sections) and a general POD store (e.g all 20 sections being different like Hobbies, occupations, sports, pets etc.) which one do you suggest opening?
Thankfully Etsy changed their absurd "no more than 4 reviews under 3-stars" rule soon after to "no more than 10% of the reviews" which is much more reasonable this time of year. 😅 Now hoping pod providers have better quality control this Q4 🙏
Ok according to Etsy for any given 3-month period "If you have less than 40 reviews, no more than 4 reviews should be 3 stars or less. If you have more than 40 reviews, less than 10% of your reviews should be 3 stars or less. " So there was no change, I just got a few more reviews😅 I really need to start asking for reviews now😭
They tried that visibility shipping game and it quietly went away because it didn’t work. I don’t think you can give thousands of sellers priority for that. I mean logically everyone can’t be on the first few pages.
Thanks for keeping us informed.
Thanks for the info! The returns policy would only affect physical products right...not digital?
Yes! :)
I'm wondering this too!
Do you have a tutorial on how to adjust shipping to split the cost between a custom 5.99 shipping profile and your product price ? I’m not understanding how to set a profile this way
The 2k pixels wide is for the listing photo, not all right? I sell digital patterns, at that size nobody needs to buy but can just work from screen enlargement...
I'm very concerned. My current best-sellers all have collage photos as the main photo. Over years these have outperformed otherwise identical listings with a single main photo. Since I sell yarn kits, the collage photo helps buyers realize how the yarn they're purchasing will knit up.
The collage photo thing is ridiculous. I have an item I sell that *is* a collage. There is no way to take a picture of it to show it otherwise. They need to stop using AI to pinpoint these listings or have a way to tell the algorithm that the item being sold is a collage and to exclude it from that search listing criteria. SMH
Hey Starla, the exclusion of “Sellers outside the US”, is this based on the shop location or the “shipped from” data? I am an Australian store but sell POD shipped from US print providers. This seems to be a grey area. Any thoughts?
I think this is very silly.... most shipping i use is between 6 and 13 bucks. Priority 1st class 1-3 day... when they first announced the Boost if you have free shipping, I just added 10 bucks to the listing. It's literally the same exact thing... its not deceitful. They were going to pay it anyways! And im definitely NOT giving stuff away for free....
Funny how they told me don't raise your prices to offset free shipping...... yeah okay buddy. And now in this update, they're saying "yeah sure! go and just add the difference to your listing, its no big deal!"😂😂😂
They did not exclude POD unfortunately, so my whole shop will suffer bc of a few Printful items in my shop. Sucks. Guess I will have to focus on a Printify shop instead.... THANK YOU Starla!!!!
What specifically is the issue with your Printful listings?
A bit worried about the shipping with tracking tbh. Not everyone wants it, so if I set it as a default option (which would be more expensive than standard shipping obv), it would penalise customers who don't want/need tracked delivery and, potentially, turn some customers away due to the shipping cost higher than they expected. But this update - and your video - came up at the perfect time, because I was in the process of configuring my delivery profile.
It would help if etsy actually updated their calculated shipping section as you still can't select ground advantage. Also all the priority ones I have switched to calculated are turning out 2-3 dollars more than I was charging to begin with. This is just a giant headache as I probably will just have to add the shipping to the product and select free under shipping. As it is I had the least amount of sales in August in over 5 years on Etsy (so I think they lied about giving us warning time cause my traffic was down).
Yes, the Ground Advantage thing is getting ridiculous now. They've had plenty of time to reconcile that, and yet they haven't.
I'm very new to Etsy, and so because of that issue I'm only confident in offering priority as I'm too nervous to try G.A. only to possibly find delivery goes "out of range" and I lose out on the sale. Can't have that when I'm just starting up selling.
Agreed on the ground advantage. Ridiculous that they haven't fixed that yet.
Would this apply to multiple items purchased? Say, three products. Does shipping still need to be under $6?
Great question
I am a new Etsy seller. I opened my shop at the end of last year. A couple of my products were scaling up on sales and suddenly, I stopped making sales. I wonder why. I haven’t done anything differently from what I have been doing. I follow the recommendations of Starla and another Etsy expert that I follow. Everything was working well. I wonder if these changes Etsy has made have affected my shop. How would I know? 😢
For the “how many photos minimum” question, I noticed that adding a video to your listing will remove the notice
Starla do you have any videos on getting traffic?
