Handmade Community
Handmade Community
Our Handmade sales are deteriorating!!! (SOS) Save Our Sales!!!
First time posting on the forums. Thanks to all those who have posted and given us insight over the years through this resource! We have been selling on Amazon Handmade for 7 years. At the end of July 2023 our sales decreased within days to 65-75% down and holding from the year before. Prior to this we have experienced consistent organic growth month after month, year after year with very consistent year round sales up until the end of July this year. Our account is considered to be (HV) high velocity seller. Our best selling product was ranking #4 in its category, it is now far from that position. We have around 90 product listings in total.
We started working with the Amazon Accelerator team towards the end of February 2023 to improve and update our store. We had our word mark and trademark done, built out our A+ brand store, and recently completed 15 A+ product pages. When we completed our A+ brand store and the first few A+ product pages is when we saw an immediate decrease in sales. We did not know if it was something to do with the updated information of A+ content or something else. We have an account manager that we meet with for 30 minutes weekly/bi-weekly over the phone. That person along with their resources to other teams assured us that based on reports from various teams it is not the result of A+ content upgrade.
We do not have any understanding for ourselves or answers from team support yet as to why this is happening or a fix. Our account health is excellent, product categories are all correct. We are expecting some more data from our meeting on this coming Friday with our account manager to why all our impressions are so low compared to prior of July, our coupons have a fraction of clips as they did prior, ads ACOS went way up and are not even converting now, we have turned off all of our ads because they are not working. Along with why our strongest selling ASIN is not selling and why are the sales on other products so random? We can look at data and see a very strong pattern to past sales ASINS, none of our remaining sales we are getting act anywhere close to the prior patterns.
Over the years we have done extensive work to meet Amazons Handmade requirements to sell our product here, which we do make by hand and are a small business. We have had a couple of scares over the years, but nothing close to what has been happening for the last 2 months. We are grateful for this platform as it has provided so much opportunity to our 14 year old company to grow on other platforms and our website. It would be a shame to see this store continue to die without the possibility to fix it. We hope there is a solution to this situation. If anyone can give us advice or direction in regards to this situation in restoring our sales to any degree on this platform please help.
Our best wishes to the other stores on handmade experiencing this as well.
Thank you for reading, regards to all!
52 replies
Seller_4j7XN4O3l183e
One of my nightmares of using a platform with such a potential for growth or failure.. Every day I'm worried about a delisted ASIN for no apparent reason or like recently, our sales plummeting to 30-40% of normal and staying at that level... I hope you recover your business to previous levels and more and this will be a small road-bump on your journey!
Seller_Qp7D09NCRbW7u
Right there with you exact same boat. I think it is interesting that you mentioned the Aplus content addition and an immediate loss of sales. I too added it to a best seller and immediately it tanked. I removed it fairly quickly (after a few eeks) and the ASIN has never recovered. I have Aplus content on others (not so good sellers) and it seems to not have had any affect on performance. But it sure did tank the best seller.
I wish Amazon would admit what they are doing to handmade. I too always had increased sales YOY, but the past couple of months have been dismal.
Etsy thankfully is filling the gap as I am up on that platform. But it doesn't nearly make up for the problems with Amazon.
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
Same here. I was way up over last year until July. A drop in July and even more in August and September. I opened a case (13810514981) but can't seem to get it to the Handmade team for review. The responses keep telling me how to be the FEATURED OFFER, which is not even an aspect of Handmade listings.
@priscilla_amazon @Rose_Amazon
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
No A+ content here, I prefer the bullet points. I often update titles and keywords hoping to find that magic formula, but no big changes on my end to account for the drop off.
Seller_lnG1vEHPdDS1j
As with all posts regarding sales dropping after "X Changes", I can tell you from experience that there will never be a clear answer on the associations between new features on this platform and your sales, but you need to consider a wider view before associating two variables.
