Latest / The Modern Etsy Seller Podcast / 43. What to Do When You’re Feeling Stuck in Your Etsy Shop

Transcript

43. What to Do When You’re Feeling Stuck in Your Etsy Shop · The Modern Etsy Seller Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there and welcome to the Modern Etsy Seller, the podcast where busy women build, grow, and profit on Etsy.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Melissa Carroll, a full-time teacher, a busy mom, and an Etsy seller who's built two successful Etsy shops in the small moments of everyday life.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here you'll find simple strategies, real behind-the-scenes insight, and the clarity you need to stop second guessing and start moving forward one intentional step at a time.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get to it.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is a really common and natural feeling, and it can occur at multiple different stages of your Etsy business.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: We all likely feel stuck at some point, and probably for a lot of us at multiple points.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say stuck, I really mean that feeling of not knowing what your next move should be, coupled with doubt about the moves you've already made.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're questioning what you should do next, but at the same time, you're also wondering if the decisions that got you here were the right ones.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times that comes with feeling like you should be further along than you are, or wondering why you're not seeing the results you thought you would be seeing by now.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that can look really different depending on where you are in your business.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna run through just a few common points in your Etsy journey where these feelings of uncertainty and being stuck tend to show up.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first is before you even have your first listing up.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know you want to start an Etsy shop, but you're stuck on what to actually sell.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You might have two or three products you're going back and forth between, or maybe you keep finding a new idea and wondering if that would be better.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't really know which direction to move in, and at the same time, you're questioning whether the options you've already narrowed it down to are the right ones.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Another place you can start to feel stuck is when you're deciding what to actually design.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, you've chosen the product, but now you're not sure what direction to take the designs.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're wondering what kind of messages and designs to create, which ideas have the best chance of working, and whether the ideas you've already come up with are even worth pursuing.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you start adding listings, that feeling can shift again.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're not only wondering what you should work on next, you're also questioning the decisions you've already made in the listings you've created.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are these the right titles and tags?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Are the designs good enough?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do the mock-ups work?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Does the price make sense?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you can start wondering whether you should keep creating more listings or go back and change the ones you've already had.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Another point where you can feel stuck is when you've been at it for a little while.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your shop has been open for a couple of months, you have a handful of listings up, and you still haven't made a sale.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: This one is super common.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is where some of those bigger doubts can start to creep in.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're wondering if you chose the right product in the first place, whether there's actually a market for what you're creating, if Etsy is oversaturated, whether you've been going about this completely wrong.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you're also trying to figure out what you should do next.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you keep creating?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you go back and change things?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you give it more time?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you just forget the whole thing?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, feeling stuck doesn't necessarily stop once you start making sales.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've had some success, but now sales have slowed down, or you've hit a point where you just can't seem to get beyond where you are.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're not sure what you should do next to get things moving again.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, you start questioning whether what you've been doing is still the right thing to keep doing.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need to create more of what has worked?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Try something new, change your strategy, or just wait out this slow period.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And really, no one is immune to this feeling.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: My print-on-demand shop just hit two years open.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have thousands of sales, and I still have moments where I feel stuck.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are still times when I'm not totally sure what my next move should be, or I start questioning whether I'm focusing on the right things.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, I've been doing this long enough now that I know feeling stuck doesn't automatically mean something is wrong.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I also know that making a bunch of changes just because I feel uncertain usually isn't the right answer.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It usually means I need to stop, look at what is actually happening in the business, and get a little clearer on what deserves my attention next.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when you find yourself in one of these stuck periods, there are four things I want you to do.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: First, look at where you truly are right now in the moment.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then look at what your shop is telling you.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the data, then narrow down what deserves your attention and finally decide what your next move is and do it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into each of those a little bit more.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I want you to do when you're feeling stuck is take a step back and look at where you actually are in your Etsy business.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the expectations we have for where we think we should be can make us feel stuck even when we're actually making perfectly reasonable progress.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: If your shop has been open for three weeks and you have seven listings up and you haven't made a sale yet, or maybe you don't even have many views or visits yet, that can absolutely feel discouraging and it can have you questioning the work you've already done.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, three weeks and seven listings usually isn't enough time or information to decide that something isn't working.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is where you have to be really careful about letting your expectations determine how you feel about your progress.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: You might have thought you would open your shop and get the first sale within a week.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: You might have thought once you had 10 listings up, you would start getting more consistent traffic.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: You may have seen someone else say that they made their first 10 sales in their first month, and now you're looking at your own shop and wondering why that isn't happening to you.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact that you expected something to happen by a certain point doesn't necessarily mean it should have happened by that point.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this applies later in your business too.