The Library
Plain-English pieces on Etsy SEO, fees, pricing and building a warm audience that's yours. Some are open to everyone; members get the rest.
Usually nothing you did on the day. I sent one email to 100 people and got 1 click, and the problem had been decided weeks before I ever hit send.
The page at the end of your download link is the one part of the sale Etsy doesn't own. I bought 14 digital products to see what makers were doing with it.
Busy is not the same as paid. The backwards sum that shows what your shop really pays you an hour, and how I fixed mine without ever touching the price.
You won't out-list the machines, so stop competing on volume and price and compete on the one thing they cannot fake. What actually works for a real maker.
Wait 24 hours, reply once, publicly and warmly, and write it for the future buyers who read it. What a bad review can and can't do to your shop.
Because the version of marketing you've been sold never ends, and nobody can sustain work with no finish line. Marketing with a date on it is a different job.
Because checking is the only lever Etsy gives you. Why the refreshing happens, why it's worst when things are quiet, and the one stat worth your time.
Mostly it comes down to who happened to walk past your table. What really decides a fair, and why the makers who sell out started before the day.
Start from your normal price, then add for everything custom costs on top: the messages, the sourcing, the sample, the risk. Being chosen is not a discount.
Decide what ending you want before you reply. Nearly every difficult message is one of 5 things, and most are cheaper to solve than to argue with.
Probably, but not for the passive income promise. What a digital product actually fixes for a maker, what it doesn't, and my honest numbers from selling one.
Answer every question a buyer would ask if she could tap you on the shoulder, starting with the 2 lines that show before anyone taps read more.
Sometimes, and the only honest way to know is maths on a real order. What the fee actually leaves you, and which of your sales carry no ad fee at all.
Usually nothing you did. The real causes of a sudden Etsy drop, why none of them are levers you hold, and what to do with a quiet fortnight.
Read the notice properly, appeal once through the official route with evidence attached, and don't open a second shop. The first hour, calmly, in order.
Mostly no. Vacation mode closes your shop and costs you momentum you spent months building. Extend your dispatch times instead and come home to orders.
Because a view is a stranger comparing you against a screen full of shops. The honest listing checks, and the warmth lever that actually moves sales.
Almost nobody's first sale comes from a stranger in search. It comes from a person, and you already know some people. What to do while you wait.
Free shipping means the postage comes out of your price, so the real question is whether your price can carry it. Let's do the honest sums on that.
Etsy's stats hold more than that screen lets on, and I'll walk you through it, the honest limits, and the one move that beats any dashboard.
Fewer than you think. 4 to 8 pieces that belong to one idea, and the real ceiling is what you can photograph, list, pack and post, not what you can make.
Start from what the piece genuinely sells for and work backwards, not up from your materials. Adding up costs is how makers end up paying themselves nothing.
Ask when the parcel opens, not days later when Etsy's nudge lands. And what your happiest customer could give you that's worth more than the 5 stars.
Daylight from a window, the phone in your pocket and a sheet of white card. Most of what makes a product photo work at home is free, here's all of it.
Give people notice, raise new work first, and don't apologise for it. You will lose a few, and they're usually the ones costing you the most anyway.
Instagram is brilliant at people meeting you and quite bad at telling them when something is for sale. Use it for the first job, and move the second.
Report the direct copies, act fast on stolen photos, skip the public pile-on, and lean on the one thing about your work a copycat can never relist.
You find out by asking people to commit before it exists. What counts as real interest, and the shelf of fabric that taught me the difference.
Thursday 17 September 2026, and there's real maths behind it. Start then and you launch on 1 November with the whole of Christmas still ahead of you.
Only if your price can survive being halved and your process can survive repetition. The wholesale maths, what shops expect, and when no is the right answer.
Mostly you can't, and Etsy built it that way. Your buyers would happily come back, they just need a way to hear from you that you actually own.
Yes, and sooner than you think. The list is the only audience you own outright, and it quietly outsells followers.
You can keep the shop. The trap is depending on it, and the way out is an email list you launch to.
Why going in under everyone else feels like the safe move, what a sell-out in an hour actually costs you, and the question to ask before you set the number.
The real reason your listings stall, and the three things to fix before you touch anything else.
The listing lie that keeps good makers stuck at the same number, and the shift that actually moves it.
The renew-to-climb myth, what actually happens when a listing renews, and where to put that energy instead.
Listing, transaction, payment processing, the regulatory operating fee, Offsite Ads and the 20% VAT on Etsy's own fees that nobody counts. What Etsy really takes, and why it bites hardest on cheap items.
Why the follower count you're jealous of isn't paying anyone's bills, and the maths of a small list that actually shows up.
When a second shop genuinely helps, when it just splits your effort in half, and the question to ask before you do it.