Do you have a listing that is gathering a bit of dust, and the sales aren’t that great?
Or maybe you have a listing that you have renewed a few times but it’s still not selling, and you know you need to change something so it generates more sales?
And you’re wondering:
Should I tweak the listing and renew it?
OR . . .
Should I delete it and relist it ➜ start fresh?
That is actually a VERY good question, and in today’s article we’re going to talk about the difference between those 2 options and what to consider before deciding if you should renew vs. relist so you can turn those listings around and get them to be found… and bought!
So, ready? Let’s dive in.
First, let’s quickly define relist and renew, just so we’re all on the same page.
There is no “official” definition, but for the purpose of this article, when I say “relisting” I mean creating a new listing and starting fresh, and by “renewing” I mean making tweaks to the current listing and then paying the renewal fee to renew it.
I also want to be up front here that there is no right answer to this question — every scenario is different.
If I was to work with you on your Etsy store, I would ask for data about your specific listing and I would dive a bit deeper into the stats and the details to determine what’s been going on with this listing and with your store in general.
Only then would I start to decide if you should renew or relist that product – and each decision will be different, there is no clear “this way” or “that way.”
BUT with that said, this article will help you think through your specific situation.
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It’s important that you don’t jump the gun and change things too early in the game — you need to have significant data (as in time) before you decide a listing “isn’t selling.”
Some of you may have a listing that hasn’t been selling – maybe three people have seen it over the last two weeks – and you’re thinking “Oh noooooo! My product isn’t selling!” and you start to panic and think you need to change or fix something.
But in this article I’m talking about listings that have been in your store for at least six months – maybe even a year – and nothing’s really been happening on the sales front, they just haven’t been selling at all.
They’ve been gathering dust on your Etsy shelves.
So if you’re a seller on Etsy and you launched a listing two weeks ago and it’s not selling, and you’re wondering “what should I do?” my answer to that is nothing, you do nothing after two weeks.
That’s a very, very small amount of time on Etsy, UNLESS you’re driving traffic to that listing externally OR you’re paying for lots of ads and so you’ve had a good amount of views already.
If you’re just relying on SEO, two weeks is nothing at all — so you will do nothing.
Wait until you have significant data gathered over time before you consider making changes to your listing or relisting your product.
All right, now that we got the basics out of the way, let’s talk about which scenarios are best for renewing your listing, and which ones are best for relisting it.
First I’ll talk about renewing.
Renewing typically is good on Etsy when the listing has had some kind of positive history – so it’s had some engagement, it’s had some clicks and favoriting, and some sales.
That’s one of the more typical situations for when you want to renew, because you want to keep the positive Listing Quality Score attached to that listing.
But, when we’re looking at listings that have not been selling at all then it’s a little different ….
So in this case, before deciding whether to renew or relist, I would ask:
“Has this listing not sold because it never really got any views?
If that’s the case, then I would tweak the things that might help you get more views and renew it. See if those changes help you bring in some views.
What changes? Well… First I would look at your keyword strategy, because if your listing isn’t getting viewed it may be that you haven’t worked the SEO of that listing properly (or at all) and your keywords need work.
I would also make sure that your thumbnail is click-worthy — that first picture is really important. You want it to get clicks, so this means making sure that that first thumbnail looks great and is a step up from the competition when it shows in search results.
You will also want to look at your price vs. the prices of competing products. Now – you know me by now – I am not in any way shape or form suggesting you should get into a pricing competition!
What I’m saying is you want to know what your competitors are charging, then ask yourself if you’re in the same ballpark. If you’re not, then ask if your listing shows shoppers why your product is worth the price you are charging – does it show them what differentiates your product from the competition?
Once you make your adjustments, renew your listing and see what happens with your views and engagement.
Now, on the other hand, if your listing has been in your shop for a long time and you’ve had some views in the past but they never turned to sales, you may want to consider a fresh start.
So typically, maybe you’ve had some views initially but then they didn’t convert into any favorites, any sales, anything at all, and you’ve kind of had that listing sitting there for a long time now with no movement. There’s been no engagement or sales from the views it gathered when it had some, so it’s very likely that your Etsy Listing Quality Score is now low…
… And so Etsy is not really interested in sending you more views because they only make money when you make money, and your listing just isn’t converting.
So if that’s the case, I would actually say there’s really nothing to lose here in relisting and starting fresh. You never made sales from that listing. You’re not getting traffic from it anymore so creating a new listing is something to consider.
Obviously, when you do – rework all the components so you relist it with a bang, from your keyword selection (what worked when you had views that didn’t convert for example? Any new keywords you can try as well?) photos, descriptions, the whole shebang.
Now – we talked about listings that never sold today and what to do with them. But what about those listings that actually used to sell but then just STOPPED?
That’s a similar, but different, issue … and I have an article that tells you exactly what you can do if your Etsy listing stops selling that you will want to read next.
Until next time, aurevoir!
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