I started my digital download shop this past week and officially got my first sale yesterday! Love following along with your journey, very motivating. :)
Dina, I just want to thank you for these videos and how transparent you’ve been with your sales and learning process. They’ve been so helpful to me. I’ve been in the preliminary stages of building a digital Etsy shop for a couple of months and of course have watched a zillion YT videos but yours are my favorite. This one is giving me the kick in the butt to get moving again (I’m a professional web/graphic designer and have been too distracted with client work and travel) and actually get this thing launched. Good luck with yours and hope April starts to pick up again! From everything I’ve heard, more listings consistently is what helps keep you in the algorithm. Let’s hope that Feb/Mar slump is just normal. 💙 Best of luck!
Awww thank you SO MUCH Stephanie!!! Your comment made my day! So happy to hear that you're enjoying my content (out of the zillion you've watched haha) - honoured to be your fav 😊 Stop watching videos and start your Etsy shop! Since you're a professional web/graphic designer, can I assume you're a bit of a perfectionist? Haha. START THAT SHOP!
@@DinaLu yup! You nailed it! And trying to separate the imperfect Etsy experiment from my existing business to grow and learn quietly…as my old boss says, “done is better than perfect” 🤷♀️ enjoy your travels! (I lived in Asia for five years and it was some of the best five of my life!)
It depends on the niche/store type. For one of my businesses (3D Graphics), sales are really bad November and December but pick up greatly in the first 3 months of the year. For my digital download and sticker store my sales drop drastically in February and March. Hang in there. They'll pick up again in April and big time in May and June. Then slow again in July. It's the normal eb and flow.
I have 2 etsy shops. One for my physical art since 2011 and one I started in 2022 for downloads. My understanding is when your shop is brand new the Etsy algorithm boosts your shop as it tries to figure out who your shopper is. Since you have no data yet in the algorithm. It’s like a bonus for being new. But this only lasts a couple months then it settles. So it makes sense to me that organic sales were high. When I started my digital shop last summer I worked extra long hours in the start to take advantage of the boost. The breakdown of the algorithm was shared in an etsy sellers talk in 2021 but I’m sure it’s changed by now.
I am glad you share the downs, because all others that share the ups it really doesn’t help. We must prepare and try to prevent (if we can) making better decisions. NET gains to verbally share is better than Gross income. All hidden expenses revealed. Thanks - ❤ your videos!
I can totally see how Dec and Jan can be higher volumes in your niche. I think as long as your 4th month is better than the 1st, you're still doing great! Love these videos. And ya, wow, time is flying! My new shop got suspended the day I set it up (for no reason) so I'm hoping it gets back up and running so I can get it going for April. I've had this happen with previous shops. Etsy is so random. Sigh lol.
Yes this! You definitely don’t want to put too much value on month by month comparisons, by the time you’ve been open 6-12 months the data will be so much more valueable 😊
I love sharing this journey with you and cheering for you! I have a small/medium business with 4 other people, and we constantly struggle with consistency in the sales and ad spent etc those videos help me a lot! it is a whole differente niche and platform but it gives me great insights! plus I love the way you create your content, thank you so much!
I make Canva templates also on Feb, and I just started around Dec. The same thing happened to me in Feb. I think it honestly might be a slower month as March is def picking up. I thought something was wrong with my shop and paid alot more in ads to try and make more sales. But it didn't really help too much. Here's to hoping the rest of the year is better!
I have been loving this series so far and just witnessing the ups and downs of starting an Etsy. It's so nice to see a video that ins't like "How I made 1.6 million my first month!" I'm curious if you could touch on taxes and stuff like that? Does Etsy figure that all out for you and you remit it to the government? (I'm in Canada too)
Good to know all of this! I’m also wondering if people are starting to slow down on spending due to what’s been going on with the banks lately and recession talks.
No shade at all here and I love your videos. You are right, Etsy prioritises shops that are active and have new listings regularly, if you haven't worked on your store in almost 2 months Dina, Etsy won't favour you x Hope you find some balance when you move cities in the next week or two x!
Although I'm not selling digital products, I have my own business which is always quiet in February (hardly any sales) March things start to pick up again xx
I recently discovered your channel and i love your information and how well you convey it. I am trying to start an etsy store myself and have found this very helpful. keep up the great work
Thank you so much for sharing!! I am seeing a slight decline in my conversion March even though I am listing regularly. I see the same thing- my visits are the same or even increasing, but that doesn't translate to an increase in sales! It's a mystery to me too as to why this happens lol. I am a new digital downloads shop only open a couple of months. Thanks for this vid!
I just started my Etsy store about 2 weeks ago. No, sells yet, but hoping for some soon. I'm mostly selling print-on-demand shirts from designs that I made and free digital downloads to help speed up with getting sales. So, it's great hearing honest reviews from people who just started, that is slow at first and you just have to be calm and patient during the process. I watched someone else video and she said she didn’t make a sale her whole first week of selling, so let me know if there is hope for me. Plus, I am happy to know I shouldn't ever back away from my Etsy but constantly be working on it, making new listings, or updating them.
