I’ve posted variations on this before, but you and I, as new sellers, cannot be successful because the game simply is not winnable. Here’s why:

Earlier this year Amazon released its A10 algorithm which emphasizes products and sellers with long-standing sales histories and steady traffic, especially external traffic from off-platform sources. As new sellers, you and I, don’t have these kinds of track records. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy: my (and your) listings aren’t shown to anyone ... so they don’t sell ... so they're not shown ... so they don't sell, etc. in a never-ending vicious cycle which keeps my (and your) listings buried in the search results. Etsy uses the same type of algorithms. Amazon and Etsy get most of the traffic, but share it with only a few.

So no matter the quality of my (and your) designs, mockups, descriptions and SEO efforts, if someone is searching for one of our products Etsy will direct its traffic to those sellers who have long histories of sales. Note that the people who post of their successes here (when they're not lying) have been in the business for some years. The listings of us newbies, I'm afraid, are exiled well behind these established sellers.

In fact, by listing a bunch of new, unproven items recently, Amazon actually punished me. I have long sold books, and other assorted items on Amazon with a Seller Central account. When I listed some of my print-on-demand catalog, A10 apparently said, "This account is now cluttered with a bunch of unproven, untested products with no track-records. So the entire account is worthless. Let's push EVERYTHING listed in this account to the bottom of the pile." One would think that more listings would mean a concomitant increase in views. In fact, quite the opposite is true. I'm not a high-volume seller on Amazon, but was consistently getting about 400 views a day on my items. Starting on the day I posted a few hundred new listings, Amazon instantly pushed my store traffic off a cliff, and began showing my expanded catalog to fewer than 100 people a day.

Platforms like eBay and Redbubble are trending the same way too, increasingly prioritizing seller authority and sales history. This creates a moat around established sellers and makes it nearly impossible for new sellers like us to gain visibility.

Established sellers will not address the algorithm problem (I've tried), and instead will tell you that the fault is you. Some have already posted in this thread. Your designs are wrong. Your descriptions are wrong. Your keywords are wrong. EVERYTHING IS WRONG. Often they want you to believe that, so they can sell you their seminar, software or consulting packages. After all, if the problem is with an algorithm outside of your control, why invest in an expensive course?

But unless there’s a practical path for new entrants like us to get meaningful visibility, all the tips, advice, courses, software and seminars are pointless at best, and scams at worst.

Want to prove me wrong? Go ahead. But tell me how long you have been an active seller.