Etsy Madness - Why Relisting Items Isn't Worth the Time and Money Now

If you checked your Etsy shop today, you may have seen a notice about changes to Etsy's default search settings.  When people do a search on Etsy, it will automatically search by relevancy rather than recency now.  When Etsy did some customer research, they found that people were more likely to click on items brought up in a search of relevant items rather than those that were listed most recently.

It makes perfect sense to me.  Their old default of showing the newest listings seemed weird. I guess it made sense when there were fewer sellers and products and people might just want to see the latest stuff.  If you decide to click on specific categories to find items you want, it will still default to the most recent listings.

This is an exciting new change for Etsy sellers. For those who have been on Etsy for awhile, it will require some changes in thinking.  Relisting items repeatedly to move up higher in searches isn't necessary now.  That part will save me some money! 

Some of the other changes to how Etsy searches work give us all a chance to shine.  One of the changes Etsy mentioned was breaking up how items from the same shop show up so one seller won't dominate the search results.  I tried testing this tonight by searching "tatted necklace" since I had just added a new one to my shop.  Unfortunately, one shop had probably 8 out of the first 10 listings for tatted necklaces even though there are hundreds on Etsy from quite a few different sellers.  I guess Etsy has some fine tuning that still needs to be done.

The change I like in the searches is that when you do a search and it shows you the most relevant results, Etsy includes a bar across the top with four of the most recent listings for those keywords.  As a seller, I'm happy that customers are being given better searches to work with.  If the customer can find what they want quickly and easily, they are more likely to buy instead of going away frustrated.


Make sure you pay attention to these changes:

• No more relisting
• Most important keywords first in item titles
• Use all tags and options for product listings