💜 Pam Duthie explains more about the eRank category data in this video: czcams.com/video/uq_8Aiz8dKY/video.html ✅ Download the 🍜 FREE Etsy SEO'oodles Toolbox and learn how to do Etsy SEO in 2023: bit.ly/EtsyNoodle
I wish they would remove tracked shipping as a requirement for being a star-seller. I'm in Canada and I sell stickers/decals and in order for me to provide tracked shipping, I either have to add a hefty shipping fee to each order or I have to raise my prices to include shipping and then I'm too expensive. Etsy shipping labels are way too expensive for my type of product, so I send them regular mail and never see a star-seller badge. Doesn't seem quite fair.
Hey can I ask you something? By not tracking your items, do you have a lot of customers who said that they never received their items and ask for a refun? Since you can’t know if is true or not, I guess there people who see the opportunity to have free stuff….?
@@Alexandra-ew3ep No, I haven't had any yet. But if it DOES happen, I figure it's cheaper to send a replacement for free than the cost of tracking with Canada Post for such a small item. I haven't had anyone ask for a refund yet. *knocks wood*
If you put other as the shipping provider and use the words - "STANDARD SHIPPING - NO TRACKING" it was still measuring as tracked for me unless they've changed it :)
I ship with tracking on time meticulously with every single order. Yet every month for the last year; I only get a 95% on the shipping badge... just barely making the star seller badge. I never make a mistake on the tracking numbers... it's a totally flawed system and I don't know why I am always 5% off no matter how careful I am to plug every number in correctly and on time...
Uhg, that's so frustrating. Definitely try to contact Etsy and ask them why. I can't promise that you'll get an answer but I'd be bugging them every day if I were you!
Starla, great video! Etsy has so messed up the Star Seller program & offended many of the best shop owners who for one reason or another don't have the Star! Glad to know others realize this & it is not necessary to have the Star to make sales! Thank you so much!
As a seller with Star Seller status going on month 2 now, I haven't seen any difference in purchase volume. Also as a shopper, I could not care less about Star Seller status and this has never influenced my decision to purchase from a shop or not, at least not consciously. Thanks Starla :)
Thanks, Starla it's helpful to have this information, again confirming Star Seller isn't that important, and that Personalization and Free shipping are.
Hi! I am learning a lot with your videos so thank you! This gives me some hope because I know I won't be a star seller because I can't justify a tracking cost on small packages that meet the dimension and weight requirements to my customer (although I give it as an option but let them know that it will be extra). I feel that because Etsy takes the percentage after the total of product with shipping cost they really push this! I may be wrong but that is my take. :) My shop is in Canada.
That’s so helpful. Thank you for this video. We shouldn’t let this define us. Personally I think they could have skipped the money it took to create and maintain this star seller thing and used it elsewhere for help us generate sales.
@@StarlaMoore oh I can still see the live chat as a seller. Idk about buyers though but I can still use the live chat. Usually if you choose finance Issue in contact us and then click “I still need help”
I think they must be allowing it in batches because I don't have it any I know many of my students don't either. Which is pretty common for Etsy. They will enable features for small demographics in order to keep things more manageable.
I have mixed feelings with the star…my last 2 purchases were a total disappointment. The shops were unresponsive and difficult to deal with. My advise is to under promise and over deliver (like Starla says 😊). The other shops were very good to work with and one of them didn’t have star ranking yet.
OMG Bubbers was so adorable!!! Great video. Thank you, I was concerned about star seller for a bit here. Now I'm not so worried. Hubby joined me in the low fi beat dance . Love you guys!
I don't use filters, i use keywords. And I always check multiple pages because sometimes great deals on unique items can be found on other pages. Page 1 doesn't mean it's the best. I could care less if someone has star seller rating. I care about the reviews.
Hi Starla 😊 I have made a few sales in last few weeks however my customers are unable to leave a review the minute they receive their delivery. Etsy shows a message saying you can leave a review on a certain which more five days from the date of delivery! Why? The more sales I make the more I will have to follow up with each customer who made a purchase, won’t that get difficult to track after a while. Thank you so much!! Loving your content. It truly is the best on YT ❤
I stopped chasing the Star Seller Badge. I got it then I lost it. I don't care anymore. Also all the manipulation they constantly do to their system is annoying. Etsy should put their energy into cleaning their system and deactivating "shops" who never sold anything or have been dormant for years. The system is too cluttered.
Great insights here, a confirmation to not worry about star seller perception from customers. My guess would be: of that 100,000 shopper data set the filter results would be very similar for those who actually bought something.
as a customer (not a seller) and we all know how ecommerce shoppers are, you get the most interaction with angrey customers vs happy customers unless you offer bonus incentives to leave good reviews. Etsy seemds dead set to have their site interaction mentrics up by pushing all the work and fees to the shop owners (and on us buyers who have no interest on extra homework). Shops shouldn't ask more that 3-5 star rating polls and 1 box for notes.
Thank you so much for this! I have a new store and I sell items for less than $5, so getting to that $300 mark was going to take awhile and it was kinda stressing me out.
Yeah, for lower priced niches like stickers and digital downloads it can be a real pain in the butt. Etsy should have gone by sales numbers rather than a set dollar amount.
Just got my badge for the first time. Took forever because people kept messaging me on the weekends when im driving a lot and i dont see their message until monday. I actually just gave up and stopped caring about it. I dont wanna slave 7 days a week for a stupid badge. We deserve weekends too. I think this badge really adds a lot of stress to sellers. I shop on etsy and NEVER even look for that badge when buying. Reviews is all i care about.
I have been 100% on top of all categories except number of sales. No badges whatsoever. The month before i did finally get the "coveted" purple star (for one whole month), i did have a badge for shipping or communication or something. Now nada.
I make a lot of purchases on Etsy, (from about 3-5 shops per week). I do use the search filter, but just for the (ships from USA only). Other than that I don't bother with the other options. This was quite interesting info.
since they brought in the badge, I maintained it for months on end, then was shocked to see that I lost it because I forgot to reply to a mockup seller who was simply thanking me for leaving her a 5 star review. so now im on like the 3rd week without the badge because I havnt gotten any messages to push the % back up. im still getting daily sales.
