Brief Summary
Many sellers on Etsy slow down their growth not because of lack of talent or products, but because of repetitive habits: copying bestsellers, searching for niches only within Etsy, blind SEO copying, betting on holiday items without a foundation, expecting constant growth, and launching advertising without a proven concept.
The essence of this article: a shop grows more steadily when the seller does not repeat what has already “worked for others”, but instead finds their own niche, tests the product without self-deception, and builds a shop based on strong conversion rather than copying others’ solutions.
The essence in one block
Main idea: the most harmful Etsy habits are those that create an illusion of correct action, but in fact, push the seller away from their own niche, own offer, and healthy shop growth.
Who this article is for
- for beginners who want to avoid typical mistakes on Etsy;
- for sellers whose shop is stagnant or growing in bursts;
- for those who often doubt: copy competitors or find their own;
- for sellers who want to understand which habits truly harm earnings in 2025.
Harmful Seller Habits on Etsy: A Short Risk Map
The first harmful habit is copying bestsellers' listings
We often see amazing bestsellers on Etsy, especially on the front pages. Usually, these are shops with a large number of reviews, stars, and a great reputation. Very often, these are shops with low prices. It’s tempting to think: “I can do that too! I can buy it, resell it, personalize it. I can create a listing like that, write a similar painting, copy this listing.”
Why is this not allowed? It’s truly a harmful habit because it’s very difficult to find your own place in the sun when you initially stand out unfavorably from these sellers. You don’t have stars, you don’t have a reputation. The only thing you can do is to lower the price of your product even more, often working at a loss. There’s not much point in this because these bestsellers have often been sitting there as bestsellers for a long time and will soon fade away. Let’s say this was a trend from last year. A shop gains bestseller status after a few months, six months prior to that. So, bestsellers also rise and then fall. There are many other niches on Etsy that are not occupied, which you can easily take over with your skills, knowledge, and opportunities, while no one else is there yet.
Another bad habit — searching for niches only on Etsy
This is what you constantly ask me about. I’ll say: it’s a harmful habit — searching for niches directly on Etsy. I try to avoid this. Whenever you order custom consultations, I make sure to step away from Etsy and look for niches where there are unoccupied spaces, ones that aren’t yet on Etsy, or are represented very little. Let’s say, the competition there is 100, 200, 400 for these narrow keywords. Even if Marmalade shows that demand isn’t very high, we know: if we find these products in stores like Anthropologie, Target, then there is a great team of marketers working there. Rarely do they miss their target. They prepare their products and items for release six months to a year in advance, before they enter mass production in Vietnam or China. Then they become mass consumption.
The third bad habit is copying the SEO competitor
Suppose you see a shop that closely resembles yours, and it is already a bestseller. You don’t have exactly the same products, but you notice that it has cool headlines, descriptions. You can check using ChatGPT, find their tags. And there is a desire to just take this and copy it. I see this very often.
Do not do this. Of course, your product differs in some way. You need to find something of your own. The words used by competitors are not always good. They become bestsellers not always because of the words. Remember: the most important thing for Etsy in promoting a product is conversion. If the product is popular and sells, then, essentially, it doesn’t matter much what words you use. I often see terrible words, generic, incorrect, mistakes, gross SEO errors. And still, products become “popular now,” bestsellers. Why? Because these are selling products, and there are the right photos and articles. Pay attention.
Fourth bad habit — holiday products
I have spoken about this a lot, even wrote an article. Holiday products are those that are specifically for the celebration. Not just Christmas backgrounds or hearts that can be changed and adapted for evergreen products. No, these are specifically holiday items. Keep in mind: if your shop has few sales, fewer than a hundred, I do not recommend focusing on holiday listings. They have a short sales cycle. Usually, people prepare for the holiday 4 weeks in advance. The exception is Christmas, which is prepared for 10–12 weeks ahead. But even Christmas products, even if you promote them heavily, sales will drop in January. And this will hit your SEO. The store will be left without orders, and it will become hard to operate. Why do we see that well-established shops offer holiday products? Because for them, it’s the cherry on top. They have a core audience, where the flow of customers continues all year with evergreen products. And on top of that, they add holiday products to this audience, distributing them throughout the year. You can do this, but initially you need to grow to that level, with several thousand sales.