For example,
- Overall economic spending from users
- Seasonal changes / pattern changes
- Shopper Platform preference (people shop at other stores for products in your classification)
- New competitors
- Advertising Spend
We can presume that Amazon wishes to increase revenue via commission and independent seller accounts, so if your sales are decreasing, you need to ask, who else is increasing in sales? Product Opportunity Explorer, Brand Metrics, and search terms work pretty well to answer this question. If you can't prove from that data, then it's likely externalized, i.e. free advertising on Google for Amazon has stopped for your category, shoppers are buying on another platform, etc.
Also, the bots tend to re-evaluate after major changes to an ASIN, so change at a major level likely will come with a re-evaluation period.
Seller_P85u3WAAnD3kQ
Handmade seller, here. Same story. My sales are always slow in June/July, and then my biggest months are August, September, October (I sell costume masks so Halloween is our biggest time of year). It's now mid september and i've never had sales this bad. I've been selling on amazon since 2015 or 2016.
Now I'm seriously considering going back to terrible Etsy. I'm already screwed this year since it's my busy season and I am NOT busy.
OP, it's not you. Amazon definitely did something to make this happen. I haven't filled out all the brand pages you have, so it's not that. I think it's some kind of change they made to the handmade categories, like how we show up in search results. No one is searching the handmade category on Amazon, so if our products don't appear in normal search results, no one is going to see them!! I think that's what is happening to all the handmade sellers right now--we're not showing up in search results.
I tried to counteract this by increasing my amazon ads--they're not working! now I'm wasting a ton of money on ads!!!
I feel like it started in May when amazon made me do that verification madness they put everyone through. my sales immediately dropped during that time.
Our Handmade sales are deteriorating!!! (SOS) Save Our Sales!!!
First time posting on the forums. Thanks to all those who have posted and given us insight over the years through this resource! We have been selling on Amazon Handmade for 7 years. At the end of July 2023 our sales decreased within days to 65-75% down and holding from the year before. Prior to this we have experienced consistent organic growth month after month, year after year with very consistent year round sales up until the end of July this year. Our account is considered to be (HV) high velocity seller. Our best selling product was ranking #4 in its category, it is now far from that position. We have around 90 product listings in total.
We started working with the Amazon Accelerator team towards the end of February 2023 to improve and update our store. We had our word mark and trademark done, built out our A+ brand store, and recently completed 15 A+ product pages. When we completed our A+ brand store and the first few A+ product pages is when we saw an immediate decrease in sales. We did not know if it was something to do with the updated information of A+ content or something else. We have an account manager that we meet with for 30 minutes weekly/bi-weekly over the phone. That person along with their resources to other teams assured us that based on reports from various teams it is not the result of A+ content upgrade.
We do not have any understanding for ourselves or answers from team support yet as to why this is happening or a fix. Our account health is excellent, product categories are all correct. We are expecting some more data from our meeting on this coming Friday with our account manager to why all our impressions are so low compared to prior of July, our coupons have a fraction of clips as they did prior, ads ACOS went way up and are not even converting now, we have turned off all of our ads because they are not working. Along with why our strongest selling ASIN is not selling and why are the sales on other products so random? We can look at data and see a very strong pattern to past sales ASINS, none of our remaining sales we are getting act anywhere close to the prior patterns.
Over the years we have done extensive work to meet Amazons Handmade requirements to sell our product here, which we do make by hand and are a small business. We have had a couple of scares over the years, but nothing close to what has been happening for the last 2 months. We are grateful for this platform as it has provided so much opportunity to our 14 year old company to grow on other platforms and our website. It would be a shame to see this store continue to die without the possibility to fix it. We hope there is a solution to this situation. If anyone can give us advice or direction in regards to this situation in restoring our sales to any degree on this platform please help.
Our best wishes to the other stores on handmade experiencing this as well.
Thank you for reading, regards to all!
Our Handmade sales are deteriorating!!! (SOS) Save Our Sales!!!