Hey Kiearra, wish you the best of luck with your store. Asking out of curiosity: Are you spending money on ads, if so how much per day? And do you have organic visitors? :)
Congrats on opening your shop, Kiearra! And yeah it might take some time to get your first sale + a review. Keep going :) I think it also takes Etsy some time to learn what exactly you're selling and for your products to appear in search (also depends on how saturated your niche is)
Can't wait to see your Month 5 update where you experience an awesome rebound! Keep it up. You rock! Thanks so much for your videos. :) Btw how are your earnings on TH-cam with 27.6k? How do you compare Etsy vs TH-cam channel business models? TIA!
Hahaha oh my ... 5th month was even worse than 4th month 🤣 video coming out on Friday! With 27k subs, I'm earning around $1800 USD/ month (but the adsense revenue depends on views, not subscribers)
@@DinaLu Hi Dina....oh noooo! I'm so sorry to hear that! I'm looking forward to the update video on Friday though! Thanks for taking us on this roller coaster ride...which I'm sure will have more ups than downs! 🙏❤🙏
I have an etsy shop too and my conversion rate also litterally dropped in feb-march-april (like 1.5 to 0.2% 💀). Things are starting again now but you're not the only one experiencing it !
Feb & part of March are usually slow, and way less profitable than the rest of the year, for any business (offline & online) and regardless of the niche and product. I owned multiple digital products, workshops, and even a brick and mortar for a couple of years, Feb is usually I used to plan my vacation because it wasn't worth it (working) or I would use it to batch produce marketing material & focus on BTS work rather than trying to push sales.
This is interesting because I've been eyeballing the etsy subreddit for a little while and I often read that many sellers experience a dip in March every year. Not sure what happens around that time
Always love seeing a new video from you in my feed! Great info for those on Etsy and it's sometimes 'crazy-making' to figure out if there's a 'why' or just a low buying season after those seasonal highs!
I wonder if your YT reach expanding so fast means that people might check out your Etsy out of curiosity and then have that effect your conversion rate?
Thanks!! I haven't revealed my Etsy shop anywhere, and I don't plan to. I want to see how much I can grow my Etsy organically without promotion on social media, but yeah if my audience goes to my Etsy shop, conversion rate will go down because most of them won't buy my products
Oddly enough February was my best month 😂 Jan and March have been not so good, but I am starting to post consistently and just began ads. Fingers crossed that next month will be better!
The Etsy shop I started from scratch 4 months ago grew in month 1, 2 and 3, but in month 4 it went down A LOT (especially the conversion rate). Can anyone confirm that Feb/March are horrible Etsy months in general? Or is it just me? 🤔
Blast ads Even to the break even point. That adds to the organic results. Do You run sales? Is your shop always on discount? Are You building a llist / audience? Crank it up 🎉
I sell small business supplies and January was great, February tanked and its picked up a little bit again in March. I think that the very beginning of the year small businesses are trying to get everything they need for the new year and thats why it was busier at the beginning of the year!
I think they prop up stores with more exposure during the first month or 2. I had the same thing and then everything TANKED in the 3rd month. Conversion was about the same...But unless I threw money at it, there were almost no views.
I think that the Etsy algorithm prefers shop owners to spend about an hour a day in their shop, every time you make a change in the shop Etsy has to archive it and it makes the algorithm pay attention to you and it will give more priority to your store.
Yeah a couple people have told me that too... can I ask what would you do for an hour every day if you aren't posting new listings? Other than renewing the current listings? Are you making changes to your titles or description then?
I had the same situation with my conversion rate - going from 6% to 2%. It's going slowly up - now around 3.4%. I've been selling for some years and this is not the first time. It looks like Etsy did some testing causing this drop and changed the algorithm.
Hi Dina. Did you have any problems signing in to your Etsy account when you arrived in Vietnam? I've heard stories of people getting their Etsy account frozen if they login from a different location. I would love to be a digital nomad and was wondering what happens when you login from a different location. Love your videos.
No problem signing in! I logged out and signed back in, and it worked. I have 2 factor authentication so I literally had to switch out my Vietnam SIM card for my Canadian one to get the code, which I received in a couple of seconds. No problems signing in!
Not sure about why your sales tanked as I just started my shop in February. However, I sell t-shirts on Amazon and February and March are always my slowest months there. Sales should pick up in April - at least I'm hoping they will. For my new Etsy shop, I sell Canva templates and have 27 listings so far. I've made 3 sales and have 1 5-star review which I think is pretty good for my first full month. My goal was to list one product a day but I've been slacking the past week. It's so easy to get burnt out when designing stuff - both with t-shirts or with Canva templates. I think I'm going to scale back my goal and try to list 1 or 2 things per week instead of per day. I think that's a more realistic goal and should help keep me motivated.
Alecia, it sounds like you're off to a great start. Congratulations. It takes me several days to make a new listing hahaha 🤣 so your plan sounds realistic
Hi, Dina. Thank you for sharing your journey with us :) I just have a question, when you go to different countries, do you log in to Etsy? Asking because I'm curious if I can also open or check my Etsy store aside from the IP address that I am using. Thank you!
Yes, when I left Canada and came to Vietnam, I could still log in everything was working properly. However, I had to switch out my Vietnam SIM card to my Canadian SIM card for the two-factor authentication.
How has your competition sales conversion been? Has theirs tanked as well? That would be good to know to see if it’s normal for now or is it just yours.
