When running an Etsy shop, you need as much straight up fact as you can find. That’s where your stats come in. They contain a wealth of information specific to your own shop that can help you understand your business and the direction you need to go in. I want you to create a thriving shop and learning how to use your Etsy stats to grow your business is a very important step.
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Just like me and your hips, your Etsy stats won’t lie to you. They contain some cold hard truth about your shop, which you can use to make informed decisions about your business.
This is Part 5 of my Etsy series, Your Shop, Your Way. I’m sharing everything I know about running an Etsy shop in the hopes of helping you develop your own successful strategy. I’m not promising massive sales or explosive results. Most of us average, earth-dwelling shop owners see slow and steady growth. We work hard and learn as we go and figure out what success means to us.
For me, success is running my business, my way, in a way that suits my family and lifestyle. In a way that brings in some money and satisfies my personal crafting goals.
So grab the workbook for this series, print the worksheet for this exercise and we’ll get started! (In the spirit of continued honesty, the workbook is $7 cad and has 9 super helpful printables in it.)
Start with the Positive
Let’s start by looking at what’s going right with your shop. It’s nice to start with the positive stuff so we don’t get too discouraged right out of the gate. 😛
Look through your sales page and make note of your best sellers. (By clicking the # of sales link in your shop banner area.)
If you have duplicate items, but only one of the listings sells well, make note of that too.
Take a look at these bestsellers and try to identify why they do so well. Is there an element you can try to duplicate in other listings? Certain style of photo, or colours or wording?
Now take a look at your listings by clicking ‘listings’ in your shop manager menu.
What are your most visited/favourited listings? Are they also your bestsellers? Do you have listings that get a decent amount of visits but no sales? That may indicate that there is something about that listing that is preventing customers from purchasing it. Could it be the price or shipping charges?
Take a look at the reviews you are getting, are they wonderful or ho-hum? Make note of anything specific beyond “great transaction” that could help you identify what customers liked about the experience in your shop.
Build on what’s already working for ya!
Keywords
Go into your stats and click on ‘Etsy Search’ and change the dates so you’re looking at at least 6 months of data. Now look at what keywords people are searching for to find you. Write down the most searched for keywords.
These are the tags that are working for you! Don’t change them and consider where you can add them or variations of them into more listings. We talk more about this in Part 2 on How to Find Etsy Tags.
Does anything surprise you about the keywords that are getting your shop found?
Something I learned through looking at these keywords is that sometimes you need to be misspelling your tags! If you use a word in your tags that is commonly misspelled, maybe you should add the misspelled version into your SEO. I know it hurts, but it might help too!
Research Time
We’re heading back to the competition! Much like I suggested doing in Part 1 of this series about pricing handmade, we are going to snoop on the competition. NOT to copy what they are doing, but just to observe.
Find 3-5 shops that are your direct competition. Now take a look at their reviews. What are customers saying about them? Are they raving about the customer service or the bonus gifts they got in their order? What is making the competition’s customers happy? Can that info help you improve your own customer’s experiences?
Traffic Sources
Time to analyze your traffic. Where is it all coming from?
If your traffic from Etsy search is low, then it’s time to work on your SEO and keywords.
If your traffic from Social is low, then you should probably be more consistent with posting on social media and upping your Pinterest game. (I wrote an in-depth post on creating Pins for Etsy listings. Read it here.)
If you don’t have much direct traffic, you could consider creating a website and blog to draw in readers.
Etsy brings in about 58% of my shop visitors, I draw in the other 42% through my website and social channels. You can’t rely on Etsy to bring in all your traffic for you. One little algorithm change and poof your traffic disappears! Take control of your traffic!
Get some ideas for driving your own traffic from Part 4 of the series.
Now for the Negative
We gotta look at what’s not working too. 🙁
What are your least viewed/favourited items? Is it one version of an item that’s not working or the whole group of them? Maybe they just don’t quite fit in with the style and branding of your shop? Is your shop cohesive?
Should you try tweaking the photos, prices or SEO? Or are your stats telling you that item is a dud?
Do you have items that have never sold? Despite having made changes to the listings? Maybe it’s time to ax those items.
Have you gotten some negative feedback? Take it as a challenge to up your game. Make improvements to quality and customer service.
Social Media
Another set of stats you could be observing is social media. What are people loving on IG? What pics get the most likes and comments?
What’s getting the most attention on Pinterest? Are you taking time to create high-quality pins and sharing them to group boards?
Are people sharing your FB posts? Consider what you are posting on facebook, is it valuable and shareable? Mix up the posts about products with something topical or funny and geared towards your target audience. The workbook has a social media checklist to help you keep your posts organized!
Etsy collects a lot of useful data on your behalf. Take advantage of all that info and use it to help you create the thriving shop of your dreams!
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