In this video, I am going to answer one of the most common questions I get asked. And that is this: Sarah: Isn’t it impossible to get traffic & sales to a brand new Etsy store? It doesn’t have any previous sales, or reviews, or social media following.
Yep. It’s a myth that I see that’s talked about a lot: that new stores aren’t making money, can’t make money, and only the top stores on Etsy are the ones that are able to make sales. But it’s simply not true.
Nope: I recently started a brand new Etsy store. No reviews. No social media following. Nothing. Yet, within 2 weeks, I had already made my first 2 sales.
And I’ll clarify a few points. That new store did NOT use any intellectual property. No, I didn’t try and piggyback off of popular brands like Nintendo, Taylor Swift or Disney. All of the designs are 100% original. And I did NOT sell any custom products.
Well: it’s because, as I discussed in this video, ‘How I hack the algorithms by choosing a store niche’ back in Step 1, Etsy has a feature built into their algorithm to help new stores succeed, called Test Impressions.
You see, what most people don’t realize is that Etsy WANTS new stores to succeed. They actively WANT new stores to do well… Because this helps them make money!
And they explained why in this investor report back in 2023. In this slide that they showed their investors during their meeting, they explained a big change that they have made to their algorithm. The first slide shows the search results that a customer would previously get for the phrase, “back-to-school”, and the second slide shows the new search result that customers now get when they search for that same phrase.
And these were, unsurprisingly, from already the most popular, established stores.
But in the second screenshot, you can see that they instead changed the algorithm to show customers a much bigger variety of niche products that were picked just for the customer, based on their own personal purchasing history, such as custom backpacks from a new store.
And so thanks to these changes Etsy has been making, now, instead of just showing the most popular stores with lots of reviews, it instead highlighted new, smaller stores and sellers. And the reason why Etsy has invested in this change is because, well…they don’t want customers to get bored.
Yes. If they only show the stores that are established, selling broader products, customers will keep seeing the same items over and over again.
And so they’re using new AI technology to pair customers with specific, niche products that based on their previous purchasing history, they would likely love.
But, for Etsy to be able to do this effectively, they also need to have a LOT more stores because they need a LOT more products to be added so they can have a much bigger variety for their customers.
But, the truth is, this can be difficult for Etsy because new stores often don’t have good products, they instead have generic, boring products.
*** Test Impressions
*Which is why Etsy has, from my experience, added the TEST IMPRESSIONS feature into their algorithm.*
Because you see, here’s the thing. Sure, on Etsy, one way people buy items is they go to the search bar, and they search specific keywords that they want to find products for.
But, another way people buy them is through discovery pages. These are pages like the Homepage & the Etsy mobile app. On these discovery pages, Etsy recommends products to you that they think you might like.
I find it really interesting but lots of “Etsy gurus” focus so heavily on search engine traffic. When honestly, in my experience, this is the best type of traffic and it is also increasingly how customers are now purchasing from Etsy – through these discovery pages.
And so here is a breakdown of my new store’s total traffic. The direct traffic was basically just me, making sure each of my listings looked good each time I launched them so what is instead is relevant is that in my first 2 weeks of launching, Etsy sent me 29 visitors, 2 of which went on to purchase, and more than half of them came from the Etsy discovery pages.
This is, in my experience, where Etsy likes to test new products from new stores. So, let’s say for example that I started a new store, themed around pets, and I created this funny Dachshund mug.
Well, what Etsy’s algorithm will do, from my experience, is it will try and look for customers in their database that might be interested in this mug. So, they might try and look for customers that have previously bought items themed around Dachshunds.
And if I use keywords like the word “pun” or “joke” in its listing, they will get even more specific, and look and see if they can find Dachshund dog owners, who have also previously bought joke items about puns.
And if they see the keyword “black mug” they can then try and get even more specific, and try and identify Dachshund owners, who have previously bought joke items featuring puns, that have also previously bought black mugs, instead of white mugs.
And if they see that in your store profile, you say that you’re a stay-at-home-mother that is using the store as a way to provide extra income for your family, the algorithm can narrow it down even further, and look for Dachshund owners that have previously bought joke items featuring puns, that have also purchased black mugs instead of white mugs, that have shown to have an affinity for purchasing from stores that are run by stay-at-home mothers.