I think it s like a half myth the thing that feb and march are bad, I opened my shop in November and in February I had over 600 sales and I sell digital products, for me what really works is post something new 2-3 times per week so every month can be a good month
I'm not here to promote a particular landing page service but do you think you can perform better with that than etsy? They typically have better tactics to promote conversions and do split testing. A low of 2% conversion is still good.
The thing I like about Etsy is that it's a search engine... if I had a landing page I would have to figure out how to get it ranking or use social media to promote the landing page (too much work for me). So I didn't even consider anything else other than Etsy!
You’re gonna make a lot money money in more evergreen all year long searched for products! But sadly those niches are more competitive, so you’d need a fuck ton of listings everyday AND A LOT OF WORK LOL I’m talking 5-10 listings a day to even be found in search. Or you can make multiple shops with multiple different niches and capitalize that way also, but also a lot of work. So it will depend on how much time and effort someone is willing to spend! Kind of hard when you have a full time job, so kinda be like a me and don’t have a life and just work 😂😂😂😂😂
Hi, thanks for your video! It's exactly what I needed to watch coz I have a question regarding turning off an ad. So we know that the listing data gathered by Etsy to drive traffic to your shop/listing will be deleted if you opt out of OFFSITE Ads. My question is, does this also applies on Etsy ads? I want to turn off some listings but will turn it back on later. Just want to try some experiment. But the thing that worries me is, can this reset the data gathered??! Since you experimented on turning off your ad for a couple of days, did it affect your ad performance when you turned it back on? Did it take time to optimize? Did the ad performance change for the worse or still the same? Sorry, I have too many questions 😂
I didn't even know the listing data would be deleted if I opted out of offsite ads 🤣🤣🤣 So I think I know less than you. I can't answer your question 🤣🤣🤣
This videos are great! I'm interested in starting my digital etsy shop but I have a question...Do you have to pay taxes? I know that usually you have to, but because it is a digital product i'm not sure! Hope you can help me! Thanks 😘😘
Anytime you make money, regardless of whether it's online or physical, it's considered income. So yes I do report my etsy income for tax purposes in Canada. But it might also depend on the country you live in...I think some countries don't require you to report it if it's a low amount
is it true that their is an extra monthly fee for every listing that you have? it would make sense as to why Etsy encourages more listings in order to keep your store relevant and collecting their fees from all of your listings.
Even though you aren’t listing new products are you renewing listings daily? When I built my Etsy store to $10k a month we renewed 1-2 listings a day when we weren’t making a lot of sales so that our products stayed at the top of searches. This doesn’t become as necessary when you are making sales every day!
I wonder what percentage of your conversion rates went down due to friends and family purchases? I know you have an aria for revenue on your spreadsheet and I’m not great with spreadsheets so I could be missing something but I’m curious how that affects things overall. I know when friends and family visit our business they always have an intent to help us or purchase from us so theoretically that would equate to a higher conversion rate. That being said I did look to closely at your spreadsheet for what month’s included friends and family purchases. That’s just the first thing that popped into my head while you were talking about this. On a side note I don’t have a shop started yet because I’m to chicken but I am eternally grateful to you for making these videos! I have tried to learn from other TH-camrs but they have established shops so it hard to follow or even stay interested in what they’re saying. Not only are you real and fresh but I find myself actually thinking I do want to try and open my shop. I do have a question since you said you don’t have a blog and only use Etsy do you have an email account for your business? If not is that something you are planning on doing in the future? I had started a blog but got stuck on the email aspect and just quit because the price of my domain and email and email marketing add one and everything was just adding up and getting overwhelming. Needless to say I am excited that it’s possible to do Etsy without all the extra stuff and I do have a Pinterest but wonder how important email is going to be in the long run. I understand if this is out of your field of comfortable topics but I am still interested in your perspective and opinion as your channel and everything is so unique to anything else I have seen yet. Ps April is tax month here in the US so I’m excited to see how that affects your conversion rate and your overall sales for the next 2-3 months. Hopefully it’s a huge benefit. Also I know we like Christmas in July for whatever strange reason so maybe that would be a fun sale price title or attention grabber😉 Keep up the good work I’m so appreciative of this channel and your hard work. I hope you are loving it in Vietnam and can’t wait to learn more about you, your channel, and your Etsy shop. Thanks again. PS sorry for the novella
Hey Michelle! First of all, thank you so much. I'm so happy to hear that you are enjoying my Etsy videos. Actually, only in the first and second months did I focus a little bit more on getting friends who are interested in my niche to purchase. I never posted it on any social media channels, only sent my shop to friends directly, so I don't think that the friends / family part affected the conversion rates a whooole lot. Because in the third month, the conversion rate still stays similar but I only had 2 sales from friends out of the 66 sales. For etsy, I made a separate Gmail account just in case any customers have questions. But no one has emailed me. Everyone uses the Etsy messaging platform. For my actual business website (dinacalligraphy.com), I did pay for a separate email through Google workspace. I think it's around $5 USD a month. That is on top of the Squarespace monthly subscription I pay. Hope that helps! ♥️
@@DinaLu wonderful information! May I ask if you send out a newsletter type thing for your calligraphy business? Do you find it helps with conversion if so? Sorry if this is still a bit off topic but it’s my biggest struggle area and a bit overwhelming for me. Thanks for your time and sharing your knowledge and expertise 💕
@@TinyFitz I used to once a week when I was coaching calligraphers on how to start businesses, but not for my actual calligraphy business! But now I do it for my TH-cam channel once a week. Whether or not it's something you should do depends on your goals! And what are the other strategies you use to stay in touch with clients, etc etc
December is the month of money and then January it's a pretty good month it's a pretty good month because people have got their Christmas money and bonuses. However January's paycheck is going to be paying off Christmas in New Year and the credit card bill that's going to come in February and it's the same in March as well and then it comes back backup for Easter in April. We run a couple of websites and we sell physical products and we sell physical products and we do digital marketing for other events as well that's all start in people. In my own opinion it's just because no one has any disposable money has any disposable money for February and March because it's all been spent in the last month or 2
Awww! It could be many reasons .. take a look at your stats... Are you getting views? If not, perhaps it's your SEO or too saturated niche. Are you getting views but buyers aren't converting into sales? Might be your listing photos for example!