Yeah, definitely nothing to stress about... though I know it's super frustrating. Etsy didn't think the whole 24-hour messaging thing through very well.
big problem with your take. if two similar items shows up on a seller's purchase page, a crazy higher percentage just pick one the with a badge to buy from than one that is not. (all else being fairly equal, price, over all ratings) so it's nice that you point out seller don't use filters, but the issue is not whether it is used or not, the badge appears in the SEARCH RESULTS. and all else being equal as I emphasize again, vast majority will just click on the one with badge.
While I can understand your reasoning here, and t is absolutely a possibility, we have no evidence to actually prove that this is the case. And without that data, there is no way to determine if "logical reasoning" is congruent with how shoppers truly behave. Especially when a majority of the top selling shops on Etsy (you can view these over at eRank with the "Top Sellers" report) do not have star seller badges. Until there is data that can be attached to shopper behavior, we can only speculate. And while speculation is okay, it's not scientifically conclusive. I try not to speculate on my channel, as there's enough speculation from other Etsy CZcamsrs. I present facts and data based on what we know. This does not mean that your assessment is incorrect, but it also does not mean that my assessment is problematic either. It simply means that there is a gap in what we know.
oh sure, but reasoning without specific scientific data and able assign a rough outcome based on logic alone, is how we manage to rise to the top of the dominant species. We developed a high reasoning ability and able to more often than not, deduce various conclusions, and we are more often right than wrong is part of the advantage. There is no specific study if two shoes are of exactly same price and condition, one is generic brand, one is nike, over a large set of population, say 1million avg american, more nike shoes with that logo would be picked. It would technically be speculation not backed by real scientific study but your frontal cortex will tell you chances are more likely nike brand would be picked would be higher. A lot of other study on brand value and sales data, while not directly involved in this imaginary scenario, we end up using to fairly confidently arrive at this conclusion. (keep in mind I'm not saying how many more, just that nike would be picked more, you can be a lot more confident about this speculation) A lot of logical speculation would indeed run contrary to real world result, but most will run as predicted. Especially the more obvious and simpler the reasoning becomes. You mentioned a lot Top sellers doesn't have star seller badges. This only serves as a proof that one doesn't need the badge to be a top seller, not what effect of the badge would be. (you did that to stay soundly within the data sure) Say you shop at a brand new marketplace, u see two near identical product but one with badge one without. Over a large set of customers you can deduce which has more buyers. (I'm not confident as to the degree of difference, but I'm a lot more confident which way it leans) The issue is speculation is inevitable as number of event and outcomes far exceeds scientific experiment mapped precisely to such events. This is a good video with a lot of raw data people can use. (i probably wouldn't use the words "big problem" in my original comment, too harsh and not accurate, but as an etsy expert and experienced person you would look the data can say, while starbadge most likely won't hurt (speculatively but I imagine no one is gonna see a drop in sale the moment they get the badge, but to what degree does it help, now it gets foggy), my take from the video is that it is not AS impactful as a lot believe it to be. And it is not worth the degree of emphasize, negative emotion a lot of people seem to place upon it (note this is another speculative observation but most likely correct over large population) One should spend time on other aspect of the shop and not tear their hair out over only getting 90% of reply rate. This brings me to the last little point, as an etsy expert, with some concrete data (and you do have more substaintial data than personal experience data from other etsy youtubers, you can give the data, and spell out some fairly confident obviously speculative conclusion as well. In this case, yes, the follow speculation could be this. (and no experiment is done on at those points) 1) more people put more than unnecessary/unbalanced emphasize and anxiety than they need to on the badge, while backend rankscore takes in a lot more variables, so chill and don't let it get you down. 2) the badge probably doesn't have nearly as much of an effect as you think, it likely won't hurt, but it is not a requirement to succeed, Advantage is not as large as you think. Long term wise, quality of product and conduct / customer relations is key. (yes this is all implied, but the emphasize that it could have a very positive effect should not be completely ignored just cuz there is no specific data) As an etsy expert, with some data from the company, you can give the info, and then give your own speculative take that you are very confident in.(ie. you are very confident badge doesn't hurt, you can be also extremely confident that a lot of people are over valuing its power, and you are 100% confident one can still do well without it) Then as more data comes out, make adjustment as necessary. Anyway, your video already implied a lot of this, but a lot of people does need things to spelled out for them. Because at end of the day, other studies time and time again show people with no prior experience have a bias toward accolades and awards / badges, and why wouldn't they when they got nothing else to go on. speculative, and perfectly simply logical, don't need to put your hand on hot stove to know it's gonna get burned. (remember my initial premise is everything else being equal, including ranking) @@StarlaMoore
When you started talking about pages, it made me wonder if your data is all from people who use a computer. I heard that most people use the app now, so how accurate is that data? Wouldn't the data be skewed by the demographics of the people who still shop using the computer? It doesn't seem like a representative sample of shoppers. Just wondering.
What we provide are estimates based on millions of panelists our data providers have. That includes a good number of mobile users. From our observations the interest levels are very similar across web and mobile, with obvious differences being use of some abbreviations and shorthand, more typos, and a tendency to use auto suggestions now on mobile than web.
Thank you for your video! I'm trying to understand the personalization by user point you made about what shows up on page 1. If it's customized by every buyer, how is it possible for anyone to be on page 1 all of the time? Wouldn't the page 1 results be unique to every customer?
That's exactly it. Everyone will have different results. The role of the eRank rank checker tool is to show your "average position" before personalization. This is helpful for identifying which listings could use tweaking. If your rank is low without personalization, it likely means that it is low across the board and needs work. Listings with a higher average ranking before personalization likely don't need to be tweaked. 🙂
I have a 50% review rate, all 5/5 and I reached the sales minimum… they dock me because no one’s sending me messages so my response time isn’t qualifying… WTF?!
