3 months on Etsy. Professional photos. Curated listings. 0 sales. My mom bought one out of pity.

🛒 E-commerceby etsyjewels_mia · 6w ago

▸ What I did

I make handmade resin jewelry — earrings, pendants, keychains. Spent 3 months preparing my Etsy shop: professional product photography (hired a photographer friend), detailed descriptions, consistent branding, 25 listings. Each piece takes me 2-3 hours to make and I priced them at $18-35 which I thought was fair for handmade.

▸ What I expected

Etsy is THE marketplace for handmade stuff, right? I figured I'd get at least a few organic sales per week just from Etsy search. My target was 20 sales in the first month.

▸ What actually happened

3 months. 1 sale (my mom). 847 views total across all listings, which sounds okay until you realize that's like 11 views per listing over 3 months. My listings just don't show up when you search "resin jewelry" or "handmade earrings." I scroll through pages and pages of search results and never find myself. Meanwhile sellers with worse photos and higher prices are on page 1.

▸ What I've tried so far

Posted on Instagram (have 340 followers, mostly friends). Shared in 3 Facebook jewelry groups — got compliments but no sales. Tried Etsy Ads with a $5/day budget for 2 weeks — got 200 clicks but 0 conversions. Changed my prices down to $14. Nothing.

Progress Updates (0)

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3 Replies

etsy_veteran · 5w ago✓ the fix

Your problem is 100% Etsy SEO, not your product. Beautiful photos mean nothing if Etsy's algorithm can't find you. Here's what I bet is happening: your titles are something like "Beautiful Handmade Resin Earrings" when they should be "Resin Earrings for Women - Handmade Flower Petal Jewelry - Unique Birthday Gift for Her - Boho Dangle Earrings." Etsy search is keyword-stuffing, not poetry. Use all 13 tags. Use eRank or Marmalead to find what people actually search for. Your #1 job isn't making jewelry right now — it's learning Etsy SEO.

ecom_realist · 5w ago

$5/day Etsy Ads with 200 clicks and 0 conversions tells me your listing isn't converting, not that ads don't work. Check your listing from a buyer's perspective: is the first photo a white-background product shot? Do you have a size reference photo? Are your reviews visible (you have 1 sale so probably not)? Zero reviews is a huge trust barrier on Etsy. Consider selling 5-10 pieces at cost to friends/family just to get reviews up.

buildinpublic_jo · 5w ago

Have you tried TikTok? Seriously. Handmade jewelry process videos do insanely well. Film yourself making a piece in 30 seconds, post it with trending audio. I know a jewelry seller who went from 0 to 200 sales/month purely from TikTok — never spent a dollar on Etsy Ads. The algorithm doesn't care how many followers you have.

Status

✗ stuck

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