Can you help me regarding about canva share link template? i did follow your guide in one of your video but somehow canva make new update, and i couldnt add the copied link of share link template but it updated to already showed one of my project as options. I get confused and worried that i share my project and let my customer use my canva not the share link template that my cust can edit in their own canva account. I just build my etsy shop and follow your guide, its really helpfull and i am so grateful that I found your channel
Hello. I am new at Etsy as you. I would like to know how to use the print on demand function. Because I would like to sell tshirts but I don't know how to do it. Can you explain how to sell shirts with a logo with print on demand. Thanks.
Sometimes, my friends want to support me or use my products so they make a purchase. I don't count those as "organic Etsy sales" so that's why I have a section for the "total revenue" (as reported by Etsy) and "total revenue minus friends" (the revenue amount reported by Etsy minus the amount my friends bought) to get my "organic revenue" which I see as passive income. I hope that makes sense!
My Etsy shop started tanking before that happened, so maybe after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse people generally started to pay more attention to how much money they spend on things and cut spending? So it could be a factor but I think mainly it's because Etsy sales are generally low in Feb/Mar and I haven't posted a listing in 2 months
I noticed that when I increased the ad spend, Etsy would promote my product under keywords that don't really fit the product, so I stopped doing that. But I also know that I can un-select keywords in the ads section too so maybe I should do that
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I started my digital download shop this past week and officially got my first sale yesterday! Love following along with your journey, very motivating. :)
That's awesome! You got this Jamie!! Thank you ❤️
Dina, I just want to thank you for these videos and how transparent you’ve been with your sales and learning process. They’ve been so helpful to me. I’ve been in the preliminary stages of building a digital Etsy shop for a couple of months and of course have watched a zillion YT videos but yours are my favorite. This one is giving me the kick in the butt to get moving again (I’m a professional web/graphic designer and have been too distracted with client work and travel) and actually get this thing launched. Good luck with yours and hope April starts to pick up again! From everything I’ve heard, more listings consistently is what helps keep you in the algorithm. Let’s hope that Feb/Mar slump is just normal. 💙 Best of luck!
Awww thank you SO MUCH Stephanie!!! Your comment made my day! So happy to hear that you're enjoying my content (out of the zillion you've watched haha) - honoured to be your fav 😊 Stop watching videos and start your Etsy shop! Since you're a professional web/graphic designer, can I assume you're a bit of a perfectionist? Haha. START THAT SHOP!
@@DinaLu yup! You nailed it! And trying to separate the imperfect Etsy experiment from my existing business to grow and learn quietly…as my old boss says, “done is better than perfect” 🤷♀️ enjoy your travels! (I lived in Asia for five years and it was some of the best five of my life!)
It depends on the niche/store type. For one of my businesses (3D Graphics), sales are really bad November and December but pick up greatly in the first 3 months of the year. For my digital download and sticker store my sales drop drastically in February and March. Hang in there. They'll pick up again in April and big time in May and June. Then slow again in July. It's the normal eb and flow.
Ahhh so interesting! Thanks for sharing!
I have 2 etsy shops. One for my physical art since 2011 and one I started in 2022 for downloads. My understanding is when your shop is brand new the Etsy algorithm boosts your shop as it tries to figure out who your shopper is. Since you have no data yet in the algorithm. It’s like a bonus for being new. But this only lasts a couple months then it settles. So it makes sense to me that organic sales were high. When I started my digital shop last summer I worked extra long hours in the start to take advantage of the boost. The breakdown of the algorithm was shared in an etsy sellers talk in 2021 but I’m sure it’s changed by now.
Ahhh that makes a lot of sense Joanne! Thanks for sharing that!
The honesty is awesome. Thank you for that. I wish you all the success in the world.
Thank you so much Brandon!
I am glad you share the downs, because all others that share the ups it really doesn’t help. We must prepare and try to prevent (if we can) making better decisions. NET gains to verbally share is better than Gross income. All hidden expenses revealed. Thanks - ❤ your videos!
Thanks! I'm glad you like my content - I always try to share the downs as well because they are just a normal part of doing business :)
I can totally see how Dec and Jan can be higher volumes in your niche. I think as long as your 4th month is better than the 1st, you're still doing great! Love these videos. And ya, wow, time is flying! My new shop got suspended the day I set it up (for no reason) so I'm hoping it gets back up and running so I can get it going for April. I've had this happen with previous shops. Etsy is so random. Sigh lol.
