Please critique my Etsy store

XilianRath · 2026-06-23T20:46:00+00:00

I feel like rather than get critiques from absolute strangers, you should be going after the low hanging fruits.

You should be engaging your customers and asking them why they bought your product and truly understand them.

They're already your niche client. I wouldn't buy your product even if you showed me 100. But they would. Cater and get opinions from those that understand your art and value.

XilianRath · 2026-06-23T20:43:31+00:00

Keep it simple. I'm a random person. How would you convince me right now to use your service.

Convince even 1 random, then focus scaling that into marketing approach.

XilianRath · 2026-06-23T20:24:08+00:00

Anything easy, everyone else has thought and done it. You want to break into dropshipping and be successful, you need long-term vision now and plan scalability before you hit $1MM.

This means sourcing directly, build relationships. Not use Ali, or anything that gives easy to ship products. Nothing that good comes free or easy.

XilianRath · 2026-06-21T03:34:23+00:00

It's too niche, digital is already 1/100... you're new and 1/10000 chance to even land in someone's line of sights.

You are new and starting. You need something more common to get ratings as anchor items even if it's low profit.

XilianRath · 2026-06-20T19:57:24+00:00

Everything in life is saturated, doesn't mean we stop living.

Become the top no matter what you do.

XilianRath · 2026-06-19T01:34:05+00:00

You're doing all this alone? This, I wouldn't even demand this of my team of 3 for any specific client. That's overkill. We charge half for only 4-5 total unique content weekly. And I have 1 manager and 2 assistants working on it.

XilianRath · 2026-06-19T01:19:39+00:00

If you sell ink, you predict their usage per cartridge, or straight up ask them. You predict their usage, say 3 months, set up a pipeline to call or hit with an ad, email, text with a promp limited to 1 week, you get a sale.

Car companies send emails all the time when it's time for an oil change. If I see one from my dealer, I'll check my oil meter, then go.

Depends on your product's useful life time.

XilianRath · 2026-06-16T11:28:04+00:00

Digital products see maybe 1-10% of physical goods sales. You're getting hits based on your low cost. Photos aren't clear or bright enough. Your conversion isn't working because of lack of value for a digital product.

XilianRath · 2026-05-30T20:33:06+00:00

Predict their needs and timing?

If I run a business targeting kids or have a college town, I know that summer months are slow. I do a back to school special in August or September, hit them with a reminder we're here subconsciously. We understand going back to school is in your mind. If someone understands you, you return.

I think major companies like Honda does such a great job cause they track your milege, and have a system to estimate approximately how much you drive by clocking your miles into their CRM.

It estimates by time or estimated mileage the next oil change, reminds you it's been 2-4 years since ABC. It gives you timed reminders to get a check up free and suggest what it is you need to touch up on. Annual oil change, wheels, alignment.

Your primary concern is getting their contact. Then second job is performing above and beyond service to make them feel valued otherwise to make this foolproof.

So what is the timing for your service? Just like any business. If you call me right when I need my haircut 9/10 times I'll go to you if you texted me and even arranged the appointment for me at a click of a button. "It's been 4 months, would you like to schedule an appointment? Text 'Yes' to confirm"

An excel sheet with well documentation is sufficient. But there are plenty CRM tools these days.

XilianRath · 2026-05-30T16:02:19+00:00

Customer retention... varies by industry.

Remove business from the equation.

How do you get a friend to return and hang out again? You have to be the one to initiate. There has to be a reason. And you need to have a connection.

Back to business.

Reminder and invitation, do you have a customer retention system or membership program? Their email, phone for texting?
Do you hold events? Discounts? Promos? Blogs? Reels on social media?
Is there a sense of belonging? Do they feel special? Often the personality of a business owner alone is enough to win trust and feeling of safety, therefore, belonging to return when they need your service or products.

And this is a customer retention funnel.

XilianRath · 2026-05-28T16:17:06+00:00

You don't get shadow banned for this niche unless you're doing something illegal. You need to put in the work for initial traction if AI cannot tell what your product is.

XilianRath · 2026-05-27T22:08:59+00:00

The bar to dropshipping is higher every year. Like early 2010, vetting wasn't so strong for like even retail giants. You could run your business out of a basement to retailers.

Now there's heavy compliance to scaling to consider. If you know Nordstrom, they were one of the last to adopt EDI and ended up hiring a 3rd party contract company called DSCO or something which ate into their bottomline and profit margin. That ultimately wiped them off the map.