The fifth bad habit is expecting constant growth
We expect the store to be growing all the time. Here it has started to grow, yes, we saw a few sales. I just constantly see the same thing: what happened, what went wrong, why my store has dropped, why sales have stopped, as people say, “sales have temporarily declined,” yes, they have stopped. No, of course, when this happens, it’s always necessary to look into it and think about your assortment because I see very few niches that are constantly in demand, that have steady demand from year to year. No, of course. It’s… well, I don’t know what has a constant demand: jeans, toilet paper, and other products that are somehow adapted to modern trends, which undoubtedly sell better during certain seasons.
This year, if you sell, for example, some hair accessories in the form of tasty cherries, oranges, pineapples, or similar, it’s not at all certain that next year this niche will generate the same profit, and yes, you will need to adapt it. But what am I talking about all this for? I know I often repeat it in articles. That your growth expectations should also be such that you understand: Etsy is simply built that way, its SEO, its ranking, which constantly provides new spots on the first pages of new stores.
The sixth bad habit is launching advertising without proof of concept
Many specialists advise us of this: as soon as you list a product, you should immediately launch advertising. I don’t know, I somehow feel sorry just for your money. I often see that products promoted through advertising are targeted at too broad an audience, thus attracting many views but few sales. On the contrary — they reduce conversion, especially with a sufficiently good advertising budget. Many stores simply swear and vow that without advertising they can’t go anywhere, never, and won’t reach anywhere.
My recommendation is always this: you must have proof of concept outside of Etsy advertising. Yes, advertising will help you move to the first page. Let’s hope it’s precisely for your target audience, not for some general topics where people may be completely… Maybe you have a great product, but it’s not being purchased simply because you haven’t hit the same target audience where you need to be. This happens very often.
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary at the beginning of listing a product to understand what your target audience thinks about it. And you need to find it on Instagram, in Facebook groups, Pinterest, and social media. Yes, not within your circle of friends and relatives, but exactly where your target audience hangs out. This depends heavily on: what is their age, what they are interested in. They might be younger — then on Instagram or TikTok; older — there, on Facebook. In short, you need to know what these people are interested in.
The seventh harmful habit — blindly using ChatGPT
The next bad habit is when we have our wonderful favorite ChatGPT, which I now use even more than Google when I have some questions. People write descriptions with ChatGPT without even checking what the description is about. They give a task, it spits out something in English like “blah-blah.” And it looks so nice: with dots, checkmarks. You read it, you know, on your own, maybe with perfect English.
So, what does ChatGPT give us? Such a description — it can be too long, boring, uninteresting, or it might not truly give our customer what they need. Very often, I go to a listing and ask: “What’s the size at all?” Nowhere: not in the listing, not in the title. No, I need additional info about the product — about the size, about the quality. Is it with a frame or without? Something in the photo isn’t 100% clear. By the way, you should avoid confusing images. But there are cases: the customer likes the product, but has questions. You need to anticipate these questions and answer them in the description. Basically, this is everything you need your description for.
So, if you input these parameters in ChatGPT: yes, answer the following questions of my buyers in the description. For this question, give such an answer; for that question — such an answer; and so on. And this should be the main focus. Now, write this to me in simple sentences for a child in 3rd–4th grade. That’s how. But understand: these general descriptions, copying other listings again…
The eighth bad habit is filling 10 photos for the sake of quantity
In other words, we have a photo shoot, our task is to fill 10 photos. We’re so used to it. And then we take our camera: click-click, from this side, now a click from this angle, and another one from this angle. And actually, out of these 10 photos, there are only three that convey new information. No additional size, no customer reviews, no how it looks in packaging, no emotions, no application. So, there is no new information or increase in conversion. We simply copy: so, we need 10 photos, and we take these 10 photos.
I remember that earlier on eBay, there was a clear tip: at that time, you could upload only 12 photos. eBay explicitly — there are 12 photos, and whether you stand or fall, whatever they are, fill in all 12 slots. Etsy doesn’t have this. You need 5 photos to make it look effective. That’s it. It’s not true that there’s a difference between listings with 5 photos or 10. Of course, it’s better to fill 10 photos, but not because everyone will react well to it or for any other reason.
Because not only your first photos and the article attract attention, but other photos add even more desire to buy your product. They explained what the product is, showed how it works, showed it in some additional interior.