My current issue is out of nowhere my message response rate dropped to 75%. It claims I have 1 out of 4 messages that was not answered on 24 hrs. I have checked every single one of my messages that occurred any time around the sudden drop. There is absolutely no sign of said message. Also the 75% has never changed even after quick responses to other messages after. I have no idea what Is going on
Majority of shoppers don't pay attention to it anyways. They are looking for something specific and different. In addition, most don't know what it means and don't have time to look up why it's there.
i have maintained a perfect start selling score for the past 90 days with everything at 100% but i don't see my badge anywhere what do you think i should do
If Etsy can’t get it together and update shipping on their end from tracking I provided from Pirate Ship, I’ll lose my badge in April. I always ship early and provide tracking. The packages have been delivered and Etsy states I don’t have tracking. UGH
My sales went up after I lost my star seller badge. For the last 15 months my shop had a star seller ranking and I watched my sales slide down. I tried everything to get me out of that hole but nothing worked. At the beginning of this month I lost the badge because I had 0 sales for February, and since I lost it I had 3 sales.
The scenarios are likely unrelated, as Etsy is historically very slow in the months following Christmas. BUT as your momentum picks up, hopefully you can begin generating more traction again. 🙂
You’re right the post Xmas slump is real. The slow sales could be a blessing in disguise considering what just happened with SVB and Etsy delaying payments to their sellers.
300 is a drop in the barrel when it comes to a platform as large as Etsy. That's why we decided to go with percentages, as these big numbers shouldn't be frightening when compared to Etsy as a whole.
Is it really important to know where our shop is ranking? Since each person has a different behavior, my items will never be on the same ranking page for every buyer.
By knowing where you would rank before personalization is applied, you can get a good "average" position, which is helpful when determining which listings have been well optimized and which listings could use further tweaking. If you're already ranking high for a desired keyword for one listing, the rank checker can help you to decide which listings to put a little extra time into.
But you really didnt say if Etsy Treats stores with star seller badges differently in that they give them a higher boost in being found. Seems logical that they would because they want the customer to have a good experience on the platform.
If they did, they would have to disclose this information. You can actually test it for yourself though! Go to Etsy and type in any keyword. If the results you see aren't all "Star Sellers", this is clear indication that Star Sellers are not prioritized in search by Etsy's algorithm.
Hello Mam! I have just opened my shop in US but my dispatching country/ production partner is china, I just wanted to know does etsy search placements work on basis of shop location or on dispatch location. As I want to rank my listing under US based searchers even if they choose the location filter USA, would etsy show my listing? Thankyou!
I have put my blood, sweat, and tears to get my star seller badge. These numbers prove that I shouldn't stress about it. But, I did wonder does Star seller help you rank higher?
It does not, as this is information that Etsy would legally have to disclose. However, the growth of your listing quality scores through repeat sales can help you rank higher, which sellers often misinterpret as a boost from Star Seller. In reality, the two are not connected, though you must meet the minimum sales threshold to receive Star Seller, and sales/good reviews are also what boost your listings in search. So technically "sales" can lead to rank, as well as star seller. But star seller on its own does not lead to a better ranking. I hope this makes sense. 😅💛
@@StarlaMoore Absolutely! So, my store sells one-off items, so repeat sales are not exactly the strength of my store. I am relatively a new viewer and haven't seen everything you have to offer but, a video about tips improving success with one-off items might be interesting. All the best! Love the content!
OOAK items are very VERY difficult to find success with on Etsy for this exact reason. One of the primary metrics that Etsy looks at when ranking listings is the listing's overall listing quality score (we unfortunately cannot see this score as sellers), and listing quality scores are grown through repeat sales of singular items and reviews of those items. As an OOAK seller, you can technically still build an overall shop score (your Customer and Marketplace experience score), but this one takes a lot more time and relies on you to send a lot of your own traffic through external means for a while. I haven't made an OOAK video in a while but everything from this older video is still accurate for 2023: czcams.com/video/iry5mVLUnhA/video.html Don't mind the horrible quality. 😅 I was still recording on a crappy phone at the time.
What would happen if us 5 to 7 million Etsy Sellers all put our Shops on Holiday Mode in protest? Would that send a clear message to the Etsy Elite billionaires?
There are 5 million Etsy sellers. Sure, if all of them went on holiday mode, hypothetically Etsy might take note. But this is a pie in the sky hope. Many sellers make millions of dollars on Etsy and rely on these sales to pay their bills and feed their families. It is very unlikely that enough sellers would be willing to strike that Etsy would take notice. Not to mention, no one is forcing anyone to sell on Etsy. There are tons of other platforms to sell on. At the end of the day, this is their business and they have share holders to appeal to. Please understand that me stating the reality of the situation is not me agreeing with Etsy or justifying their actions. But as someone who has been selling on Etsy and working with sellers for over 10 years, I can confidently say that stressing about the decisions that Etsy makes is not the best use of time and it will drive you absolutely crazy if you allow it to. If you're unhappy with the decisions that Etsy is making, I personally find the best results from tagging them publicly on Twitter or reaching out to them on LinkedIn.
Your SEO website title is a little off-putting. Based on your SEO site title you are trying to give me a "How to do Etsy SEO in 2023" guide when it's almost 2025.
@@StarlaMoore Hey, just letting you know how it hit me. regardless of the fact that if it has or has not been updated past the title, that is what people see.
Loved this video,Starla! How many listing does it normally take to start generating full-time income on Etsy?Going into 2023, I feel being successful on Etsy will be purely a numbers game( quantity + quality) and superior digital marketing skills with the amount of sellers joining every month in practically the same niches and using the same research tools(erank,everbee,sales samurai etc.) so I am curious to know your thoughts on this, thanks.
