Day 31: One Month of Trying to Make a Full-Time Living on Etsy

It’s been a full month of trying to revitalize my etsy shop. So far I’ve:

* listed 13 new collage sheets
* sent out a newsletter
* created several new types of first images (showing images as pendants, longer, more pin-able images, etc.)
* added new tags and titles on 20+ and made over 5-10 new first images

On average, I’ve been spending 1-3 hours per day on etsy. Not much compared to the 10+ hours per day I used to spend, but a decent enough chunk of my time currently that it should be bringing in results.

I’ve also been tracking my views, sales, and search relevancy, along with that of 20 or so of my top competitors. Here’s the stats so far:

December 2015
Total sales: $261.08
Views: 6917

December 2014
(with no new listings, tagging or time spent)
Total sales: $377.08
Views: 9440

Tracking Similar Etsy Shops
In looking at the top 20+ similar etsy shops over the past month, their average net after paypal and etsy fees is $429.61, with numbers ranging from $123.19 to $1728.22 (only one shop is over $1000).

While I won’t say it’s impossible to make a full-time living on etsy with digital collage sheets these days, I’m coming to the conclusion that the amount of time I’d need to put into my shop to even break $1000 would end up paying me about half of minimum wage.