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're getting five or 10 sales a month, but you thought you'd be at 50 by now.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you had a really good month and then the next month slowed down and suddenly you feel like you're going backwards.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't necessarily mean you need to change everything you're doing either.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So before you start trying to solve the feeling of being stuck, you need to separate what you're feeling from what is actually happening.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that means asking yourself some really basic questions first.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I at right now?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Have I given this enough time to actually know whether or not it's working?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: What have I been doing consistently?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: What evidence do I have that something is or isn't working?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And am I reacting to something that is really happening in my business, or am I reacting to where I thought I would be or where I want it to be by now?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on where you are, that might mean looking at how long your shop has been open, how many listings you have, whether you've been consistently working on it, whether people are finding your products, or whether your sales are actually changing.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: The goal here isn't to convince yourself that everything is fine.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just to make sure you're evaluating your shop based on what is actually happening instead of reacting to frustration, comparison, or an expectation you had in your head.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Once you have a clearer picture of where you actually are, the next thing I want you to look at is what your shop itself is telling you.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So once you have a clearer picture of where things stand, you're gonna look at the data.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you've established that you're not just reacting to an expectation you had for where you thought you would be, there may be something that genuinely isn't working the way you want it to.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And rather than guessing at what that is, I want you to look for clues.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest mistakes I see sellers make when they feel stuck is jumping straight to a guess.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: They start creating solutions, often multiple solutions, before they've actually figured out what the problem is.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then they start blindly making changes, usually a number of them.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't know what the problem is yet, you really don't know which things, if any, you need to change.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So instead, I want you to start with what you actually know and can find out.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So go into your Etsy shop manager, click on stats, and then shop traffic.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Start with the overall shop level information that's there.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your visits, your orders, your conversion rate, and where your traffic is coming from.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Your visits are going to tell you whether people are getting to your shop.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And your conversion rate, which I personally think is the most important number, is going to tell you how well that traffic is turning into orders.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those two numbers together can already start to give you some clues about whether you need to look more closely at getting people in the door or at what's happening once people get there.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can also look at some of the shopper activity Etsy gives you, like item favorites, shop favorites, and abandoned carts.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Those aren't sales, but they are still useful signals because they show that people are interacting with your shop and your products.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: If people are favoriting items or adding them to their carts but not buying, that tells you something different than a shop where people aren't engaging at all.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then I want you to go one level deeper and look at some of your individual listings.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're on your listings page, you should toggle on stats and keep it on.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't already done that, up in the right-hand corner, there's a toggle that has the word stats there, and you can turn that on or off.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it on.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: That way you'll always see some basic stats right underneath each listing.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: It will show you visits and favorites from the last 30 days along with your all-time sales and revenue.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Those are helpful for just quickly spotting listings that seem to be getting more or less attention.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want you to stop there.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Click into the actual stats for some of those listings.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there's gonna be a little gear, like a little settings button.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you click that, it's gonna have options and there's gonna be one that says stats.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you click that, it's gonna take you to the stats for that listing.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Etsy gives you more information once you get inside the individual listing stats.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I find especially useful there is the search terms.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually see some of the searches shoppers typed into Etsy that led them to that specific listing.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is such valuable information because now you're not guessing about how people might be finding that product.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Etsy is showing you actual searches that resulted in visits to that listing.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: As you look at them, ask yourself some questions.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Are those searches really relevant to what you're selling?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Are you seeing the same words or phrases show up repeatedly?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are shoppers finding the listing for the recipient or the occasion that you intended?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or are they finding it in ways you hadn't even considered?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: This can help you understand whether Etsy is connecting that listing with the kinds of shoppers you actually want to reach.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: If the search terms are really relevant, that tells you something is lining up.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: If they feel completely off, that gives you a clue that the way the listing is being understood may not match what you intended.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And while you're in there, you can look at the rest of the listing level information too.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here you can set a date range to look beyond the 30 days of visits and favorites that the main listing page shows.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And remember you're trying to understand what is happening with individual listings rather than only looking at your shop as a whole here.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, once you've looked at what your shop is telling you, the next step is to narrow your focus.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to figure out every possible problem in your shop or try to work on everything at once.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to start figuring out what deserves your attention first.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And part of what makes this difficult is that there are multiple pieces that all have to work together.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: People have to be able to find your listings.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: They have to be interested enough to click on them.