The ninth bad habit — general keywords
Next are short and general keywords. That is, not with a long tail, not targeted at a narrow audience, but again with the desire to fill, so that all tags are fully filled, with long titles. So that we have, plus categories, attributes that you fill out, plus titles and tags are maximally filled. And since it seems like there aren’t enough words, we start taking some such as home décor, yes, such general and broad words.
Harmful habit. Honestly, I have to tell you, there is no benefit from these keywords. It again lowers the conversion because Etsy begins to show you, perhaps, at the very beginning and in these general niches, and you are not purchased there. And thus, there are views, but no visits to the shop, and the conversion decreases. And you will immediately go back. So, keywords need to be chosen precisely. But overall, check out our channel where we have many articles on SEO, I won’t go too deep into this topic now. But a big mistake is using such general keywords where the competition is around 500 thousand.
The tenth harmful habit — transferring experience from other platforms
The last, tenth harmful habit is assuming: since we already have some sales experience on certain marketplaces, maybe you have sales experience on Poshmark, maybe on Vinted, maybe on eBay, and you are transferring… maybe it’s Facebook Marketplace, or Instagram, well, I don’t know… Overall, some experience in listing products and promoting them in some places. You copy this experience for Etsy. Very harmful. Especially harmful when habits from eBay, OLX, Facebook Marketplace, or Poshmark are transferred to Etsy.
Again: what is Etsy? It’s like an artisan fair compared to a flea market. eBay is a flea market. For handmade now, if you use some specific site dedicated to selling handmade items, then yes, it can correspond to Etsy. What do I mean? It’s about branding your shop. The shop should have a brand, a specific style, certain emotions, some unique models. That is, it’s not just about taking a photo on a hanger and listing it, or hanging it on your fence very often.
For Etsy, this doesn’t work anymore. The same necklace in a minimalist style and creating the right branding for it: with the correct model, appropriate clothing, proper photography, and so on — will sell the product on Etsy. And the same jewelry, shot dull, dimly, without light, on a white background or on a messy table, where, for example, we often see such items on eBay when people sell used goods. That’s not very effective for Etsy anymore. It’s very important for the shop to have its own taste and color, and its own twist. And this is what buyers on Etsy expect. Buyers on Etsy expect this from sellers. So do not copy your listing style from other marketplaces.
In general, I tried to gather here the most common harmful mistakes. I hope this article was useful and interesting for you.
Checklist: Are You Hindering Your Etsy Shop with Your Own Habits
- You don’t literally copy bestsellers, but look for your own advantage.
- You seek ideas outside of Etsy, not just among existing listings.
- Your titles and tags are created for your product, not copied from a competitor.
- You have an evergreen foundation, not just short seasonal products.
- You don’t expect steady growth, but are ready for changes in demand and seasonality.
- Advertising is launched only when there are signs that the product has a chance to sell.
What to do instead of copying competitors
- Highlight, what your product truly differs from the existing listings.
- Select words not “like theirs,” but tailored to your specific variation, style, or function.
- Check whether your photos and presentation better explain the product’s value than text.
- Evaluate not only SEO, but also conversion, demand, and market timeliness of the idea.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why You Should Not Copy Etsy Bestsellers?
Why You Should Not Copy Etsy Bestsellers?
Because the new seller loses to such stores in reputation, number of reviews, trust level, and often — price. As a result, they have to engage in dumping, but this rarely produces a strong effect.
Why is searching for niches only on Etsy a bad strategy?
Why is searching for niches only on Etsy a bad strategy?
Because on Etsy you often see an already established market rather than an early demand signal. Stronger opportunities appear where the trend is already visible in retail or brands, but it is still underrepresented on the platform.
Is SEO Really Not Important for Etsy?
Is SEO Really Not Important for Etsy?
The page clearly emphasizes that for Etsy, the most important metric is conversion. That is, even imperfect words can work if the product is genuinely selling and well-presented.
Why can holiday goods harm a small shop?
Why can holiday goods harm a small shop?
Because they have a short demand cycle. If the store is still weak and does not have evergreen products, after the season sales sharply decline, and this can impact the overall dynamics of the store.
When is it worth launching advertising on Etsy?
When is it worth launching advertising on Etsy?
Once there is a proof of concept without advertising: signs of demand, a clear buyer, good conversion or at least strong product logic. Otherwise, advertising may simply attract the wrong audience and reduce listing effectiveness.