Curious for any tshirt/sweatshirt shops:
-are you now going to offer “free shipping “ on your items and just increase your product price to offset it?
Thank you 😊
I always use calculated shipping plus maybe a dollar on some items.
What's the additional dollar for?
great video Starla as always! one question: about the 1st picture being a collage, does it actually affect ranking (as of: a listing with a collage as a first picture will automatically go down in etsy search) or is it an advice from Etsy to not use collage as a first picture for the reasons you have stated but wouldn't affect ranking?
7:56 How does the no collage photos for thumbnail rule affect digital clipart pack listings?
@StarlaMoore I was wondering; do you recommend the Holiday Bootcamp for small businesses that [not only have an Etsy store, but also] have their own website as their main point of sale? I assume it would almost all be beneficial but I'm curious!
Me: That shipping thing is so ridiculous -- do buyers really care?? Also me: This Amazon seller is charging $4.99 for shipping?? I'm sooooo not buying the item. So, yeah. I guess Etsy may be right about shoppers and shipping prices, unfortunately. I would love to see results of shops who do A/B testing with the different things Etsy says to implement, just to see what sort of impacts (if any) happen.
Yeah, I definitely look at shipping price before making the decision to buy something.
That’s one reason I avoid Etsy as a buyer unless it’s something I can’t get elsewhere like a vintage item or super special handmade item. I get free shipping almost everywhere now and it makes it hard to pull the trigger when I see expensive shipping. Even when I know the price with free shipping will be higher than the price with expensive shipping, I’m conditioned to hate shipping charges now.
I have a/b results (first listing is $30 and customer pays shipping. Second is $36 (shipping included) the A listing is older as I didn’t implement the free shipping test until maybe a year into my shop opening. Shop is 4 years old.
Listing A without free shipping all time revenue -$55,384
Listing B with free shipping all time revenue -$4,615
This product sells insanely well around Christmas and I use exact photos and descriptions. I’ve down the A/B testing w other products and the free shipping doesn’t seem to help. But w Etsys change maybe I’ll change price to include now as my sales have slowed way down as of late.
Because I had an accident that kept me from sewing for the last 12 weeks, I put my shop on Vacation (for the first time in 12 years). Coming back now and started to update items yesterday. Imagine my surprise when I found that anyt shipping over $4.00 (not $6) was considered "too high" by Etsy. Looks like some broad price revisions will need to be done .........
How did you discover that?
To my knowledge, they are giving preference to items with shipping less than $6, not $4. We did $5.99 for our shop and added the difference into the item price.
Hello Starla, I have been using FREE SHIPPING, 30 DAY RETURNSand use all 10 photos and I can't believe that all 190 vintage listings are lousy and nor wanted. I average 1 sale every 2 weeks. I don't think my photos are that bad.....HELP....I also answer any questions from sellers within 2 hours and I always send a note to buyer that their purchase is on there way with 1 day shipping...thank you.
If you lower your shipping prices to under $6 but remove your shop from participating in Etsy’s free shipping under $35 guarantee, will that also negatively impact your ranking? I’m trying to figure out how to lower my shipping without it costing me money since the prices on the items I sell most are close to the $35 mark. If I raise my prices $2.50 to cover the shipping cost then I’d essentially be giving free shipping and losing money if I still participate. 😅😬
Collages: I get the reason for not having it as the first image, but isn't it also going to confuse, or rather turn buyers away (due to their own assumptions), from further viewing your listing, when the listing has several options, but only one version shows in the first image?
And what if your listing has more versions than the 10 image limit? If those versions are all the same theme, you basically have to start using collages to keep them all in the same listing.
I'm still very new to Etsy, and the items (earrings) I've got up, each have less than 10 versions. So I could do that now. But what if in my future designing process, I come up with, say 11 or 12 Christmas themed earrings?