First time posting on the forums. Thanks to all those who have posted and given us insight over the years through this resource! We have been selling on Amazon Handmade for 7 years. At the end of July 2023 our sales decreased within days to 65-75% down and holding from the year before. Prior to this we have experienced consistent organic growth month after month, year after year with very consistent year round sales up until the end of July this year. Our account is considered to be (HV) high velocity seller. Our best selling product was ranking #4 in its category, it is now far from that position. We have around 90 product listings in total.
We started working with the Amazon Accelerator team towards the end of February 2023 to improve and update our store. We had our word mark and trademark done, built out our A+ brand store, and recently completed 15 A+ product pages. When we completed our A+ brand store and the first few A+ product pages is when we saw an immediate decrease in sales. We did not know if it was something to do with the updated information of A+ content or something else. We have an account manager that we meet with for 30 minutes weekly/bi-weekly over the phone. That person along with their resources to other teams assured us that based on reports from various teams it is not the result of A+ content upgrade.
We do not have any understanding for ourselves or answers from team support yet as to why this is happening or a fix. Our account health is excellent, product categories are all correct. We are expecting some more data from our meeting on this coming Friday with our account manager to why all our impressions are so low compared to prior of July, our coupons have a fraction of clips as they did prior, ads ACOS went way up and are not even converting now, we have turned off all of our ads because they are not working. Along with why our strongest selling ASIN is not selling and why are the sales on other products so random? We can look at data and see a very strong pattern to past sales ASINS, none of our remaining sales we are getting act anywhere close to the prior patterns.
Over the years we have done extensive work to meet Amazons Handmade requirements to sell our product here, which we do make by hand and are a small business. We have had a couple of scares over the years, but nothing close to what has been happening for the last 2 months. We are grateful for this platform as it has provided so much opportunity to our 14 year old company to grow on other platforms and our website. It would be a shame to see this store continue to die without the possibility to fix it. We hope there is a solution to this situation. If anyone can give us advice or direction in regards to this situation in restoring our sales to any degree on this platform please help.
Our best wishes to the other stores on handmade experiencing this as well.
Thank you for reading, regards to all!
52 replies
52 replies
Seller_4j7XN4O3l183e
One of my nightmares of using a platform with such a potential for growth or failure.. Every day I'm worried about a delisted ASIN for no apparent reason or like recently, our sales plummeting to 30-40% of normal and staying at that level... I hope you recover your business to previous levels and more and this will be a small road-bump on your journey!
Seller_Qp7D09NCRbW7u
Right there with you exact same boat. I think it is interesting that you mentioned the Aplus content addition and an immediate loss of sales. I too added it to a best seller and immediately it tanked. I removed it fairly quickly (after a few eeks) and the ASIN has never recovered. I have Aplus content on others (not so good sellers) and it seems to not have had any affect on performance. But it sure did tank the best seller.
I wish Amazon would admit what they are doing to handmade. I too always had increased sales YOY, but the past couple of months have been dismal.
Etsy thankfully is filling the gap as I am up on that platform. But it doesn't nearly make up for the problems with Amazon.
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
Same here. I was way up over last year until July. A drop in July and even more in August and September. I opened a case (13810514981) but can't seem to get it to the Handmade team for review. The responses keep telling me how to be the FEATURED OFFER, which is not even an aspect of Handmade listings.
@priscilla_amazon @Rose_Amazon
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
No A+ content here, I prefer the bullet points. I often update titles and keywords hoping to find that magic formula, but no big changes on my end to account for the drop off.
Seller_lnG1vEHPdDS1j
As with all posts regarding sales dropping after "X Changes", I can tell you from experience that there will never be a clear answer on the associations between new features on this platform and your sales, but you need to consider a wider view before associating two variables.
For example,
- Overall economic spending from users
- Seasonal changes / pattern changes
- Shopper Platform preference (people shop at other stores for products in your classification)
- New competitors
- Advertising Spend
We can presume that Amazon wishes to increase revenue via commission and independent seller accounts, so if your sales are decreasing, you need to ask, who else is increasing in sales? Product Opportunity Explorer, Brand Metrics, and search terms work pretty well to answer this question. If you can't prove from that data, then it's likely externalized, i.e. free advertising on Google for Amazon has stopped for your category, shoppers are buying on another platform, etc.
