When to Pivot: My Honest Journey Running an Etsy Shop
Join me on my journey from launching an Etsy shop to facing low sales, and ultimately considering to pivot toward printed photography, storytelling, and exploring local opportunities in my future new town in Andalusia.
A year ago, I participated in a six-month group coaching program called Launch with Mel Robbins. It was a brilliant program that sadly she no longer offers.
During those six months, I learned an incredible amount, and as a result, I opened an Etsy shop selling my photography. It was a steep learning curve. I decided to start with digital downloads which was a completely new world for me.
It took me three months of preparation. I had to learn about aspect ratios, zip files, mockups, listing videos, and more. And in November last year, I finally opened my shop with its first listing. I had even created a schedule to list one picture per day for the first 100 days.
By March, I had listed quite a few images and had made 9 sales. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad, but my hopes were still very high. I figured that with enough listings, things would pick up. Once I hit 125 listings and was still sitting on 9 sales, I booked a consultancy session with an “Etsy expert.” That session happened in May and it was a turning point.
A Shocking Consultation: Misunderstood and Misjudged
The conversation left me in complete shock. I already knew that Etsy was a saturated market, especially for digital downloads, and that breaking through wouldn’t be easy.
The expert began with some basic stats:
- 75% of Etsy buyers are American
- Most are women
- Their age range is 25 to 45
Immediately, I knew this wasn’t my ideal audience.
Then came the part that completely threw me. He asked me to describe my listing process, using an example: “I want to buy a photo of a door in Paris.”
I replied: “That’s possible, provided I have a picture of a door in Paris” and I began walking him through my process.
He stared at me and exclaimed: “OMG — I thought that you had created all your pictures with AI!”
I was floored. All my photos are my own work: all of them taken and edited by me. If he had spent even a few minutes looking through my shop, he would have seen that each listing is marked as not AI-generated. My “About” page clearly states that I take and edit all the images myself.
This expert, who was meant to assess whether we could work together, didn’t even prepare properly. And then he had the nerve to say: “Well, everyone can create images with AI, so there’s nothing special about your listings.”
At that point, I lost trust in him and the word ‘pivot’ came to mind.
Discouragement, Low Visibility, and Tough Choices
The purpose of his free session was to determine if he could help me grow my shop, for a substantial fee, of course. Although he was two minded, he said it could work, but it would take time, a lot of effort, and a substantial investment.
I opted out. Life was about to get hectic with a move from France to Spain, and Etsy wouldn’t be high on my list of priorities for the next few months.
Still, I can’t pretend I wasn’t disillusioned. For starters, I lost a lot of motivation to continue listing new pictures. Then I updated many listings to emphasize that they were authentic photos, not AI-generated images. I had ticked all the boxes to optimize my listings: titles, tags, descriptions, SEO — but despite all that, my visibility was practically zero.
Etsy is a saturated marketplace, and the algorithm seems to favour sellers who already make Etsy money. Without consistent sales, my shop likely won’t surface in searches no matter how good my work is.
What Now? Pivot, Pause, or Push Through?
I still believe my pictures are worth selling. But maybe Etsy isn’t the right platform. Maybe I shouldn’t offer them as digital downloads at all. Perhaps I should present them as finished physical products — framed prints, canvases, or greeting cards.
So now I am wondering: When do you quit? Or pivot in a different direction?
Right now, I feel a little lost. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe this pause is where the next step begins.
Stay tuned
Marijke
