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Mostly UK buyers for us.
24 UK, 9 USA, 1 Canada, 1 New Zealand and 1 Ireland.
We have seen the proportion of US buyers decline since our Royal Mail postage prices were significantly increased in April.
Etsy have also invested in advertising here in the UK. A lot more people have heard of it now. I also think that buyers have disposable income and a taste for vintage have been unable to spend elsewhere, with antique shops and centres closed for much of the last 8 months.
I’m a part-time UK Etsy seller, I’ve converted my numbers from GBP to USD.
Week 22-28 Nov 2020
Total items in Etsy store: 1658
Total sold: 36
Total sales: $1,646
Average selling price: $45
Highest price sold: $266 antique mirror
Another very good week for us. November is always our best month. But I’m surprised so much stuff is selling. It’s hard to keep up with the packing.
I’m really enjoying hearing about your new coffee business adventure. Such fun!
We’re still trying to sell our other business (community magazine). There’s been quite a lot of interest, but no-one willing to pay what I think it’s worth.
I’m a part-time UK Etsy seller, I’ve converted my numbers from GBP to USD.
Total items in store: 1633
Total sold: 19 (9 UK, 6 USA, 2 Europe, 2 Australia)
Total sales: $649
Average selling price: $45
Money spent on new inventory: $34Good week for August! We are trying to grow our Etsy shop. We sell general vintage homewares, mirrors and books.
Higher price sales is difficult. We have increased out average selling price, but it’s hard to not buy something for £1 if you know you can sell it for £10-£15 ($13-$20). We have to force ourselves to walk away from those things. We do still go for them if they are easy/quick to list/store etc.
We’ve also put our other business (community magazine) up for sale. If it sells, we’ll be full time on Etsy.
That’s interesting to hear your experience of selling on Etsy Mike.
We are in the UK and sell almost excusively on Etsy (1375 items at the moment). About 40% of our sales are to the USA. Like you, I would say that we are able to achieve a higher price for our items on Etsy.
We don’t do ‘fancy packaging’, other than a first layer of white tissue paper on small items, and use lots of recycled cardboard boxes.
The fees are definitely a bit lower than Ebay, but the main thing for us is the higher prices customers are willing to pay.
We do ‘free’ shipping within the UK for most things, and have been experimenting with offering our mirrors (large, heavy and breakable!) at a price which includes the considerable cost of shipping to the US. Sales seem unaffected.
We have a high enough profits (over $10,000) to be in the Off-site Advertising programme which you can’t opt out of. It’s not a problem – you only pay the fee (12%) when you make a sale. Like you say, it’s a cost of doing business.
Mike – when you say you sell for higher prices on Etsy, do you list at higher prices than on Ebay? or is it about not having a best offer/discount function, and selling for full price?
I’ve often wondered about cross listing our whole store on Ebay. I suspect our sales would be very similar, but we might sell more in the UK and fewer items to the US. Etsy remains quite small in the UK.
My hand might be forced on 1 July. Royal Mail in the UK are putting up shipping prices to the US by a significant amount – to reflect the ‘last mile delivery costs’. It will mean around 50-60% increase. It will be more expensive for us to ship to the US than to Australia!
I’m pretty sure this will effect our sales.
I hear you on diversification. We also have property we let out and a magazine which has been running for 12 years. I’m working on another couple of Etsy businesses – Houseplants (an obsession and luckily fashionable!), and printables/downloadables (passive income once you’ve set up your products). I better get cracking on getting these businesses off the ground!I’m an Etsy seller in the UK.
I’m optimistic about this Etsy news!
We are over the threshold, so won’t be able to opt out.
It’s a 12% fee on sales made as a result of off-site advertising.
I’m hoping it results in additional sales to the ones we currently get.
Why wouldn’t I be happy to pay Etsy to increase my sales? It’s no extra work for me.
We will see…
I guess if we just end up paying more fees without seeing an increase in the number of items sold, I can always start selling on Ebay…Thanks for correcting Jay!
I think you’re right. There must be a high number of people with very mild symptoms who don’t report. I guess the risk is that they don’t self isolate and spread the virus.
I’m not sure there’s any stopping a global spread now. Only a slowing down to give health systems chance to prepare for those who will need help. The elderly, and those with pre-existing problems being the most vulnerable.
Fear and panic is understandable and (almost) inevitable. It’s interesting to watch how different governments are reacting across the globe!
I’m going to get back to listing…Just listening to the podcast and wanted to share the World Health Organisation figures.
Based on data from 44,000 patients with this (Covid-19) coronavirus (so far as of 1st March 2020), the WHO says:
81% develop mild symptoms
14% develop severe symptoms
5% become critically ill
Between 1% and 2% die from the disease. NOT 10%!!I think the 10 x worse than the flu figure refers to seasonal flu having a 0.1% death rate.
I hope it can be contained, but I fear that misinformation and panic will cause mayhem.
Jay – might be worth correcting it in the podcast?Lesley
Posting my monthly numbers for September. I’m a part-time UK Etsy seller, I’ve converted my numbers from GBP to USD.
SEPTEMBER 2019
Total items in store: 1275
Total sold: 49 (29 UK, 10 USA, 6 Europe, 4 rest of world)
Total sales: $1,795 (excludes shipping)
Average selling price: $36
Money spent on new inventory: $243
New items listed: 75
A good month for us. I’ve ignored the Etsy free shipping nonsense, and carried on charging for postage and packaging. I don’t think our sales have suffered. Our highest priced order in September was 3 mirrors ($360) – with the American buyer paying $122 to have them shipped.