Yes this! You definitely don’t want to put too much value on month by month comparisons, by the time you’ve been open 6-12 months the data will be so much more valueable 😊
Oh no I hope your shop gets un-suspended!
So true!!
@@DinaLu Same! 🤞🏼
this is really interesting! I am really tying to get my store ramped these last few weeks! I just turned on my ads because of your last video!
Good luck Jess on your store!!!
@@DinaLu thank you!!
Hey Dina, it's normal, it cycles and it depends on a lot of things. You don't have that much data to really see a trend. Good luck and best wishes!
Thanks!!
I love sharing this journey with you and cheering for you! I have a small/medium business with 4 other people, and we constantly struggle with consistency in the sales and ad spent etc those videos help me a lot! it is a whole differente niche and platform but it gives me great insights! plus I love the way you create your content, thank you so much!
Awww thank you so much for your kind words! ♥️ Rooting for you in your business!
I make Canva templates also on Feb, and I just started around Dec. The same thing happened to me in Feb. I think it honestly might be a slower month as March is def picking up. I thought something was wrong with my shop and paid alot more in ads to try and make more sales. But it didn't really help too much. Here's to hoping the rest of the year is better!
I'm glad to hear your March is picking up! (Mine isn't LOL) Yes let's hope it goes up for all of us!
Another great video. Thank you for the honesty here. Also I see some great comments from people letting us know about slow months in various niches.
Thanks!
I have been loving this series so far and just witnessing the ups and downs of starting an Etsy. It's so nice to see a video that ins't like "How I made 1.6 million my first month!"
I'm curious if you could touch on taxes and stuff like that? Does Etsy figure that all out for you and you remit it to the government? (I'm in Canada too)
I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the series! I will add that topic to my "future videos to make" list!
Good to know all of this! I’m also wondering if people are starting to slow down on spending due to what’s been going on with the banks lately and recession talks.
Yeah I think that could be a factor!
No shade at all here and I love your videos. You are right, Etsy prioritises shops that are active and have new listings regularly, if you haven't worked on your store in almost 2 months Dina, Etsy won't favour you x Hope you find some balance when you move cities in the next week or two x!
Thanks Grace!!! I will start working on my shop again haha so let's see what happens!
Although I'm not selling digital products, I have my own business which is always quiet in February (hardly any sales) March things start to pick up again xx
Ahhh good to know! My sales are picking up in April now 😊
I recently discovered your channel and i love your information and how well you convey it. I am trying to start an etsy store myself and have found this very helpful. keep up the great work
Thank you so much! I'm so happy you're enjoying the content!
Being consistent on a platform is a big factor. It could also be your niche as well. Your niche could have a dip in sales during this time of year.
Yeah! Could be both!
Thank you so much for sharing!! I am seeing a slight decline in my conversion March even though I am listing regularly. I see the same thing- my visits are the same or even increasing, but that doesn't translate to an increase in sales! It's a mystery to me too as to why this happens lol. I am a new digital downloads shop only open a couple of months. Thanks for this vid!
Ahhh interesting!!! Well I am glad we are going through the same thing. Apparently it's happening for a lot of people :(
I just started my Etsy store about 2 weeks ago. No, sells yet, but hoping for some soon. I'm mostly selling print-on-demand shirts from designs that I made and free digital downloads to help speed up with getting sales. So, it's great hearing honest reviews from people who just started, that is slow at first and you just have to be calm and patient during the process. I watched someone else video and she said she didn’t make a sale her whole first week of selling, so let me know if there is hope for me. Plus, I am happy to know I shouldn't ever back away from my Etsy but constantly be working on it, making new listings, or updating them.
Hey Kiearra, wish you the best of luck with your store. Asking out of curiosity: Are you spending money on ads, if so how much per day? And do you have organic visitors? :)
Congrats on opening your shop, Kiearra! And yeah it might take some time to get your first sale + a review. Keep going :) I think it also takes Etsy some time to learn what exactly you're selling and for your products to appear in search (also depends on how saturated your niche is)
I like your consistency update your etsy business every month and stay positive.
Thanks so much!
Oh wow I'm so early! Sad to hear it's going down, can't wait to see where you are a year from now!
Haha yesss 1st comment on this video!!
I have an Etsy store for digital products, and YES my sales dropped down a lot during Febrary and March
Aww sorry to hear that but glad to know I'm not alone!
Can't wait to see your Month 5 update where you experience an awesome rebound! Keep it up. You rock! Thanks so much for your videos. :) Btw how are your earnings on TH-cam with 27.6k? How do you compare Etsy vs TH-cam channel business models? TIA!
Hahaha oh my ... 5th month was even worse than 4th month 🤣 video coming out on Friday! With 27k subs, I'm earning around $1800 USD/ month (but the adsense revenue depends on views, not subscribers)
@@DinaLu Hi Dina....oh noooo! I'm so sorry to hear that! I'm looking forward to the update video on Friday though! Thanks for taking us on this roller coaster ride...which I'm sure will have more ups than downs! 🙏❤🙏
I’m a new Etsy shop owner and I started in February so this gives me hope if these are known as slower months.
Yes a lot of people commented saying that Feb/Mar is slow!