I recently learned that issuing refunds can negatively impact my shop’s ranking. I run a digital shop, and a customer purchased an item, then messaged me saying they ordered by mistake and requested a refund. Wanting to be prompt and courteous, I processed the refund. However, I later noticed they had downloaded all the items before requesting it. Although my shop policy states “no refunds,” declining a customer’s request risks receiving a negative review. It’s tough to decide which is worse. I've had a couple of incidents where customers have acted unfairly, and it's been frustrating.
I can get into my etsy store on my computer. I have not been able to get into my etsy seller app. Changed password, reset browser. Nothing works. Is there a newer one?
I already lost 80% traffic since last year, star seller for 10 months
Yea look at there top selling list it is all mass produced or drop carted why I stopped after only a week!
When did it stop for you
@@danimotherofchickens479 February/march this year.
Has anyone else's sales tanked since about the beginning of Sept. 2024? I was up anywhere from 75 to 105% YOY revenue. Then since Sept. 1st, over the last 40 days my views and visits are down 25% YOY and my sales and revenue are down 50% YOY. And I'm seeing a lot of sellers ($10K or more a week type sellers) saying the same thing. WTF is going on?
Thanks
Awww, I appreciate you so much! 💙💙💙
This rubs me the wrong way because Etsy directly benefits from higher listing prices. I don’t think they collect any profit from shipping, but please correct me if I’m wrong. So my question is: is there verifiable data that says $6 shipping really means more sales for sellers?
Etsy does charge a fee on the cost of shipping so either way, they are receiving their cut.
Where they will really make the money is if you - don't do it. They are promoting using Etsy ads to boost your search placement. They suggest starting with $5/ day on ads ... So, basically straight out telling us, if we don't "comply" it will cost us upwards of $150/ month to still get our listings visible.
Since the recent changes, I get more visits from direct traffic than from Etsy search.
It's infuriating.
I'm having trouble with fixed shipping profiles that printify and printful have created for each specific item. I can't go in and change the shipping cost manually Do i need to make a new shipping profile for all of my items? Will this confuse the POD companies when I make a sale?
I feel like you've answered this somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it. Does the time it takes to fulfill factor in? Example: custom, handmade item needs 7-10 days to be fulfilled, THEN it will ship (free with tracking) - Does a "long" fulfillment time hurt us?
Thank you so much for this Starla. In my dashboard it says 'Your shop is set up for success' and I have no remarks on anything... so I should be good... BUT I worry about the return policy. Etsy has stated that returns are not for digital items because of the fact that they are digital... Do you know if this still remains so?
Etsy doesn't state that you need to accept returns. You just need to make sure all of your listings state that you do not accept returns (located at the bottom of your listing editor). In terms of EU law, digital items are exempt from the required 14-day return policy.
@@StarlaMoore Thank you for clarifying the EU's position on the return policy for digital products.
The logic re shipping is a bit weird. Ok, let's 'demote' US sellers with high shipping rates but let's show the non-US sellers... with even higher shipping rates. How is it helpful to the buyer? The buyer would be like, whisky tango foxtrot, why everything suddenly costs so much to ship? I'll go shop elsewhere then. I think US sellers just need to stay firm and not drop their shipping costs.
I don’t think this matters depending on your product, demand and competition.
What about the images with watermarks on the entire image? Are those good?
I use like a puzzle over the entire image as my watermark.
How could a return policy work for a digital product? How does the EU ruling work in that case?
So the crazy thing is I have $9 flat rate shipping on items that fit in a small flat rate box but would cost substantially more ($12) when shipped First Class based on weight. I have items without flat rate shipping that may cost $6 or $7 to ship domestically which will be apparently be unaffected. I can only speculate how well they'd sell if the shipping was $6 or free, but they sell fine at $9 and I have some wordage that's like "this guy ships in a small flat rate box"
And, what about videos in the listing? Etsy says, listings with videos get a better response from buyers. 🤷🏻♂️
They do, however, these are not algorithmic factors that contribute to your search ranking. Videos need to have a direct purpose/benefit to the shopper in order for them to increase conversions. It's not just about having a video. It's about having a video that aids in the decision for that specific customer to buy by "telling them something they don't know" about your item, such as the scale, size, or how it will look naturally in it's intended environment/being used. :)
Ive always done free shipping and ust priced it into my product. Etsy says my shop is set up for success according to their visibility meter. I would agree, I get 10-15, orders a day. Customers love free shipping so just charge more lol.
exactly nothing is FREE...it just increases the price of the product. I guess it's psychological thing to think you're getting free shipping for a customer because nothing is FREE
Have you ever done a video on shops being shut down without warning or explanation and the lack of communication? I’ve seen a lot of videos about this.
