When the COVID-19 pandemic started for real in mid-march, many people in my Etsy Facebook groups complained that their Etsy sales are down. Now, 1.5 months later, I share an Etsy sales report on how my digital downloads shop was doing during the crisis so far. I sell exclusively digital downloads and as of May 4th, there are 24 items in my shop. The shop has been open since March 23. 2019.
Let’s have a look at the analytics of my shop in the first 4 months of 2020.
Etsy sales report March 2020
First, check the statistics for March. During the whole month, my shop had 518 visits, 22 orders and a revenue of 73 swiss francs – that’s about 75 US dollars.
You can see that traffic started to decrease from the 10th of March. Also, there is almost a full week when no orders would come in, starting from March 15th. I attribute this to the initial panic and insecurity. People needed to think about other things than shopping on Etsy. During those days, I started to fear that my sales would stop completely until the virus-threat is gone.
Comparison March 2020 to the first two months of 2020
Now let’s compare March to the previous two months of this year.
Traffic slightly increased by about one hundred visits from January to February, being close to 500 visits in February. Traffic pretty much stagnated from February to March and was at just a little over 500 visits in March. While traffic in March was similar to February, sales increased by 5 orders, despite the crisis.
Etsy sales report April 2020
While March was not exceptional for my Etsy shop, in April, monthly orders and revenue more than doubled. I ended April with 51 orders and a revenue of 189 swiss francs which converts to about 195 USD. For the first time, I had days where I would get 4 Etsy orders.
Ignore the orders spike at the end of April, that’s actually a glitch from Etsy. I did not get 6 orders on April 30., some of them happened the next day. There is also a day with 0 visits, which I find hard to believe. I would guess that’s a glitch too, especially as I got orders that day. No orders without visits, I’d say!
Compared: March and April 2020
How does April compare to March? Especially in the second half of April, there are more and quite consistent orders, and traffic increases up to the end of April. There are low-traffic days, sure, but that’s normal in e-commerce.
There are a few factors that I believe might have influenced how my shop was doing during these two months:
- Stimulus check: Many US residents received a stimulus check in April, giving them some extra money to spend
- I added an item to my store in March that finally started selling in April. That listing alone is responsible for 12 orders in April.
- For a few items, I improved SEO end of February, which might have lead to more sales too. In any case, visits and orders for these items significantly increased in April.
- Etsy offsite ads – On March 20, Etsy CEO Josh sent a newsletter, announcing that Etsy would invest $5 million into Offsite Ads to support Etsy sellers. Offsite ads advertise Etsy items on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Bing and other high-traffic sites. Etsy also extended the period where they would waive Offsite Ads charges. Etsy sellers start paying Offsite Ad fees from May 4, 2020, instead of the planned “later in April”.
First 4 months of 2020 overview
Looking at the first four months of 2020, my Etsy shop analytics show a steady upwards curve with a big increase in orders and traffic in April.
Some takeaways
In conclusion, my shop probably saw normal growth with a few extra sales during the pandemic. For certain, it only has been positively influenced by the crisis. Reasons I believe to be responsible for that:
- My Etsy shop sells DIGITAL items. Physical items need to be shipped and it’s very unsure how long they will take to arrive or IF they arrive at all. Digital downloads are available to the customer as soon as payment has been confirmed. Guaranteed and instant delivery, who wouldn’t love that? And you don’t even need to leave your house.
- My items are very low-priced and therefore still affordable even during an economic crisis.
- Products cover people’s crisis needs. Most of the digital downloads I sell provide help with problems that concern people in pandemic times.
- People are bored. Stuck at home, they do a lot of online shopping.
So as long as there is a stable internet connection available, having an Etsy shop selling digital products can be very crisis-proof.
If you don’t sell digital downloads yet, you should start now!
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