Etsy Listings, Renew or Copy?

Which is more beneficial, renewing or copying our expiring Etsy listings?

Copy our expired listings or just renew?

This is an interesting question. We must take two or three facts into consideration.

Renewing gives your expiring item a bump while keeping any social media links active.

Let's say that your item has been on over a year and it doesn't have a lot of action. It falls to the bottom of search. (I call this the “stale item effect”). Renewing will bump it up, making it more relevant. However, it again takes a rankings dip.

In that case, I would consider copying the listing. As long as it is not getting hits from social media.

How do you know if your listed items are being found via social media?
1. If you're not doing it, that is unlikely but not impossible.
2. Look at your individual items stats, a poorly understood stats feature of Etsy. Here's how.

Etsy stats can be hard to figure out when determining the level of social media activity. Here is why.

Can you tell which items are ranking poorly?

Testing for item placement used to be easy, but now it is not.

The only other factor I can think of is your shop updates. You will lose the shop updates for items that you copy rather than renew. I do not view that as a major issue. (I have well over 100. Here is more information on shop updates, including 40 ideas for vintage sellers.)

To recap, if you are doing social media, use care when choosing to copy your Etsy listing rather than renewing it. However, if the item is "stale," then copying rather than renewing it may result in it ranking higher in search over a longer period. May. For now.

Any beneficial effect of copying rather than renewing is only temporary.

The whole subject is really about how Etsy's algorithm is working. That is a closely guarded secret. And the algorithm always changes. Here is Etsy's latest information on search.

What do your listing stats tell you? Renew or copy?

Stay tuned for more help with running your Etsy shop.

(On a related topic, is it better to renew an item for 20 cents, or pay for a promoted listing campaign?)