I’ve got a big backlog of unlisted stuff to get through. There’s a way to go of slow and sporadic growth till we reach a ‘steady state’.
I’ve also been wondering what my numbers would look like if all my stock was listed on Ebay rather than Etsy.Feeling a bit fed up this morning about this!
We only sell on Etsy. Not a huge store (1293 items right now), but provides a good portion of our overall income.
We are UK based and 30-40% of our sales are to the USA.
I totally get why Etsy are doing this, and it’s good that they are open about it.
But, what should we do?
My partner is suggesting we offer ‘free shipping’ to our UK customers and use the Etsy tools to increase our prices to cover the costs. Then only offer those listings to UK customers (easy to do in Etsy).
Then, duplicate all the listings (again pretty easy to do) add in the USA shipping cost, then offer those items ‘free shipping’.
I wonder if this will work?
We’d be instantly doubling the size of our store!!
It would be a pain to set up and administer. We’d have to remember to delete the UK listing if something sold abroad, and vice versa.
PLUS, what about the rest of the world??
GRRR!
I’ll cheer up later.
Lesley
DigVintageStuffThe first pair look like bone handles to me. The black flecking is the giveaway.
I think Antique Frog is right, the ferrules (the collar) are often sterling silver, even if the blades are not. Could we see a close up of the hallmarks? If it’s a sideways facing lion (lion passant) it’s English sterling silver (925). MB will be the maker. There should be a date mark too.
Nice and decorative, date to early twentieth century. I’d price at around $30 on Etsy.Yes, I’m just avoiding opening the drawer of doom that contains the receipts!
In the UK our tax returns for April 2017 to April 2018 are due on 31st Jan, so I’ll be getting on with it in the next week or so.
And I’m an ex accountant, so I should be doing it as I go along, but I’m not that organised or efficient!Those are impressive numbers Troy and Simplicio!
Here are our numbers for 2018 all via ETSY
UK seller (converted to US dollars)Sales: $15,918 (Excludes postage)
Number of items sold: 505Listings on Jan 1 2018: 400
Listings on Dec 31 2018: 1086
New listings in 2018: 1191COG: $2,640
(we produce our accounts on a cash basis, so this figure is $ spent on new inventory in 2018)Labour: We don’t track this at all! Very part time.
Expenses: $2,686 (Etsy Fees)
$538 (Travel)
Plus a guesstimate of $1,500 on other stuff
(a shed, shelving, packaging, lighting, cleaning materials)So, we are probably looking at a pre-tax profit of around $8,554 (54%)
Pleased with the totals and profit overall, although we are improving our ASP every month and want to continue with that process.
Happy New Year Scavengers!
Lesley at DigVintageStuffWeekly numbers 25 November – 1 December. I’ve converted from GBP to USD.
ETSY
Total items in store: 1091
Total sales $1,181
Total sold: 27 (15 UK, 8 USA, 3 Europe, 1 New Zealand)
Highest price sold: $241 Italic script typewriter (cost $13)
Average selling price: $43
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $50
New items listed: 28Another good week for us. Sales included two typewriters and another Art Deco mirror.
We also hit 1,000 sales in our Etsy store – a long time coming!Jealous of your peanut dispenser. We don’t even have a dedicated packing area set up – we end up making a mess of the kitchen most days with random packing materials. I’m always picking bits of sticky tape off our kitchen table. Hopefully we’ll be able to set something up in the new year.
Not much listing or buying going on for us at the moment. We have our Jan/Feb magazines to put together, which take a week or so of our time once every two months. After ten years, we have lost enthusiasm and would love to sell that business. Finding a buyer and settling on a price are also on the list for the new year…
Weekly numbers 18-24 November. I’ve converted from GBP to USD.
ETSY
Total items in store: 1090
Total sales $784
Total sold: 15 (10 UK, 2 USA, 3 Europe)
Highest price sold: $216 Art Deco Mirror (cost $6)
Average selling price: $52
Cost of items sold: $53
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $0
New items listed: 28A good week for us, with our average selling price pushed up again with sales of a mirror and a typewriter.
We downloaded all of our listings from Etsy (prompted by the ‘Numbers don’t lie’ thread) and were disappointed that 753 of our 1090 items are in the less than $25 range. We really need to focus on improving the averages!
Interesting podcast! I really love thinking and talking about business. My partner and I run a local magazine, which makes money by selling advertising space to local businesses, so we get to talk to a lot of the owners. Walk-in shop front businesses are facing a real and growing challenge – burnout and boredom can be equally devastating. Over the last ten years we’ve published lots of content in our magazines encouraging readers to spend their money with local independent businesses. There’s an awful lot of affection for the high street expressed, but in reality people choose to spend their money online and in out of town shopping centres.
I’m sure you’ll come up with a good business plan. Your business skills and expertise are transferable. Do the numbers, talk to your neighbours/the community/other business owners running the same kind of business (market research) and think long and hard about the reality of how much time and energy you are willing to put in.Hi dlvintage! So funny about Etsy advice – baby birds!!
I’m a UK based part-time Etsy seller and ignore the advice too. Good clear photos (no props!) and safe (mostly recycled) packaging is how we roll.
We occasionally have some one make an offer on Etsy, and have sometimes accepted, but as a rule we just wait for someone to pay the ‘Etsy price’.
There may be fewer buyers on Etsy, but they have deeper pockets!
Lesley at DigVintageStuff