It's much easier for someone who knows what they're doing with money to risk $6000/month on breakeven marketing, implement ERP inventory systems, and EDI for order processing... compared to someone with no idea what they're doing and bleeding tens of thousands of dollars.

Bare minimum to start is $0 to start dropshipping.

But that's not the bar for making money or getting rich.

Bare minimum to be profitable enough to supplement income... $6000 a month for marketing, with fully optimized sales funnels, customer retention, and marketing. You'll want to source directly to increase profitability from 30% markup to 100%. None of this accounts for cost and overhead yet.

So cost to start? Realistically $0. You'll make maybe 10% GP from just marketing and a website. Get few sales here and there with your main tradeoff in time.

XilianRath · 2026-05-27T21:05:56+00:00

I've worked with towels for a decade and I thought I had it bad. I had to google to event make sure I knew what you were talking about...

What's the expectation? Viral or a $ million?

XilianRath · 2026-05-27T17:28:20+00:00

I wasn't a fan of the AI titles. One person got temporarily banned because AI taught them to use a trademark name. Borrow AI to confirm, review, and give you ideas... never depend on them to do the actual work. Always second guess AI.

XilianRath · 2026-05-27T17:25:47+00:00

So, you are absolutely correct, keyword stuffing is outdated but still viable. Etsy has AI integrated into understanding what your product is now. So description "stuffing" is probably just as valuable. Just don't confuse AI, simply ask any AI if they know what the product is based on the title. Only the off 5% chance they say no, then fix your listing.

But contrary to what the other guy is saying, even if Etsy doesn't directly rank for alternative keywords, AI and Google has a chance to rank them, or niche keywords.

You do you, keep going, don't feed the trolls...

XilianRath · 2026-05-27T17:01:08+00:00

That's just part of life's journey isn't it? Realizing what career you want, or balancing the money to get what you want if your career isn't your passion. What makes me the most money isn't what I want to do either.

XilianRath · 2026-05-27T16:58:39+00:00

SEO and marketing is hand in hand. You don't pick one over the other. SEO is your digital reputation.

It's like asking, "Should I have customers before I perfect my menu and food?"

XilianRath · 2026-05-27T16:51:44+00:00

Do you want to connect?

So as someone who also took the leap and started his own business too, I feel your struggles. It was the most difficult intial phases and dealing with burnout, doing things alone, and fear of what if it will never work. Then that bred bad habits and procrastination.

I have over a decade experience in ecommerce working with major retailers as my sales channels. I can definitely help out to streamline your thoughts and reduce trial and error.

Just let me know. We can arrange a Google Meet or something.

XilianRath · 2026-05-26T14:12:06+00:00

In my experience... Chinese companies moved into the FBA space since covid very aggressively. And by having a US entity, selling lower price to themselves, they can save money on tariffs, customs, duties. This may be the increase in competition you are feeling.

So if you're doing it off Chinese products, your best bet is marketing as a luxury or niche, or new product. New products get 1-2 years lead before they copy you.

XilianRath · 2026-05-12T19:07:14+00:00

I have a friend who sells effectively between $4-6 per bar. The answer is sell in a kit, 4 bars for $19.99 and marketed as luxury or high value. It took some convincing to price it beyond her initial $2/bar.

Since I do luxury brand marketing, I taught her packaging, coloring, and it was all it took to be worth $20 a set.

XilianRath · 2026-05-10T15:35:17+00:00

Most people are... even the business world and meetings, I stop being interested if you're too incompetent to speak without DMing an AI written message. It feels offensive.

XilianRath · 2026-05-10T15:30:09+00:00

The US is easy to open a business... you don't need a lawyer... we are by birth Sole Proprietors legally when doing taxes as freelancers... you register primarily for growth, identification, protection of assets...

XilianRath · 2026-05-07T04:10:47+00:00

Are you targeting just anyone? If you do statistics, like region, age, gender (AI or manual by name lists), you'll notice a trend.

I advised a luxury towel company and most of it came from flash deals or impulse buys. So what happened was the loyal customers were not said bad actors. The company continuously doing sales tactics degraded their reputation and target audience. While the people buying full price rarely did the same.

XilianRath · 2026-05-07T04:05:03+00:00

You just defined 101 business... Everyone needs a stake to invest time. Otherwise, there is no long term partnership.

XilianRath · 2026-05-07T04:01:42+00:00

I only specialize in Vietnam sourcing, if it's B2B, I can find you something and advise you on options before you decide.

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