Tons. You can find several of them on my channel.
@@StarlaMoore oh great I’ll take a look! Can you think of any titles of your videos I should look out for about this? I keep thinking that I want to try and sell things online, and keep seeing videos about Etsy being a good place to do it but then other ones showing the frustration about it.
This was my most recent video: th-cam.com/video/qURYeZYhHM8/w-d-xo.html
I feel like throwing in the towel and saying "SCREW YOU, ETSY!"
Sorry if I missed this, Are digital items excluded from the return policy ranking?
You don't have to accept returns you just have to have a policy filled out
I sell digital items and sell bundles of baby shower stationery.....these listings have collage photos as the main photo so customers know that it is a bundle of products.... what are we supposed to do with these listings? I haven't received any messages from etsy about them so are they ok?
Etsy is smoking crack!
That absolutely are. 😂
I already lost traffic for some reason. I just changed the shipping on two items but I charge higher shipping for other countries and I think that’s affecting me. I changed what they suggested. I’m 100 on messaging and 5.0 on reviews but my shipping isn’t 95 so they cut my visibility and yes I realize it isn’t October 1st but it’s already affected my shop. I was getting steady sales and now I go days without anything. 😔
I had a message about a "collage" photo but the art is a collage.. I tried to use one of 8 different angles and all were flagged ..
Typical Etsy.
About the photos --- for those of us who've been around a while, Etsy took it upon themselves to increase the size of listing photos multiple times. So, it you have a photo that looked absolutely great in 2014, and it's a good-selling item, the photo may not look as great now, bc your pixel count was lower when you first posted it. Also, white background was not a requirement in the past. But now, anything with a strong color there seems to be "too dark". Yes, the obvious answer is to retake photos, but for some of us (me!) that's a painful process that I avoid when possible. It would just be nice if etsy stopped changing the rules, and let the Sellers decide what was working or not.
Ugh this is irritating. I have a shop selling digital downloads. Etsy advised not to use watermarks on the main photo as their ads won't pick it up for Google etc. and it specifically said on Etsy for digital downloads to do the image at 1500 pixels so if people steal it it won't be high quality. I see a ton of high selling digital downloads with watermarks on their main images but tbh I hate the look of that...and at the same time I don't want my work being stolen. I am so confused what to do...
Do you have any experience with pattern? For some reason my pattern only photos will not load onto my site. If I add them on my regular Etsy page then they show up on my pattern!? Seems lame to be paying 15.00/month if I am still having to pay to list them and that they expire... I called support and got nowhere! 😤
I may lower my traffic... What traffic?
Lol i lost my traffic 6 months ago! Its horrible!
I sell digital. My listing photos are set to 800x800 pixels. I don't have any impact notices on my seller dashboard for updating my listings. Am I in the clear? The things I create digitally are small in nature so when making the original Its only about 600x600. So when I put it on my template I don't have to upscale it. It would make the resolution blurry.
Does anyone know why Etsy doesn’t have USPS Ground shipping option with the calculated shipping? This is the cheapest shipping option for items that do not meet first class weight requirements and the priority option makes the shipping price more than the product cost for my shop items 🤦🏻♀️
They are telling me to change my collage picture as the main image. But these listing perform well. So now I risk they doing badly if I don’t comply.
Well I got hit on I am not using enough categories. Etsy does not have a category for my items. So do I just put them in areas that no one will find them?
I think she was talking about sections that you create and manage in your shop. I could be wrong, but that is how I took it.
All items require some type of category. What is your item?
But I was referring to the shop sections that you create to separate your items/designs.
