Latest posts

  • ‘My Etsy Shop Is Dead’: Sellers on Surviving the Tariff Shock

    National coverage from NPR caught up this week with a story we’ve been tracking on this site since early summer: the real, and in some cases severe, financial impact the end of the de minimis exemption is having on Etsy sellers who depend on imported materials. The scale of the impact, in sellers’ own words…

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  • Week in Review — September 7, 2025

    First full week of September, and the shift toward fall and Q4 planning is now the dominant theme in seller conversations. Fall transition in full swing Following our pieces this week on homepage refreshes and fall keyword patterns, several sellers reported already seeing early traction on newly published fall and Halloween-adjacent listings, consistent with the…

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  • Seller Mailbag: How Do I Price for International Buyers After the Tariff Changes?

    “With the de minimis exemption gone, I’m not sure how to handle pricing for my international buyers anymore. Do I raise prices, add a surcharge, or just eat the cost? What are other sellers actually doing?” Given how much this has come up since the exemption officially ended last week, worth a dedicated, practical answer.…

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  • Week in Review — August 31, 2025

    Closing out August with the tariff story now fully confirmed rather than developing, plus a clean wrap on back-to-school. The tariff exemption ending: reactions this week Following our deeper look Saturday at the end of the de minimis exemption, seller reaction this week has been resigned more than shocked, given how much runway sellers have…

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  • The Tariff Exemption Is Gone — Here’s What It Costs Your Shop

    We’ve tracked rising sourcing anxiety all summer. As of this week, the underlying policy shift driving it is fully in effect, and it’s worth laying out plainly what actually changed and what it means going forward. What happened The “de minimis” exemption, which allowed shipments valued at $800 or less to enter the United States…

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  • Scam Alert: What’s Targeting Etsy Sellers This Week

    This week’s pattern: fake “supplier” outreach aimed at sellers sourcing materials, timed to land right as tariff-related sourcing anxiety is already elevated. The setup Several sellers reported unsolicited messages this week from supposed overseas material suppliers offering unusually low prices specifically framed as a way to “beat the new tariffs.” The pitch leans directly on…

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  • Wrapping Up Back-to-School: What to Archive, What to Keep, and What to Learn From

    Etsy listings run on a four-month cycle whether or not you touch them. A listing you deactivate doesn’t pause that clock. If it expires while inactive, reactivating it costs a $0.20 relist fee, per Etsy’s own listing renewal help page. Small detail. It changes how you should actually close out a season. Table of Contents…

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  • Seller Mailbag: Why Did My Shop’s Search Visibility Drop Overnight?

    “My views and sales dropped sharply this week with no warning. I haven’t changed anything in my shop. What happened?” A sudden, unexplained visibility drop is one of the more stressful things a seller can experience, mostly because Etsy rarely tells you exactly why it happened. Here’s how to actually investigate rather than guess. Rule…

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  • The Pricing Conversation to Have With Yourself Before the Back-to-School Rush Ends

    A season can be your highest-revenue month and one of your lowest-margin months at the same time. The only way to know which one you just had is to actually run the numbers, not just remember how busy it felt. Table of Contents Introduction As back-to-school volume starts to taper, most shops move straight into…

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  • Back-to-School Photography: What Actually Converts in the Final Stretch

    Mid-August is the peak week for back-to-school order volume on Etsy, and by this point in the season most shops have already fixed their obvious keyword gaps. What separates the listings still converting from the ones that have gone flat is almost entirely photography. Table of Contents Introduction With back-to-school search volume near its peak,…

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