The idea that "quantity of listings" dictates success is unfortunately a very misguided practice akin to buying as many lottery tickets as possible in order to increase your probability of winning. Yes, buying more lottery tickets can increase your probability - but you're also spending the money on all those tickets while not being very successful. Listing TONS of items on Etsy is much the same. Sure, you're putting more listings into the marketplace, but you're also paying to list them, paying to maintain them, and 99% of the time, sellers who list as many items as possible aren't putting much thought into the actual designs and target customers they are trying to cater to. They are just tossing as many items into the marketplace as possible, hoping something sticks. This isn't a good strategy for long-term success, and it's why you seldom see sellers like this succeed (you can check for yourself by looking at the eRank.com Top Sellers report to see the top performing shops on Etsy). The sellers who succeed on Etsy focus more about quality of their items/designs as well as building a strong and cohesive brand image that connects to their ideal customers on a personal level. There's no way to answer "how many listings does it take to generate a full time income". I've seen shops that make just ONE amazing thing really well and they sell thousands of that single listing. I've seen shops make a living with 10 listings, 20 listings, 100 listings, and so on. It's less about the number of listings and more about what the listings are, how they are being showcased, how you've optimized them, and what you're doing off-platform to promote those items so that you can generate best sellers that continue to bring money into your business. You don't need 1,000 "okay" products. You just need a few awesome ones.
@@StarlaMoore Thank you for such a detailed response, Starla! Going into 2023,Do you think it is better to discuss on a niche store and thereby create a strong social media presence across various marketing channels like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Tiktok composted to creating a general POD store on Etsy? I found many niche POD stores in various niches that are doing well on Etsy and also have a social media profile and Shopify store for diversification purposes but I am yet to find a single general POD store on Etsy that also has a Shopify store and social media channels For it. If you know of any such general POD store, I would really appreciate if you can let me know, I was just curious.Thanks!
The only "general" POD stores I've ever found on Etsy that are successful are those who have established dominance on the planform by being some of the very first POD shops. And I've only seen a handful. General "sell-everything" shops tend to not succeed in any industry and POD is no exception. I'll actually be covering this exact topic tomorrow in a live webinar on Printify's channel, as it's something they want more of their own sellers to understand: czcams.com/video/7330BWAFclo/video.html
@@StarlaMoore Thanks Starla, looking forward to the video! If you can sprinkle some General Store VS Niche Store showdown during that video that would be great! :-D
Starla, I have some ideas which not present on Etsy right now and during brainstorm 15/20 of my friends like my specific idea - usually numbers exact opposite because my ideas too weird and more like sarcastic so people don't understand them, only geeks who pro in that area. How to protect own design/idea? Is it suitable for Etsy and POD business? Should I make something to "protect" or it will be expensive and time consuming? Should I use some specific logo or maybe my shop name, brand, etc? Or better forget about this in POD, stickers, etc?
Unfortunately no amount of effort can fully protect your designs. There are free apps that can remove watermarks in seconds. The main issue with people who steal designs is that 90% of the time, they are based in countries that do not have strict copyright/trademarks laws, which means that pursuing them legally is impossible, as their governments will not assist in the escalation of these cases. China is a great example of this, and it's why many of these knock-off companies are based in China. This is just one of the challenges that sellers have to be aware of when selling online. It sucks and you can absolutely report these sellers to Etsy is they are stealing the designs to sell on Etsy. But when they move to other platforms like their own websites, Alibaba, Shein, ect., there's not much you can do. I've attempted to help 100s of sellers who have had designs stolen and most of the time we are unable to do anything about it because the companies who steal do not care.
@@StarlaMoore yeah, I see that a lot, the same from India. Just massive bot factories who will copy your idea. So actually I shouldn't care about it, or just create own site at least...
4:20 what... really? Something wrong with review or with people. Maybe I tech guy, but for me this 4% is ridiculous. I could believe that only 40% use that filter, but if 4% the humanity in wrong way :) 4:55 also sounds strange to me, I never believe first 1-3 pages, because they always shows only that people who paying for ads and somethin like this (promoted), and I personally opens between 5-10 pages
This is actually not true at all and you can test it for yourself. On Etsy, ads are designated to their own rows and are nor counted toward the listings that rank organically on that page, which also make up the majority of the items on a search page. The idea that the first few pages are only ads is a common misconception. You can go to Etsy right new to see for yourself. Type in a random item then look at the items with the "ad" badge. You'll see that only about 1/4 of the page is occupied by paid placement. 🙂
@@StarlaMoore yeah, I understand that algorithms always different in each platform, but many years ago (usually), and it's predictably that you will see that platform willing you need to see they want, or someone paid to be on first pages - I'm talking about this, that's why I never stops on first few pages. In any case it's interesting to know how actually some algorithms working nowadays on specific area/platform
💜 Pam Duthie explains more about the eRank category data in this video: czcams.com/video/uq_8Aiz8dKY/video.html
✅ Download the 🍜 FREE Etsy SEO'oodles Toolbox and learn how to do Etsy SEO in 2023: bit.ly/EtsyNoodle
I wish they would remove tracked shipping as a requirement for being a star-seller. I'm in Canada and I sell stickers/decals and in order for me to provide tracked shipping, I either have to add a hefty shipping fee to each order or I have to raise my prices to include shipping and then I'm too expensive. Etsy shipping labels are way too expensive for my type of product, so I send them regular mail and never see a star-seller badge. Doesn't seem quite fair.
Totally agree. It's hard to provide tracking for items that flit in a standard envelope. 😭
Hey can I ask you something? By not tracking your items, do you have a lot of customers who said that they never received their items and ask for a refun? Since you can’t know if is true or not, I guess there people who see the opportunity to have free stuff….?
@@Alexandra-ew3ep No, I haven't had any yet. But if it DOES happen, I figure it's cheaper to send a replacement for free than the cost of tracking with Canada Post for such a small item. I haven't had anyone ask for a refund yet. *knocks wood*
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If you put other as the shipping provider and use the words - "STANDARD SHIPPING - NO TRACKING" it was still measuring as tracked for me unless they've changed it :)
I ship with tracking on time meticulously with every single order. Yet every month for the last year; I only get a 95% on the shipping badge... just barely making the star seller badge. I never make a mistake on the tracking numbers... it's a totally flawed system and I don't know why I am always 5% off no matter how careful I am to plug every number in correctly and on time...
Uhg, that's so frustrating. Definitely try to contact Etsy and ask them why. I can't promise that you'll get an answer but I'd be bugging them every day if I were you!
Starla, great video! Etsy has so messed up the Star Seller program & offended many of the best shop owners who for one reason or another don't have the Star! Glad to know others realize this & it is not necessary to have the Star to make sales! Thank you so much!