Why do we need 5 pictures? We are forced to do 2 pictures now before I get a warning now with the new changes. My competition makes 3 times as much money as I do, and they only ever have one picture... Taking pictures really is time consuming and the less pictures you add... the more items you can list... My items are low cost and one of a kind... and it seems dumb to spend so much time taking pictures of something you're only going to make like 20 dollars on.
I agree. I'm not a professional photographer either so trying to get multiple "good" photos is challenging. Such a time suck.
I'd say collages are definitely a problem and often misleading. For example, some images show several items but the price is for 1 item. You only know it's for 1 item if you did some prior research and know how much on average items in this category are priced for. Otherwise, you open the listing expecting that you would get this nice set of X items for $Y and then it turns out it's just one item that is $X. If you want all of them, you have to fork out $X*Y. I'd close such listing more often than not as a buyer. Suspecting I'm not the only one and Etsy data crunch identified a correlation between clicked on and closed listings and such listings having collages/multiple items displayed on a thumbnail.
Please be advised that the Alpha Boot Camp registration cannot be found throught the link provided
@OmarQuan-t6m the bootcamp took place in early Sept. Unfortunately registration has been closed for several weeks.
I had to raise my prices in order to lower shipping... It doesn't make senses.
It's all about the perception to buyers.
So, do we lower our shipping cost to 5.99 if printify charges us significantly more? Do we just take a hit on profit margin? Can you address this issue?
Never ever take a hit on your profits. Instead, factor your shipping prices into the overall cost of your items. You can either offer free shipping and add the total shipping cost to your item prices, or absorb just enough of the shipping cost into your item price so you can offer shipping below $6, which is what we are personally doing in our own shop. We'll be charging $5 flat shipping for all items, then absorbing the extra into the item price by increasing our prices just slightly.
@@StarlaMoore Thanks for the prompt and comprehensive response.
Is the group call on 9/15 or 10/15? The video shows 10/15, but that's not the last day of the bootcamp, right?
Yes! It should be September 15th! 😅 That was a late-night-editing typo!
they block my account without any information and I'm only buyer :(
My product is a college item, so it's flagging my photos. But that is my product... 🤷🏼♀️
Oh Etsy. 🤦♂️
We sellers should all boycott Etsy and demand them to change. Sellers should all go on strike. It’s not only their stupid rules but the unanswered emails when there’s issues! No one gets back to you. No one gives a s--!The unfair reviews from unfair customers. I have too many long lists! I’m glad I start my Shopify store. Screw these greedy pigs!!!
I sell collages, this will not work for me and many others.
Not me, who is about to shoot a whole new collection in dark and moody lighting JUST LIKE THE REST OF MY SHOP 🫠
I have dark/moody photos too, I only had 1 of them flagged as 'too dark' and it was one where I thought I actually *had* gone a little too dark. It's something you have to experiment with, they're using AI to measure it so it's more about 'can a bot see what this is'. Its all about training their machine, the customer is just an excuse.
So, basically, they are less interested in supporting small businesses, allowing for equal opportunity, less inclusive, shifting more and more with every policy modification, towards a profit-driven mentality. Looks like it might open up an opportunity for someone to create a less self- motivated, less mnit making, at least in these spaces, for the rich alternate creative platform from which to sell, that doesnt keep lowering the opportunity to monetize by ensuring they do. It oftentimes feels like a group of children are seller opportunity and
So as a Canadian seller the new shipping price doesn’t affect me…?
Nope! The only thing you'll need to keep an eye on are the search visibility standards within your seller dashboard, which will indicate if you have any issues in your shop that may be negatively influencing your search ranking. :)
@@StarlaMoore thank u Starla!
This is the dumbest thing I have heard. If shoppers have issues with the cost of shipping then they should talk to usps. The price of shipping keeps increasing so what are we as sellers supposed to do?
I note that, after a very bad experience with UPS importing something into Canada, I will choose any other option and avoid UPS like the plague.
Their "lower" shipping cost is more than negated by the extortionate "customs brokerage fees" that they charge. The only one that won't screw you with customs duties is USPS/ Canada Post or Purolator(a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada Post) for shipping things across the Canada/US border.
I expect that USPS in cooperation with other national postal services will be similar when it comes to customs duties and brokerage fees.