Why Your Products are not being seen

Josh Silver man was brought in to make Etsy profitable. His tenure has seen an increase in site wide events. And as a CEO he seems to favor the basement pricing idea over the quality and artistry of Etsy.

Since Josh has come on board, many long time sellers, have seen a dramatic decrease in sales. This drop has been attributed to seasonal changes, political changes, trend changes, SEO changes, more competition, ect.

But many are beginning to understand the problem is deeper. It really boils down to the AI algorithm the makes up Etsy's search engine.

Over the years, I worked diligently to create listings that were in the top of Etsy's SEO. I consistently had listings on the first page. Occasionally one or two would drop, only to be replaced with other listings I have. However I consistently got sales. 

Then sometime in 2017, my sales dropped.  Like many other seasoned Etsy sellers, I am currently trying to understand how, seemingly overnight, the sales disappeared. In an attempt to get listings back up in the search, I have created new listings to perform A/B tests. So my original SEO , that got me top placements, are still in play with Etsy's search. 

Today I have found the answer. It really is the broken AI system. Take a look. 

Here are the visits from Etsy's search from 2016-today. 

This graph is also from Etsy search. You can see the dramatic drop began around September of 2017 after Josh joined Etsy. This drop also follows the dramatic staff cuts at Etsy in June of 2017 which removed 15% of its workforce.   At the time Black-and-White Capital LP told Etsy that they needed to fix search functionality in order to drive new sales and win repeat buys. As you can see below, Etsy has not fixed search. In fact, it seems to be even more broken than it was in 2016.

Right now Etsy is banking on Seller Services in its portfolio. The problem with that is, what sellers wants to repeatedly waste money if the search results in drops like above? In order to be sustainable, Etsy MUST do what Black-and-White Capital LP suggested. They must fix the search engine to make it functional.