As a seller with Star Seller status going on month 2 now, I haven't seen any difference in purchase volume. Also as a shopper, I could not care less about Star Seller status and this has never influenced my decision to purchase from a shop or not, at least not consciously. Thanks Starla :)
Same! I'd rather see the seller's actual reviews. 💛
It's definitely affected my shop, and I track my competitors and they been doing really good they have a star badge
Thanks, Starla it's helpful to have this information, again confirming Star Seller isn't that important, and that Personalization and Free shipping are.
You are so welcome!
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Hi! I am learning a lot with your videos so thank you! This gives me some hope because I know I won't be a star seller because I can't justify a tracking cost on small packages that meet the dimension and weight requirements to my customer (although I give it as an option but let them know that it will be extra). I feel that because Etsy takes the percentage after the total of product with shipping cost they really push this! I may be wrong but that is my take. :) My shop is in Canada.
That’s so helpful. Thank you for this video. We shouldn’t let this define us. Personally I think they could have skipped the money it took to create and maintain this star seller thing and used it elsewhere for help us generate sales.
Oh yeah, I totally agree. I'd much rather see them bring back live chat or their support phone number.
@@StarlaMoore oh I can still see the live chat as a seller. Idk about buyers though but I can still use the live chat. Usually if you choose finance Issue in contact us and then click “I still need help”
I think they must be allowing it in batches because I don't have it any I know many of my students don't either. Which is pretty common for Etsy. They will enable features for small demographics in order to keep things more manageable.
@@StarlaMoore ohhh wow I had no idea that’s hmm not very nice lol.
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I have mixed feelings with the star…my last 2 purchases were a total disappointment. The shops were unresponsive and difficult to deal with. My advise is to under promise and over deliver (like Starla says 😊). The other shops were very good to work with and one of them didn’t have star ranking yet.
Yes! Always under promise and over deliver and you'll always keep your customers happy! 💚
Whew! I will definitely stress less about Star Seller! If/when I lose it again, I'll just shrug and move on. Thank you!
Yes, I was definitely surprised about this. The program does have other perks, but it doesn't seem that shoppers care all that much about it. 🙂
Great information! Thanks for doing the legwork Starla!
Always!!! 💛😎
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Thank you for great content! Like and share!
Thanks for the visit! I was just talking about you and your awesome recording set-up a few days ago!
Another thing to not stress about. No need to focus on the badge. yaaaay! Thank you!
Exactly!!
OMG Bubbers was so adorable!!! Great video. Thank you, I was concerned about star seller for a bit here. Now I'm not so worried. Hubby joined me in the low fi beat dance . Love you guys!
You could hear Bubber sneeze SUPER LOUD during the featured shop. 🤣
I don't use filters, i use keywords. And I always check multiple pages because sometimes great deals on unique items can be found on other pages. Page 1 doesn't mean it's the best. I could care less if someone has star seller rating. I care about the reviews.
Same.
A really useful video Starla... informative and measured, as always! Thank you
Thanks so much Christine! 💛
Hi Starla 😊 I have made a few sales in last few weeks however my customers are unable to leave a review the minute they receive their delivery. Etsy shows a message saying you can leave a review on a certain which more five days from the date of delivery! Why? The more sales I make the more I will have to follow up with each customer who made a purchase, won’t that get difficult to track after a while. Thank you so much!! Loving your content. It truly is the best on YT ❤
AMAZING stats that are actually useful! Thanks, Starla!
Love you Kristina!
This was really helpful and encouraging. Thank you!
I'm so glad!
I stopped chasing the Star Seller Badge. I got it then I lost it. I don't care anymore. Also all the manipulation they constantly do to their system is annoying. Etsy should put their energy into cleaning their system and deactivating "shops" who never sold anything or have been dormant for years. The system is too cluttered.
Totally agree.
Great insights here, a confirmation to not worry about star seller perception from customers. My guess would be: of that 100,000 shopper data set the filter results would be very similar for those who actually bought something.
as a customer (not a seller) and we all know how ecommerce shoppers are, you get the most interaction with angrey customers vs happy customers unless you offer bonus incentives to leave good reviews. Etsy seemds dead set to have their site interaction mentrics up by pushing all the work and fees to the shop owners (and on us buyers who have no interest on extra homework). Shops shouldn't ask more that 3-5 star rating polls and 1 box for notes.
Well put, Starla. Thank you.
Thanks so much! 💛
Thank you so much for this! I have a new store and I sell items for less than $5, so getting to that $300 mark was going to take awhile and it was kinda stressing me out.
Yeah, for lower priced niches like stickers and digital downloads it can be a real pain in the butt. Etsy should have gone by sales numbers rather than a set dollar amount.
Just got my badge for the first time. Took forever because people kept messaging me on the weekends when im driving a lot and i dont see their message until monday. I actually just gave up and stopped caring about it. I dont wanna slave 7 days a week for a stupid badge. We deserve weekends too. I think this badge really adds a lot of stress to sellers. I shop on etsy and NEVER even look for that badge when buying. Reviews is all i care about.
Same! I never look at them.
absolutely👍👍
Awesome information, thank you!
Thanks so much! 😍
Thanks for that encouraging info
You are so welcome! I thought it was super interesting and totally not what I expected!
Great information! Thank you!
Thanks so much! 💛
Thank you! I guess I’m of the most typical shopper!
You are so welcome!
Thanks Starla!
You're so welcome! Thanks for watching! 💛
Thank you ❤
You're welcome 😊
hey Starla, Thank you so much info by the way how to we learn estimate sales for individual product on Erank?
Unfortunately this data is not possible anymore, as Etsy has recently changed their API.
@@StarlaMoore is it possible in future?
Not unless Etsy makes changes, unfortunately.
I have been 100% on top of all categories except number of sales. No badges whatsoever.
The month before i did finally get the "coveted" purple star (for one whole month), i did have a badge for shipping or communication or something. Now nada.
I make a lot of purchases on Etsy, (from about 3-5 shops per week). I do use the search filter, but just for the (ships from USA only). Other than that I don't bother with the other options. This was quite interesting info.
Yeah, I was very surprised!