Also, the bots tend to re-evaluate after major changes to an ASIN, so change at a major level likely will come with a re-evaluation period.
Seller_P85u3WAAnD3kQ
Handmade seller, here. Same story. My sales are always slow in June/July, and then my biggest months are August, September, October (I sell costume masks so Halloween is our biggest time of year). It's now mid september and i've never had sales this bad. I've been selling on amazon since 2015 or 2016.
Now I'm seriously considering going back to terrible Etsy. I'm already screwed this year since it's my busy season and I am NOT busy.
OP, it's not you. Amazon definitely did something to make this happen. I haven't filled out all the brand pages you have, so it's not that. I think it's some kind of change they made to the handmade categories, like how we show up in search results. No one is searching the handmade category on Amazon, so if our products don't appear in normal search results, no one is going to see them!! I think that's what is happening to all the handmade sellers right now--we're not showing up in search results.
I tried to counteract this by increasing my amazon ads--they're not working! now I'm wasting a ton of money on ads!!!
I feel like it started in May when amazon made me do that verification madness they put everyone through. my sales immediately dropped during that time.
Seller_4j7XN4O3l183e
One of my nightmares of using a platform with such a potential for growth or failure.. Every day I'm worried about a delisted ASIN for no apparent reason or like recently, our sales plummeting to 30-40% of normal and staying at that level... I hope you recover your business to previous levels and more and this will be a small road-bump on your journey!
Seller_4j7XN4O3l183e
One of my nightmares of using a platform with such a potential for growth or failure.. Every day I'm worried about a delisted ASIN for no apparent reason or like recently, our sales plummeting to 30-40% of normal and staying at that level... I hope you recover your business to previous levels and more and this will be a small road-bump on your journey!
Seller_Qp7D09NCRbW7u
Right there with you exact same boat. I think it is interesting that you mentioned the Aplus content addition and an immediate loss of sales. I too added it to a best seller and immediately it tanked. I removed it fairly quickly (after a few eeks) and the ASIN has never recovered. I have Aplus content on others (not so good sellers) and it seems to not have had any affect on performance. But it sure did tank the best seller.
I wish Amazon would admit what they are doing to handmade. I too always had increased sales YOY, but the past couple of months have been dismal.
Etsy thankfully is filling the gap as I am up on that platform. But it doesn't nearly make up for the problems with Amazon.
Seller_Qp7D09NCRbW7u
Right there with you exact same boat. I think it is interesting that you mentioned the Aplus content addition and an immediate loss of sales. I too added it to a best seller and immediately it tanked. I removed it fairly quickly (after a few eeks) and the ASIN has never recovered. I have Aplus content on others (not so good sellers) and it seems to not have had any affect on performance. But it sure did tank the best seller.
I wish Amazon would admit what they are doing to handmade. I too always had increased sales YOY, but the past couple of months have been dismal.
Etsy thankfully is filling the gap as I am up on that platform. But it doesn't nearly make up for the problems with Amazon.
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
Same here. I was way up over last year until July. A drop in July and even more in August and September. I opened a case (13810514981) but can't seem to get it to the Handmade team for review. The responses keep telling me how to be the FEATURED OFFER, which is not even an aspect of Handmade listings.
@priscilla_amazon @Rose_Amazon
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
Same here. I was way up over last year until July. A drop in July and even more in August and September. I opened a case (13810514981) but can't seem to get it to the Handmade team for review. The responses keep telling me how to be the FEATURED OFFER, which is not even an aspect of Handmade listings.
@priscilla_amazon @Rose_Amazon
Seller_ecQyUxErlLmIZ
Same story here along with the dates
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
No A+ content here, I prefer the bullet points. I often update titles and keywords hoping to find that magic formula, but no big changes on my end to account for the drop off.
