This autumn leading into the holiday season has been a tough one for a lot of Etsy sellers. In September, Etsy made some huge changes to the website and the algorithms with which listings get found. So far it’s been an abject disaster for a lot of sellers.

Just speaking from personal experience, this August and the beginning of September were off to a wonderful start. I was selling more than I ever had before, and was on pace to increase my overall revenue by at least 1/3 if not more. A week or so into September and the bottom fell right out. This is when Etsy pushed through their big changes. I went almost an entire month without a single sale, something that hasn’t happened since I opened my shop. It’s been scaring timing for all of this to happen right before the holiday season. It makes me wonder how bad things are going to get.

I’m already toying with the idea that if things don’t pick up it may not be worth my time and effort anymore. If the new normal is 33% of what I was making off of my shop before (and it wasn’t a large sum, I assure you that) is it worthwhile to keep buying things to stock my shop with? I’m not really sure anymore.

I’m going to have to do some serious soul-searching this winter. I already work 40 hours a week, add my Etsy shop to the mix and it’s more like 60 – 70 hours a week. I love finding great vintage things, but I have no use for a lot of it if I can’t sell it. There’s probably a lot of other things I could be doing with my time that would be equally rewarding.

I’ll just have to wait and see I guess.

Below you can see my numbers dip after the Etsy changes take place:

Pretty frightening really.