ممكن تنوريني،،،
since they brought in the badge, I maintained it for months on end, then was shocked to see that I lost it because I forgot to reply to a mockup seller who was simply thanking me for leaving her a 5 star review. so now im on like the 3rd week without the badge because I havnt gotten any messages to push the % back up. im still getting daily sales.
Yeah, definitely nothing to stress about... though I know it's super frustrating. Etsy didn't think the whole 24-hour messaging thing through very well.
big problem with your take. if two similar items shows up on a seller's purchase page, a crazy higher percentage just pick one the with a badge to buy from than one that is not. (all else being fairly equal, price, over all ratings) so it's nice that you point out seller don't use filters, but the issue is not whether it is used or not, the badge appears in the SEARCH RESULTS. and all else being equal as I emphasize again, vast majority will just click on the one with badge.
While I can understand your reasoning here, and t is absolutely a possibility, we have no evidence to actually prove that this is the case. And without that data, there is no way to determine if "logical reasoning" is congruent with how shoppers truly behave. Especially when a majority of the top selling shops on Etsy (you can view these over at eRank with the "Top Sellers" report) do not have star seller badges. Until there is data that can be attached to shopper behavior, we can only speculate. And while speculation is okay, it's not scientifically conclusive. I try not to speculate on my channel, as there's enough speculation from other Etsy CZcamsrs. I present facts and data based on what we know. This does not mean that your assessment is incorrect, but it also does not mean that my assessment is problematic either. It simply means that there is a gap in what we know.
oh sure, but reasoning without specific scientific data and able assign a rough outcome based on logic alone, is how we manage to rise to the top of the dominant species. We developed a high reasoning ability and able to more often than not, deduce various conclusions, and we are more often right than wrong is part of the advantage. There is no specific study if two shoes are of exactly same price and condition, one is generic brand, one is nike, over a large set of population, say 1million avg american, more nike shoes with that logo would be picked. It would technically be speculation not backed by real scientific study but your frontal cortex will tell you chances are more likely nike brand would be picked would be higher. A lot of other study on brand value and sales data, while not directly involved in this imaginary scenario, we end up using to fairly confidently arrive at this conclusion. (keep in mind I'm not saying how many more, just that nike would be picked more, you can be a lot more confident about this speculation)
A lot of logical speculation would indeed run contrary to real world result, but most will run as predicted. Especially the more obvious and simpler the reasoning becomes. You mentioned a lot Top sellers doesn't have star seller badges. This only serves as a proof that one doesn't need the badge to be a top seller, not what effect of the badge would be. (you did that to stay soundly within the data sure) Say you shop at a brand new marketplace, u see two near identical product but one with badge one without. Over a large set of customers you can deduce which has more buyers. (I'm not confident as to the degree of difference, but I'm a lot more confident which way it leans) The issue is speculation is inevitable as number of event and outcomes far exceeds scientific experiment mapped precisely to such events. This is a good video with a lot of raw data people can use. (i probably wouldn't use the words "big problem" in my original comment, too harsh and not accurate, but as an etsy expert and experienced person you would look the data can say, while starbadge most likely won't hurt (speculatively but I imagine no one is gonna see a drop in sale the moment they get the badge, but to what degree does it help, now it gets foggy), my take from the video is that it is not AS impactful as a lot believe it to be. And it is not worth the degree of emphasize, negative emotion a lot of people seem to place upon it (note this is another speculative observation but most likely correct over large population) One should spend time on other aspect of the shop and not tear their hair out over only getting 90% of reply rate.
This brings me to the last little point, as an etsy expert, with some concrete data (and you do have more substaintial data than personal experience data from other etsy youtubers, you can give the data, and spell out some fairly confident obviously speculative conclusion as well. In this case, yes, the follow speculation could be this. (and no experiment is done on at those points) 1) more people put more than unnecessary/unbalanced emphasize and anxiety than they need to on the badge, while backend rankscore takes in a lot more variables, so chill and don't let it get you down. 2) the badge probably doesn't have nearly as much of an effect as you think, it likely won't hurt, but it is not a requirement to succeed, Advantage is not as large as you think. Long term wise, quality of product and conduct / customer relations is key. (yes this is all implied, but the emphasize that it could have a very positive effect should not be completely ignored just cuz there is no specific data)
As an etsy expert, with some data from the company, you can give the info, and then give your own speculative take that you are very confident in.(ie. you are very confident badge doesn't hurt, you can be also extremely confident that a lot of people are over valuing its power, and you are 100% confident one can still do well without it) Then as more data comes out, make adjustment as necessary. Anyway, your video already implied a lot of this, but a lot of people does need things to spelled out for them. Because at end of the day, other studies time and time again show people with no prior experience have a bias toward accolades and awards / badges, and why wouldn't they when they got nothing else to go on. speculative, and perfectly simply logical, don't need to put your hand on hot stove to know it's gonna get burned. (remember my initial premise is everything else being equal, including ranking) @@StarlaMoore
Great reassuring video thanks! I've managed to hit star seller a couple of times but the badges just don't show on my shop which is so frustrating!
Oh, yikes! I'd be upset. Have you messaged Etsy to ask why you're not getting your badge?
@@StarlaMoore Yes a couple of times and both times was just told that they can't manually give out badges and there was nothing they could do :/
ممكن تنوريني،،،
My takeaway is to not worry about it. Just keep doing and I'll be fine
ممكن تنوريني،،،
When you started talking about pages, it made me wonder if your data is all from people who use a computer. I heard that most people use the app now, so how accurate is that data? Wouldn't the data be skewed by the demographics of the people who still shop using the computer? It doesn't seem like a representative sample of shoppers. Just wondering.
What we provide are estimates based on millions of panelists our data providers have. That includes a good number of mobile users. From our observations the interest levels are very similar across web and mobile, with obvious differences being use of some abbreviations and shorthand, more typos, and a tendency to use auto suggestions now on mobile than web.
Thank you for your video! I'm trying to understand the personalization by user point you made about what shows up on page 1. If it's customized by every buyer, how is it possible for anyone to be on page 1 all of the time? Wouldn't the page 1 results be unique to every customer?