Seller_gwzuNYC3ogYNo
No A+ content here, I prefer the bullet points. I often update titles and keywords hoping to find that magic formula, but no big changes on my end to account for the drop off.
Seller_lnG1vEHPdDS1j
As with all posts regarding sales dropping after "X Changes", I can tell you from experience that there will never be a clear answer on the associations between new features on this platform and your sales, but you need to consider a wider view before associating two variables.
For example,
- Overall economic spending from users
- Seasonal changes / pattern changes
- Shopper Platform preference (people shop at other stores for products in your classification)
- New competitors
- Advertising Spend
We can presume that Amazon wishes to increase revenue via commission and independent seller accounts, so if your sales are decreasing, you need to ask, who else is increasing in sales? Product Opportunity Explorer, Brand Metrics, and search terms work pretty well to answer this question. If you can't prove from that data, then it's likely externalized, i.e. free advertising on Google for Amazon has stopped for your category, shoppers are buying on another platform, etc.
Also, the bots tend to re-evaluate after major changes to an ASIN, so change at a major level likely will come with a re-evaluation period.
Seller_lnG1vEHPdDS1j
As with all posts regarding sales dropping after "X Changes", I can tell you from experience that there will never be a clear answer on the associations between new features on this platform and your sales, but you need to consider a wider view before associating two variables.
For example,
- Overall economic spending from users
- Seasonal changes / pattern changes
- Shopper Platform preference (people shop at other stores for products in your classification)
- New competitors
- Advertising Spend
We can presume that Amazon wishes to increase revenue via commission and independent seller accounts, so if your sales are decreasing, you need to ask, who else is increasing in sales? Product Opportunity Explorer, Brand Metrics, and search terms work pretty well to answer this question. If you can't prove from that data, then it's likely externalized, i.e. free advertising on Google for Amazon has stopped for your category, shoppers are buying on another platform, etc.
Also, the bots tend to re-evaluate after major changes to an ASIN, so change at a major level likely will come with a re-evaluation period.
Seller_P85u3WAAnD3kQ
Handmade seller, here. Same story. My sales are always slow in June/July, and then my biggest months are August, September, October (I sell costume masks so Halloween is our biggest time of year). It's now mid september and i've never had sales this bad. I've been selling on amazon since 2015 or 2016.
Now I'm seriously considering going back to terrible Etsy. I'm already screwed this year since it's my busy season and I am NOT busy.
OP, it's not you. Amazon definitely did something to make this happen. I haven't filled out all the brand pages you have, so it's not that. I think it's some kind of change they made to the handmade categories, like how we show up in search results. No one is searching the handmade category on Amazon, so if our products don't appear in normal search results, no one is going to see them!! I think that's what is happening to all the handmade sellers right now--we're not showing up in search results.
I tried to counteract this by increasing my amazon ads--they're not working! now I'm wasting a ton of money on ads!!!
I feel like it started in May when amazon made me do that verification madness they put everyone through. my sales immediately dropped during that time.
Seller_P85u3WAAnD3kQ
Handmade seller, here. Same story. My sales are always slow in June/July, and then my biggest months are August, September, October (I sell costume masks so Halloween is our biggest time of year). It's now mid september and i've never had sales this bad. I've been selling on amazon since 2015 or 2016.
Now I'm seriously considering going back to terrible Etsy. I'm already screwed this year since it's my busy season and I am NOT busy.
OP, it's not you. Amazon definitely did something to make this happen. I haven't filled out all the brand pages you have, so it's not that. I think it's some kind of change they made to the handmade categories, like how we show up in search results. No one is searching the handmade category on Amazon, so if our products don't appear in normal search results, no one is going to see them!! I think that's what is happening to all the handmade sellers right now--we're not showing up in search results.
I tried to counteract this by increasing my amazon ads--they're not working! now I'm wasting a ton of money on ads!!!
I feel like it started in May when amazon made me do that verification madness they put everyone through. my sales immediately dropped during that time.