I have an etsy shop too and my conversion rate also litterally dropped in feb-march-april (like 1.5 to 0.2% 💀). Things are starting again now but you're not the only one experiencing it !
Ahhh sorry to hear it dropped!!
Feb & part of March are usually slow, and way less profitable than the rest of the year, for any business (offline & online) and regardless of the niche and product. I owned multiple digital products, workshops, and even a brick and mortar for a couple of years, Feb is usually I used to plan my vacation because it wasn't worth it (working) or I would use it to batch produce marketing material & focus on BTS work rather than trying to push sales.
Good to know I'm not alone in this! Thanks for sharing! Good use of time to take vacation haha
Thank you for sharing and being so humble and honest, much appreciated :D
Thank you!!
This is interesting because I've been eyeballing the etsy subreddit for a little while and I often read that many sellers experience a dip in March every year. Not sure what happens around that time
Ahh ok good to know I am not alone haha!
Always love seeing a new video from you in my feed! Great info for those on Etsy and it's sometimes 'crazy-making' to figure out if there's a 'why' or just a low buying season after those seasonal highs!
I wonder if your YT reach expanding so fast means that people might check out your Etsy out of curiosity and then have that effect your conversion rate?
Thanks!! I haven't revealed my Etsy shop anywhere, and I don't plan to. I want to see how much I can grow my Etsy organically without promotion on social media, but yeah if my audience goes to my Etsy shop, conversion rate will go down because most of them won't buy my products
Oh ya the COFFEE GAME and 4P's in HCMC on point
I went to 4P's but it isn't the restaurant shown in here! Hahaha
Oddly enough February was my best month 😂 Jan and March have been not so good, but I am starting to post consistently and just began ads. Fingers crossed that next month will be better!
That's so interesting haha! Complete opposite of me
Still waiting for my first sale for my first shop. Fingers crossed!
Aww good luck! 🤞
The Etsy shop I started from scratch 4 months ago grew in month 1, 2 and 3, but in month 4 it went down A LOT (especially the conversion rate). Can anyone confirm that Feb/March are horrible Etsy months in general? Or is it just me? 🤔
Keep going, you will make it for sure
Thank you!!
Thanks for the update, Dina ❤
You are so welcome!
Blast ads Even to the break even point. That adds to the organic results. Do You run sales? Is your shop always on discount? Are You building a llist / audience? Crank it up 🎉
great video! I didn't know that you can sell ditigal products on esty!
Yes you can!
I sell small business supplies and January was great, February tanked and its picked up a little bit again in March. I think that the very beginning of the year small businesses are trying to get everything they need for the new year and thats why it was busier at the beginning of the year!
Ahhh thanks for letting me know! Good to know I'm not alone!
I think they prop up stores with more exposure during the first month or 2. I had the same thing and then everything TANKED in the 3rd month. Conversion was about the same...But unless I threw money at it, there were almost no views.
I think that the Etsy algorithm prefers shop owners to spend about an hour a day in their shop, every time you make a change in the shop Etsy has to archive it and it makes the algorithm pay attention to you and it will give more priority to your store.
Yeah a couple people have told me that too... can I ask what would you do for an hour every day if you aren't posting new listings? Other than renewing the current listings? Are you making changes to your titles or description then?
Maybe its interesting to show us the process of uploading the files and stuff. Great video.
Thanks, glad you liked it!!
You got this Dina 🎉🎉
Thanks!
I had the same situation with my conversion rate - going from 6% to 2%. It's going slowly up - now around 3.4%. I've been selling for some years and this is not the first time. It looks like Etsy did some testing causing this drop and changed the algorithm.
Ahhhhh interesting! Maybe Etsy is the culprit haha
Good content. Keep up the good work!🙂
Thanks! 😁
Hi Dina. Did you have any problems signing in to your Etsy account when you arrived in Vietnam? I've heard stories of people getting their Etsy account frozen if they login from a different location. I would love to be a digital nomad and was wondering what happens when you login from a different location. Love your videos.
No problem signing in! I logged out and signed back in, and it worked. I have 2 factor authentication so I literally had to switch out my Vietnam SIM card for my Canadian one to get the code, which I received in a couple of seconds. No problems signing in!
Not sure about why your sales tanked as I just started my shop in February. However, I sell t-shirts on Amazon and February and March are always my slowest months there. Sales should pick up in April - at least I'm hoping they will. For my new Etsy shop, I sell Canva templates and have 27 listings so far. I've made 3 sales and have 1 5-star review which I think is pretty good for my first full month. My goal was to list one product a day but I've been slacking the past week. It's so easy to get burnt out when designing stuff - both with t-shirts or with Canva templates. I think I'm going to scale back my goal and try to list 1 or 2 things per week instead of per day. I think that's a more realistic goal and should help keep me motivated.
Alecia, it sounds like you're off to a great start. Congratulations. It takes me several days to make a new listing hahaha 🤣 so your plan sounds realistic
Hi, Dina. Thank you for sharing your journey with us :) I just have a question, when you go to different countries, do you log in to Etsy? Asking because I'm curious if I can also open or check my Etsy store aside from the IP address that I am using. Thank you!
Yes, when I left Canada and came to Vietnam, I could still log in everything was working properly. However, I had to switch out my Vietnam SIM card to my Canadian SIM card for the two-factor authentication.