That's exactly it. Everyone will have different results. The role of the eRank rank checker tool is to show your "average position" before personalization. This is helpful for identifying which listings could use tweaking. If your rank is low without personalization, it likely means that it is low across the board and needs work. Listings with a higher average ranking before personalization likely don't need to be tweaked. 🙂
I have a 50% review rate, all 5/5 and I reached the sales minimum… they dock me because no one’s sending me messages so my response time isn’t qualifying… WTF?!
That's nuts! 😭
My current issue is out of nowhere my message response rate dropped to 75%.
It claims I have 1 out of 4 messages that was not answered on 24 hrs. I have checked every single one of my messages that occurred any time around the sudden drop. There is absolutely no sign of said message. Also the 75% has never changed even after quick responses to other messages after. I have no idea what Is going on
You can try contacting Etsy support, but I'm not sure it will get you anywhere. Good luck!
Majority of shoppers don't pay attention to it anyways. They are looking for something specific and different. In addition, most don't know what it means and don't have time to look up why it's there.
Absolutely. I just didn't want to make any assumptions without having the raw data to prove it and now we finally do! 🔥
Hello, I sell unrelated products in my shop (I have categorized its). Do you think I am doing wrong? Will this negatively affect traffic?
I recommend watching my recent webinar with Printify where I cover this topic. czcams.com/users/live7330BWAFclo?feature=share
i have maintained a perfect start selling score for the past 90 days with everything at 100% but i don't see my badge anywhere what do you think i should do
Unfortunately the only thing you can do is reach out to Etsy and ask them why.
If Etsy can’t get it together and update shipping on their end from tracking I provided from Pirate Ship, I’ll lose my badge in April. I always ship early and provide tracking. The packages have been delivered and Etsy states I don’t have tracking. UGH
I'd definitely email them every day until they respond!
@@StarlaMoore I just got off of chat with them and it’s a site wide issue with them and USPS.
My sales went up after I lost my star seller badge. For the last 15 months my shop had a star seller ranking and I watched my sales slide down. I tried everything to get me out of that hole but nothing worked. At the beginning of this month I lost the badge because I had 0 sales for February, and since I lost it I had 3 sales.
The scenarios are likely unrelated, as Etsy is historically very slow in the months following Christmas. BUT as your momentum picks up, hopefully you can begin generating more traction again. 🙂
ممكن تنوريني،،،
You’re right the post Xmas slump is real. The slow sales could be a blessing in disguise considering what just happened with SVB and Etsy delaying payments to their sellers.
.3% of 100,000 people is 300 people who sort by Star Seller. Just pointing out another way to look at it.
300 is a drop in the barrel when it comes to a platform as large as Etsy. That's why we decided to go with percentages, as these big numbers shouldn't be frightening when compared to Etsy as a whole.
Is it really important to know where our shop is ranking? Since each person has a different behavior, my items will never be on the same ranking page for every buyer.
By knowing where you would rank before personalization is applied, you can get a good "average" position, which is helpful when determining which listings have been well optimized and which listings could use further tweaking. If you're already ranking high for a desired keyword for one listing, the rank checker can help you to decide which listings to put a little extra time into.
@@StarlaMoore OK. I will look at it better. Thank you!
My sales have actually INCREASED since I lost my star seller. I forgot to reply to a purchase I made 🙄
That's crazy!
So, I've been eligible for Star Seller for two months. . . They won't award me with it.
Definitely try reaching out to their support!
But you really didnt say if Etsy Treats stores with star seller badges differently in that they give them a higher boost in being found. Seems logical that they would because they want the customer to have a good experience on the platform.
If they did, they would have to disclose this information. You can actually test it for yourself though! Go to Etsy and type in any keyword. If the results you see aren't all "Star Sellers", this is clear indication that Star Sellers are not prioritized in search by Etsy's algorithm.
Hello Mam!
I have just opened my shop in US but my dispatching country/ production partner is china, I just wanted to know does etsy search placements work on basis of shop location or on dispatch location. As I want to rank my listing under US based searchers even if they choose the location filter USA,
would etsy show my listing?
Thankyou!
You'll rank based on the location you set when you first set up your shop. 🙂
@@StarlaMoore thankyou mam!
I have put my blood, sweat, and tears to get my star seller badge. These numbers prove that I shouldn't stress about it.
But, I did wonder does Star seller help you rank higher?
It does not, as this is information that Etsy would legally have to disclose. However, the growth of your listing quality scores through repeat sales can help you rank higher, which sellers often misinterpret as a boost from Star Seller. In reality, the two are not connected, though you must meet the minimum sales threshold to receive Star Seller, and sales/good reviews are also what boost your listings in search. So technically "sales" can lead to rank, as well as star seller. But star seller on its own does not lead to a better ranking. I hope this makes sense. 😅💛
@@StarlaMoore Absolutely! So, my store sells one-off items, so repeat sales are not exactly the strength of my store. I am relatively a new viewer and haven't seen everything you have to offer but, a video about tips improving success with one-off items might be interesting. All the best! Love the content!
OOAK items are very VERY difficult to find success with on Etsy for this exact reason. One of the primary metrics that Etsy looks at when ranking listings is the listing's overall listing quality score (we unfortunately cannot see this score as sellers), and listing quality scores are grown through repeat sales of singular items and reviews of those items. As an OOAK seller, you can technically still build an overall shop score (your Customer and Marketplace experience score), but this one takes a lot more time and relies on you to send a lot of your own traffic through external means for a while. I haven't made an OOAK video in a while but everything from this older video is still accurate for 2023: czcams.com/video/iry5mVLUnhA/video.html
Don't mind the horrible quality. 😅 I was still recording on a crappy phone at the time.
What would happen if us 5 to 7 million Etsy Sellers all put our Shops on Holiday Mode in protest? Would that send a clear message to the Etsy Elite billionaires?
There are 5 million Etsy sellers. Sure, if all of them went on holiday mode, hypothetically Etsy might take note. But this is a pie in the sky hope. Many sellers make millions of dollars on Etsy and rely on these sales to pay their bills and feed their families. It is very unlikely that enough sellers would be willing to strike that Etsy would take notice. Not to mention, no one is forcing anyone to sell on Etsy. There are tons of other platforms to sell on.