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And once they get there, the listing has to do its job of helping them feel confident enough to buy.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked about each of these pieces before in my show up in the search, stop the scroll, and secure the sale episodes.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to go deeper into any of those areas, you can go back and listen to those episodes.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, I just want you thinking about the fact that there are different places where things can break down.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And your job is to start narrowing down which one deserves your attention.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to say that this isn't always black and white.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't necessarily one obvious answer or one perfect next move.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that can feel frustrating because the thing you're seeing in your shop can sometimes have more than one possible cause.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you're going to have to make your best judgment based on the information you have right now.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Other times you're going to have to test things out.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to be 100% certain before you do anything, it's to make a more informed decision instead of a random guess.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, after you look at all of this, you may realize that you just don't have enough information yet.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your shop is still really new, or you have a small number of listings, or maybe you made some changes recently and haven't given them enough time to see what happens.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: In that case, your next move might be not to fix anything.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: It may simply be to keep creating and adding new listings while you continue to monitor the data and gather more information.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's important because waiting doesn't have to mean doing nothing, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave the things you're unsure about alone for a little while, keep adding to your shop, and get yourself more data.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: But when you do have enough information to start seeing some patterns, that's when you want to narrow your focus.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Look at everything you've gathered so far and ask yourself, what seems to deserve my attention the most right now?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't necessarily mean looking for what's wrong.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: You might notice something that seems to be holding your shop back, or you might notice something that is already getting a stronger response than the rest.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, you're just trying to identify the area that deserves the most attention.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because the goal here isn't to decide the perfect solution.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's simply to move from I have no idea what I should be looking at to okay, this is the area I want to focus on.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Once you've narrowed down what deserves your attention, the last step is to decide what you're going to do with that information.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think your next move is usually going to fall into one of two categories.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're either going to work on something that you think could be holding your shop back, or you're going to build on something that is already showing you signs that it's working.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you've identified an area that you think needs improvement, choose something specific you can do to work on that area.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that means spending some time on your thumbnail images, or going back through the SEO on a listing, or improving your descriptions or your mock-ups, or whatever makes sense based on what you've found.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: The important part is that now you have a reason for working on that thing.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're not changing your SEO because somebody on YouTube told you that you need to redo all your titles and tags when you don't see sales.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or you're not changing your prices because you haven't had a sale this week.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're making a decision based on what you're seeing in your own shop.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But your next move doesn't always have to come from finding something that needs to be fixed.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the best direction is to look at what is already working and do more of it.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one of your listings is getting significantly more sales than the others.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've noticed that products for a particular recipient or an occasion is consistently getting more attention.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: There might be a certain kind of message or design that keeps getting favorites, or you might have a listing that is converting at a much higher percentage than the other.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those are things I would pay attention to because your customers are giving you information about what they want.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in that situation, instead of spending all your time trying to improve the listings that aren't doing anything, your next move might be to create more around the thing that is.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Take a message that is working and think about other recipients it could work for.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Take an occasion that is selling and create more products or designs around it.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Take a listing that's consistently performing well and ask yourself what it is about that listing that you could carry into something new.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then do the thing you decided to do.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Give yourself a period of time where that is your focus instead of continuing to question the decision every day or jumping to the next idea before you've really followed through on this one.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, getting unstuck doesn't mean you suddenly know exactly what is going to work.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: You probably won't.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: It means you've gone from feeling like you have no idea what to do next to having a reason for the next move you're making.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then you make that move.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Watch what happens and use what you learn to decide where you go from there.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if you're feeling stuck in your Etsy shop right now, I hope this helps you take some of the pressure off of yourself to immediately figure out the perfect answer.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Start by looking at where you are and make sure you're not letting your expectations convince you that something is wrong when you may just need more time.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then look at what your shop is actually telling you.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to the information Etsy is giving you.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Narrow down what deserves your attention, and then decide what your next move is based on what you've learned.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, that next move doesn't always have to be fixing something.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need to make an improvement, sometimes you need to give something more time, and sometimes the best thing you can do is recognize what's already working and do more of it.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to know exactly where every decision is going to lead.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to have a reason for the next move you're making.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Make it and then use what happens next to keep moving forward.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're feeling stuck right now, I'd love to hear where.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So send me a message and tell me what you're struggling to figure out in your Etsy shop because there's a pretty good chance that if you're wondering about it, other sellers are too, and it might just become a future episode of the podcast.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.