How has your competition sales conversion been? Has theirs tanked as well? That would be good to know to see if it’s normal for now or is it just yours.
I think it s like a half myth the thing that feb and march are bad, I opened my shop in November and in February I had over 600 sales and I sell digital products, for me what really works is post something new 2-3 times per week so every month can be a good month
I haven't checked, but that's a great idea, I'll check!
I like your videos so much, thank you for doing them :) can i ask how many listings you have by now?
Thanks so much Agnes! Right now, I have 25.
I'm not here to promote a particular landing page service but do you think you can perform better with that than etsy? They typically have better tactics to promote conversions and do split testing. A low of 2% conversion is still good.
The thing I like about Etsy is that it's a search engine... if I had a landing page I would have to figure out how to get it ranking or use social media to promote the landing page (too much work for me). So I didn't even consider anything else other than Etsy!
I love this series! 🙂
Thanks Helen!
I read everywhere they everyone experienced tanking sales lately
Good to know I'm not alone!
I am not interested in Etsy but I wanted to see you❤ So thanks for meeting and good luck
Awww ♥️
OMG hey welcome to Vietnam!
Thank you so much, I'm enjoying it so much (currently in Danang)!
@@DinaLu Oh that's amazing haha I live in Saigon
You’re gonna make a lot money money in more evergreen all year long searched for products! But sadly those niches are more competitive, so you’d need a fuck ton of listings everyday AND A LOT OF WORK LOL I’m talking 5-10 listings a day to even be found in search. Or you can make multiple shops with multiple different niches and capitalize that way also, but also a lot of work. So it will depend on how much time and effort someone is willing to spend! Kind of hard when you have a full time job, so kinda be like a me and don’t have a life and just work 😂😂😂😂😂
Yeah I could definitely make more on Etsy if I made more listings/shops, but I have the same problem... so much to do, so little time haha
Hi, thanks for your video! It's exactly what I needed to watch coz I have a question regarding turning off an ad. So we know that the listing data gathered by Etsy to drive traffic to your shop/listing will be deleted if you opt out of OFFSITE Ads. My question is, does this also applies on Etsy ads? I want to turn off some listings but will turn it back on later. Just want to try some experiment. But the thing that worries me is, can this reset the data gathered??! Since you experimented on turning off your ad for a couple of days, did it affect your ad performance when you turned it back on? Did it take time to optimize? Did the ad performance change for the worse or still the same? Sorry, I have too many questions 😂
I didn't even know the listing data would be deleted if I opted out of offsite ads 🤣🤣🤣 So I think I know less than you. I can't answer your question 🤣🤣🤣
1K in under 3 hours! LET'S GO!
Thanks!! 🙌
This videos are great! I'm interested in starting my digital etsy shop but I have a question...Do you have to pay taxes? I know that usually you have to, but because it is a digital product i'm not sure! Hope you can help me! Thanks 😘😘
Anytime you make money, regardless of whether it's online or physical, it's considered income. So yes I do report my etsy income for tax purposes in Canada. But it might also depend on the country you live in...I think some countries don't require you to report it if it's a low amount
is it true that their is an extra monthly fee for every listing that you have? it would make sense as to why Etsy encourages more listings in order to keep your store relevant and collecting their fees from all of your listings.
Yes there's a listing fee but its minimal, and ideally you will get sales so it would cover the fees 😊
Even though you aren’t listing new products are you renewing listings daily? When I built my Etsy store to $10k a month we renewed 1-2 listings a day when we weren’t making a lot of sales so that our products stayed at the top of searches. This doesn’t become as necessary when you are making sales every day!
Do you renew it manually?
OMGGGG I didn't know you could even do that. THANK YOU!!! I just renewed some listings hahaha.
@@DinaLu you’re welcome! Hopefully that helps bump you in the algorithm!
I wonder what percentage of your conversion rates went down due to friends and family purchases? I know you have an aria for revenue on your spreadsheet and I’m not great with spreadsheets so I could be missing something but I’m curious how that affects things overall. I know when friends and family visit our business they always have an intent to help us or purchase from us so theoretically that would equate to a higher conversion rate. That being said I did look to closely at your spreadsheet for what month’s included friends and family purchases. That’s just the first thing that popped into my head while you were talking about this.
On a side note I don’t have a shop started yet because I’m to chicken but I am eternally grateful to you for making these videos! I have tried to learn from other TH-camrs but they have established shops so it hard to follow or even stay interested in what they’re saying. Not only are you real and fresh but I find myself actually thinking I do want to try and open my shop.
I do have a question since you said you don’t have a blog and only use Etsy do you have an email account for your business? If not is that something you are planning on doing in the future? I had started a blog but got stuck on the email aspect and just quit because the price of my domain and email and email marketing add one and everything was just adding up and getting overwhelming. Needless to say I am excited that it’s possible to do Etsy without all the extra stuff and I do have a Pinterest but wonder how important email is going to be in the long run. I understand if this is out of your field of comfortable topics but I am still interested in your perspective and opinion as your channel and everything is so unique to anything else I have seen yet.
