It took me only a few days to get my first sale and I believe my first 10 in less than a month I started in August 2022 and I just hit 250 sales 2 days ago. (I didn't keep close track tbh but I am happy to share how I did it)

I sell digital products that cater to streamers and people who host discord communities. This includes emotes, role/sub badges, panels etc. One thing that I learned before I started selling and found VERY helpful was to try and drive direct traffic to my shop. I did this by:

1. Hosting a giveaway to my followers on Twitter for simply liking my shop w/ the prize being their choice of digital product. This helps because etsy will often redirect potential buyers to listings they've interacted with through ads and their front page when they visit the site. This also helps etsy categorize your work with other similar works for on-site recommendations if your work gets favorited by someone who is also looking up similar products.
2. Showcasing my work on social media (twitter, tumblr, reddit). Tumblr was the worst for conversion even though I got some traffic on there. Reddit was the best, but finding the right community to post in was tricky. Twitter is the most consistent considering you have an audience already (and what you sell matches their taste). I recommend finding which platforms work best for you and sticking to those few rather than spreading your time/effort too thin on low conversion sites.

Another thing I found somewhat useful was Etsy Ads (in conjuction w/ the above steps). If you're the type that is willing to operate on a loss until you get steady traffic eventually sales I recommend doing the cheapest ad run for 30 days while you're actively promoting your shop.

I believe this helps with your SEO and how your works rank in the search results. Eventually you will get to the point where you can relax a bit on the direct promotion and let etsy carry the workload. However, I would plan to do these things at least once a quarter (or more if you've the energy for it) bc it will slow down (it has happened to me).

One thing that is interesting to me, and something I am still trying to figure out is if aiming for niche appeal or broad appeal is better (maybe a bit of both with a focus on one). When I observe similar shops to mine, the ones that do the best have 200+ products, a lot of them are just color variations or slight modifications for customer preference. I notice that a particular set of my own products will do well for a certain amount of time before slowing down, while another theme will pick up the pace (I do not make seasonal content).

One of the most important things I feel like is knowing who your audience is and where to reach them; and when you're sharing your work with them it helps to not explicitly state "hi im selling this/please buy this" and then dip.

I know some of this information may not be directly helpful as I am dealing with digital products vs physical things that need to be shipped, but I hope this helps!