At the end of the day, this is their business and they have share holders to appeal to.
Please understand that me stating the reality of the situation is not me agreeing with Etsy or justifying their actions. But as someone who has been selling on Etsy and working with sellers for over 10 years, I can confidently say that stressing about the decisions that Etsy makes is not the best use of time and it will drive you absolutely crazy if you allow it to. If you're unhappy with the decisions that Etsy is making, I personally find the best results from tagging them publicly on Twitter or reaching out to them on LinkedIn.
@@StarlaMoore Fair enough!
Your SEO website title is a little off-putting. Based on your SEO site title you are trying to give me a "How to do Etsy SEO in 2023" guide when it's almost 2025.
@research-marketing-lw6yu the content on the page has updated. 🙃 Just not the page title because it would break past linked locations.
@@StarlaMoore Hey, just letting you know how it hit me. regardless of the fact that if it has or has not been updated past the title, that is what people see.
Loved this video,Starla! How many listing does it normally take to start generating full-time income on Etsy?Going into 2023, I feel being successful on Etsy will be purely a numbers game( quantity + quality) and superior digital marketing skills with the amount of sellers joining every month in practically the same niches and using the same research tools(erank,everbee,sales samurai etc.) so I am curious to know your thoughts on this, thanks.
The idea that "quantity of listings" dictates success is unfortunately a very misguided practice akin to buying as many lottery tickets as possible in order to increase your probability of winning. Yes, buying more lottery tickets can increase your probability - but you're also spending the money on all those tickets while not being very successful. Listing TONS of items on Etsy is much the same. Sure, you're putting more listings into the marketplace, but you're also paying to list them, paying to maintain them, and 99% of the time, sellers who list as many items as possible aren't putting much thought into the actual designs and target customers they are trying to cater to. They are just tossing as many items into the marketplace as possible, hoping something sticks.
This isn't a good strategy for long-term success, and it's why you seldom see sellers like this succeed (you can check for yourself by looking at the eRank.com Top Sellers report to see the top performing shops on Etsy).
The sellers who succeed on Etsy focus more about quality of their items/designs as well as building a strong and cohesive brand image that connects to their ideal customers on a personal level.
There's no way to answer "how many listings does it take to generate a full time income". I've seen shops that make just ONE amazing thing really well and they sell thousands of that single listing. I've seen shops make a living with 10 listings, 20 listings, 100 listings, and so on.
It's less about the number of listings and more about what the listings are, how they are being showcased, how you've optimized them, and what you're doing off-platform to promote those items so that you can generate best sellers that continue to bring money into your business. You don't need 1,000 "okay" products. You just need a few awesome ones.
@@StarlaMoore Thank you for such a detailed response, Starla! Going into 2023,Do you think it is better to discuss on a niche store and thereby create a strong social media presence across various marketing channels like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Tiktok composted to creating a general POD store on Etsy? I found many niche POD stores in various niches that are doing well on Etsy and also have a social media profile and Shopify store for diversification purposes but I am yet to find a single general POD store on Etsy that also has a Shopify store and social media channels For it. If you know of any such general POD store, I would really appreciate if you can let me know, I was just curious.Thanks!
The only "general" POD stores I've ever found on Etsy that are successful are those who have established dominance on the planform by being some of the very first POD shops. And I've only seen a handful. General "sell-everything" shops tend to not succeed in any industry and POD is no exception. I'll actually be covering this exact topic tomorrow in a live webinar on Printify's channel, as it's something they want more of their own sellers to understand: czcams.com/video/7330BWAFclo/video.html
@@StarlaMoore Thanks Starla, looking forward to the video! If you can sprinkle some General Store VS Niche Store showdown during that video that would be great! :-D
Starla, I have some ideas which not present on Etsy right now and during brainstorm 15/20 of my friends like my specific idea - usually numbers exact opposite because my ideas too weird and more like sarcastic so people don't understand them, only geeks who pro in that area.
How to protect own design/idea? Is it suitable for Etsy and POD business? Should I make something to "protect" or it will be expensive and time consuming? Should I use some specific logo or maybe my shop name, brand, etc? Or better forget about this in POD, stickers, etc?
Unfortunately no amount of effort can fully protect your designs. There are free apps that can remove watermarks in seconds.
The main issue with people who steal designs is that 90% of the time, they are based in countries that do not have strict copyright/trademarks laws, which means that pursuing them legally is impossible, as their governments will not assist in the escalation of these cases. China is a great example of this, and it's why many of these knock-off companies are based in China. This is just one of the challenges that sellers have to be aware of when selling online. It sucks and you can absolutely report these sellers to Etsy is they are stealing the designs to sell on Etsy. But when they move to other platforms like their own websites, Alibaba, Shein, ect., there's not much you can do. I've attempted to help 100s of sellers who have had designs stolen and most of the time we are unable to do anything about it because the companies who steal do not care.
@@StarlaMoore yeah, I see that a lot, the same from India. Just massive bot factories who will copy your idea. So actually I shouldn't care about it, or just create own site at least...
4:20 what... really? Something wrong with review or with people. Maybe I tech guy, but for me this 4% is ridiculous. I could believe that only 40% use that filter, but if 4% the humanity in wrong way :)
4:55 also sounds strange to me, I never believe first 1-3 pages, because they always shows only that people who paying for ads and somethin like this (promoted), and I personally opens between 5-10 pages
This is actually not true at all and you can test it for yourself. On Etsy, ads are designated to their own rows and are nor counted toward the listings that rank organically on that page, which also make up the majority of the items on a search page. The idea that the first few pages are only ads is a common misconception. You can go to Etsy right new to see for yourself. Type in a random item then look at the items with the "ad" badge. You'll see that only about 1/4 of the page is occupied by paid placement. 🙂
@@StarlaMoore yeah, I understand that algorithms always different in each platform, but many years ago (usually), and it's predictably that you will see that platform willing you need to see they want, or someone paid to be on first pages - I'm talking about this, that's why I never stops on first few pages.
In any case it's interesting to know how actually some algorithms working nowadays on specific area/platform