Ps April is tax month here in the US so I’m excited to see how that affects your conversion rate and your overall sales for the next 2-3 months. Hopefully it’s a huge benefit. Also I know we like Christmas in July for whatever strange reason so maybe that would be a fun sale price title or attention grabber😉
Keep up the good work I’m so appreciative of this channel and your hard work. I hope you are loving it in Vietnam and can’t wait to learn more about you, your channel, and your Etsy shop. Thanks again.
PS sorry for the novella
Hey Michelle! First of all, thank you so much. I'm so happy to hear that you are enjoying my Etsy videos.
Actually, only in the first and second months did I focus a little bit more on getting friends who are interested in my niche to purchase. I never posted it on any social media channels, only sent my shop to friends directly, so I don't think that the friends / family part affected the conversion rates a whooole lot. Because in the third month, the conversion rate still stays similar but I only had 2 sales from friends out of the 66 sales.
For etsy, I made a separate Gmail account just in case any customers have questions. But no one has emailed me. Everyone uses the Etsy messaging platform. For my actual business website (dinacalligraphy.com), I did pay for a separate email through Google workspace. I think it's around $5 USD a month. That is on top of the Squarespace monthly subscription I pay.
Hope that helps! ♥️
@@DinaLu wonderful information! May I ask if you send out a newsletter type thing for your calligraphy business? Do you find it helps with conversion if so? Sorry if this is still a bit off topic but it’s my biggest struggle area and a bit overwhelming for me. Thanks for your time and sharing your knowledge and expertise 💕
@@TinyFitz I used to once a week when I was coaching calligraphers on how to start businesses, but not for my actual calligraphy business! But now I do it for my TH-cam channel once a week. Whether or not it's something you should do depends on your goals! And what are the other strategies you use to stay in touch with clients, etc etc
@@DinaLu thank you immensely for taking the time to reply to my queries!
December is the month of money and then January it's a pretty good month it's a pretty good month because people have got their Christmas money and bonuses.
However January's paycheck is going to be paying off Christmas in New Year and the credit card bill that's going to come in February and it's the same in March as well and then it comes back backup for Easter in April.
We run a couple of websites and we sell physical products and we sell physical products and we do digital marketing for other events as well that's all start in people.
In my own opinion it's just because no one has any disposable money has any disposable money for February and March because it's all been spent in the last month or 2
Thanks for sharing that! It makes a lot of sense!
It's been three months I started my etsy shop for digital downloads but still didn't make any sale yet.😣 I don't know what is wrong.
Awww! It could be many reasons .. take a look at your stats... Are you getting views? If not, perhaps it's your SEO or too saturated niche. Are you getting views but buyers aren't converting into sales? Might be your listing photos for example!
@@DinaLu Thank you for replying. Yes, I'm getting views but 1 or 2 a day. Maybe it could be listing photos.
Can you help me regarding about canva share link template? i did follow your guide in one of your video but somehow canva make new update, and i couldnt add the copied link of share link template but it updated to already showed one of my project as options. I get confused and worried that i share my project and let my customer use my canva not the share link template that my cust can edit in their own canva account. I just build my etsy shop and follow your guide, its really helpfull and i am so grateful that I found your channel
Could you get some friends to test out some of your links for you? And I'm glad you're enjoying the content!
Hello. I am new at Etsy as you. I would like to know how to use the print on demand function. Because I would like to sell tshirts but I don't know how to do it. Can you explain how to sell shirts with a logo with print on demand. Thanks.
I don't do print on demand at all, so I can't help you sorry!
In which class do you read?
What do you mean by (friends) in your sheet ?
Sometimes, my friends want to support me or use my products so they make a purchase. I don't count those as "organic Etsy sales" so that's why I have a section for the "total revenue" (as reported by Etsy) and "total revenue minus friends" (the revenue amount reported by Etsy minus the amount my friends bought) to get my "organic revenue" which I see as passive income. I hope that makes sense!
Once you make a certain amount (i think it is $600) in the us you are supposed to create a business and pay taxes on that
You don't need to create a business. You can remain a sole proprietor.
Question, is this revenue from one product or multiple?
Multiple products! I think I had 23 or 24 listings
its because of the bank situation, Silicon Valley Bank collapse, great work tho on your shop!
My Etsy shop started tanking before that happened, so maybe after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse people generally started to pay more attention to how much money they spend on things and cut spending? So it could be a factor but I think mainly it's because Etsy sales are generally low in Feb/Mar and I haven't posted a listing in 2 months
If you’re getting 200% ROAS, why not increase ad budgets a ton?
I noticed that when I increased the ad spend, Etsy would promote my product under keywords that don't really fit the product, so I stopped doing that. But I also know that I can un-select keywords in the ads section too so maybe I should do that
Are you still updating your listings?
Nope, but I just learned about "renewing" listings hahaha... I never did that before haha, so now I just did 😂
@@DinaLu What I mean is are you still uploading new or more listings/products?
Sorry for the confusion!
Lower the price very low to get sales, then increase every 100 sales
I started a digital shop on feb and have 700 sales, and my other shop has 20,000 sales
@@jamestuck90
How did u manage that? It doesn’t help anybody just to throw that out there.
@@traveloasis8389 I said lower the price very low. So low it hurts lol
What’s the difference between total revenue and total revenue from ad spend? I was under the impression that your total rev come from ads
Total revenue includes revenue from ad spend AND organic sales. Total revenue from ad spend is just the revenue from putting money into ads