Etsy is growing, but sellers' sales are falling. Breaking down 27 tips from YouTube

In its latest reports, Etsy is showing growth again. Yet in seller groups, people very often write that their sales have dropped. I see it myself. I recently went through a video by an English-speaking seller with "27 lessons" on Etsy and decided to look at where he's right and what advice like this is missing.

A lot of the video makes sense

Everyone's first listings are bad. Don't give up on a niche after two weeks. The first photo decides whether people click on a product or not. Look separately at whether you're not being found, or being found but not bought: these are different problems, and they have different fixes. For a beginner, this is useful.

But some things in videos like this bother me.

$400,000 is revenue, not earnings

The author opens by saying his listings have generated over $400,000. He calls it revenue himself, but to the ear it sounds like earnings. How much went to the print service, how much fees and ads ate up, and how much he kept, he doesn't say. And at the end of the video he invites you to join his community with training.

To give you an idea of what Etsy takes from a UK seller (rates from Etsy's official pages, October 2026): 6.5% transaction fee, 4% + 20p payment processing, about 15p per listing, 0.48% regulatory operating fee. On a £20 order, that's roughly £2.55, about 13%. If the buyer came through Etsy's external advertising (Offsite Ads), add another 15%. Once a shop has made $10,000 in sales within 365 days, the rate is 12%, but you can no longer opt out of these ads, even if sales drop later. Then the same order loses about 28% (about 25% at the 12% rate). This is a worked example, excluding postage, VAT on fees and the cost of the product itself.

In my view, when someone quotes revenue, it's fair to ask straight away: how much was left?

What I wouldn't copy

The author advises pricing slightly above cost and raising the price straight after the first sale. If Etsy's fees aren't built into that cost, they alone, 13-28% by the calculation above, can easily turn the sale into a loss. He also advises running a 25% sale on the whole shop all year round, starting a new sale as soon as the old one ends.

I've tried shop-wide sales and low launch prices, and this year I cut prices across my whole range on Etsy. Sometimes there are slightly more sales, but it's not as if they double. I think it's pointless, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

For UK sellers there's a legal side too. Since April 2025, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) can fine businesses directly under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act): up to £300,000 or 10% of global turnover, whichever is higher. Falsely claiming that an offer is only available for a limited time is banned. CMA guidance covers a case where the "was" price hardly ever applied and the "discount" ran all the time. A sale that immediately replaces another one is a risk area. All the more so because, according to a 2024 check by the US consumer organisation PIRG, Etsy itself showed buyers a countdown in the last 24 hours of a sale, and when sales ran back to back, the price usually didn't change after the clock hit zero. This isn't legal advice, but I would think twice before using that approach.

And about SEO. The author says SEO matters, but less than you might think: the basics are enough, and Etsy now looks more at images. Etsy's own guide to search puts the emphasis elsewhere: when matching listings to a search, it takes into account the title, tags, attributes and description, as well as the first photo and reviews. Etsy recommends filling in all 13 tags. In my view, the basics aren't enough: text and photos work together.

What the video leaves out: the market

The author leaves out the most important thing. Right now, people in seller groups very often complain about a general slowdown. I follow strong shops through an analytics tool: by its estimates, shops that used to make 100-150 sales a day now make 10-20. These are the tool's estimates, not Etsy figures. Tools like this disagree with each other and none of them are 100% accurate - even the author of the video admits that. And these are only the shops I follow: you can't judge the whole marketplace by them. From what I see, it's similar on eBay, and at its worst since September last year.

So how does that fit with the growth in the reports? I asked AI to go through Etsy's and eBay's official reports. The figures were checked against the original sources, and the links are below the article. Here's what they show:

• Gross merchandise sales on the Etsy marketplace grew 7.5% in Q2 2026 (excluding Reverb, which has been sold; for the company as a whole, excluding the sold Depop, +1%). This is counted in dollars; at constant currency, growth is 7.2%.
• The number of active buyers didn't grow: about 87 million, 0.4% fewer than a year ago. In 2025, 10% fewer new buyers arrived; in 2026 the inflow is growing again.
• According to Etsy's Q2 letter to shareholders, growth comes mainly from higher-value orders: listing prices went up. At the same time, people buy slightly less often than a year ago. Etsy doesn't disclose how many orders there are.
• There are more sellers again: 5.7 million, 5.9% more than a year ago.
• Etsy is taking a bigger and bigger share: its revenue from advertising on Etsy itself is growing. In 2025 this was mainly because clicks got more expensive; in 2026 there were also more clicks.
• On 29 August 2025, the US suspended duty-free entry for low-value parcels. Buyers in the US account for about three quarters of Etsy's sales, and Etsy itself says this affected orders. For anyone shipping from the UK to the US, this is exactly "autumn last year".

eBay is growing overall too, but around four fifths of the growth came from the US (+24%), with just +6% outside the US, and that's in dollars. Growth is mainly in eBay's focus categories: collectibles and trading cards, car parts, luxury.

So a growing marketplace doesn't guarantee a growing shop. There are about as many buyers as before, more sellers, and Etsy's ad revenue is growing. But these figures don't show how individual sellers' sales have changed: Etsy doesn't publish that data.

Who's right: the market or the seller?

One of the lessons in the video says: "Etsy is completely fair. If we're not ranking, it's our own fault." At first I thought it was only the market. When I went through my own numbers, I saw that part of the drop was down to me: some listings that used to sell had expired, and I had fewer products that actually sell.

I think both are right. The market is putting pressure on sellers. But a lot also depends on your range, on how old the shop is, how long the seller has been trading and what their prices are. Some shops have been trading for 12-14 years. Their processes are well established, so they can offer a lower price. For example, we use sublimation, while someone else prints with a UV printer, and I think that's cheaper and faster for them. So their price is lower because of how they make the product, not because of discounts.

What to do if your sales are falling

1. Work out what's left from your average order after all fees and ads. Not revenue, but what's left.
2. Separate the two cases: you're not being found (few views) or not being bought (views, but no orders). Your shop stats show this straight away.
3. Check whether listings that used to sell have expired, and how many of your products actually sell.
4. Compare yourself with strong competitors not on how pretty the photos are, but on price and on how they make the product.
5. Don't run a never-ending sale: in the UK, it's also a risk.
6. Don't keep your whole business on one marketplace. More on that in the next article.

If you're just starting out: of the 27 tips, take three - a good first photo, not giving up on a niche after two weeks, and telling "not found" apart from "not bought".

If you're already selling: check your discounts and expired listings, and work out what's left from each order.

Maybe I'm wrong, and it's different for you. If you'd like to share, write and tell me what you're seeing (contact). I'll cover the most common stories in future articles.

Sources

• Etsy Fees & Payments Policy
• Etsy Seller Handbook: how Etsy search works
• CMA207: Unfair commercial practices (18 November 2025)
• CMA open letter on urgency and price reduction claims (29 March 2023)
• Etsy Q2 2026 letter to shareholders
• Etsy Q2 2026 10-Q
• Etsy 2025 annual report (10-K)
• eBay Q2 2026 results
• PIRG: Etsy countdown timers (2024)

Figures checked against primary sources in October 2026. Fee calculations are a worked example, excluding delivery, VAT on fees and product costs.

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