They’ll then place your mug on the discovery pages, like the homepages, of a small group of test customers. As you can see on these pages, the store reviews & sales are not shown. The only thing the customer sees is the price and, most importantly, the picture. On these pages, your product will succeed based on how it looks, not on how many reviews you have.
Which is why it’s a great place for Etsy to give new stores test impressions. Because it is a fair test. You aren’t at a disadvantage for being a new store with no reviews. Instead, if your product passes this test, it’s because it looked cool. Whereas if it fails, it’s because it wasn’t interesting enough.
It is a way for Etsy to let products be tested purely on their own merit. And so then, in my experience: if they show it to a bunch of test customers, but nobody clicks on it, then Etsy will gain no data on who likes it, and so won’t be able to show it to new people.
But, if people do click on them, like what happened in my new store.
Then Etsy will be able to get data from who clicked on your listing, and also see it was interesting enough of a design to get clicks too. Then can then use that data to analyze the customers who clicked on it, and try and identify similar customers to those customers. Then, they can show your product to them as well.
And they do that, until they find a customer that purchases your product. Then, they’ll then use the data from that customer to then find more customers similar to that!
And that is how your sales grow: the more data Etsy has, the more they can connect your products to the right customers, resulting in more sales & money for you. So, as you can see then, the “trick” that I use to get sales as a new Etsy seller, is surprisingly simple.
I don’t have some super secret research hack, that requires me to pay an expensive monthly subscription to an Etsy research tool that I am affiliate for (laughs)
Instead, it’s doing 2 things really well. One is in creating & designing products which, when placed on a customer’s homepage, will stand out and look better and more interesting than the other products on there.
That is exactly how someone can end up posting 500 products and have little to no sales like this person. If all 500 of their products look generic and boring, no one will click on them, and so their test impressions will fizzle and Etsy will stop showcasing their listings.
You are literally wasting your time if you just try and create 500 generic products. That low effort “go wide” strategy doesn’t work. You can’t trick customers into clicking on your products. They’ll only click on them if they like them. So, the key to getting free traffic is to create clickable designs, photos and products.
If you’ve seen my video here on the YouTube Channel, you’ll know that one way I do that is with the cross-idea formula.
And then find another niche that the design doesn’t exist in on Etsy, such as I did in that video, when I discovered an opportunity in the pet parrot niche. Then, I come and use that design, but apply it to this new niche to come up with my own clever, clickable product.
This makes it stand out from the others. This is, in my opinion, the easiest way to create clickable products as a new store: to create products that fill a gap in the market.
But there is a second thing that I do and that is to focus on niche products. Yes, because here’s the thing. In my experience it is easier for Etsy to guess what customers might be interested in buying this mug here:
That’s because Etsy’s algorithm has less data to work with to be able to correctly guess which customers to test your products with. First of all, if you think about it, there are a lot more dog dads than Dachshund owners. And secondly – let’s be honest, this mug is, well, very generic.
Because you think about it. Not only was the Dachshund mug about a specific dog breed: but it also was a pun. So it could look for customers that liked both of these to test it with.
But this design? It’s just super generic. There isn’t really anything descriptive about it to help them connect it to the right niche customers.
So, chances are, if they try and test it with customers, they won’t be able to find the right customers to click on it. And it would fizzle.
And then, unfortunately, I’d probably end up like this person here. I’d have 500 generic designs that I had copied, that nobody wanted because they already had plenty of better options to choose from!
So I hope that this demystifies the Etsy algorithm for you, and shows why – even as a new store – you can indeed gain traction within the algorithm.
It is by filling gaps in the market. When people ask me, Sarah – why do you spend so much time talking about designing products, instead of traffic methods, this is why it’s because great, clickable products are, in my experience, the best traffic method there is.
And don’t forget, if you’d like a refresher on the Etsy algorithm and to see it visually in-action, I highly recommend re-watching my video where I drew it out as a diagram. You’ll find that video again in the Step 1 video series.
However, while the key I’ve found to getting free traffic and sales on Etsy is to focus on creating and designing great products that fill a gap in the market.
As you probably noticed, you still need to also give Etsy data to pair your products with the right customers.
Which means, you still need to do other things too: such as optimizing your listings with the right keywords. And optimizing your store profile, by filling in as much information as possible, to give it as much data as possible.
And so those are some of things that I’ll be discussing in the rest of this series, and sharing my strategies on how I’ve done that. So I’ll see you in the next video!
