3 Reasons Why You Should NOT Be Using Auto Renew In Your Etsy Shop

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Anyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with efficiency.  I love saving time and money with automations, etc.  Not kidding, just ask my husband.  So, when I saw that Etsy was giving us an auto renew feature, I thought this is amazing!  BUT… that was a very short-lived thought. 

I’m going to tell you the 3 reasons why you should NOT be using auto renew in your shop.  So let’s start with a biggie for many Etsy sellers.

 

YOU ARE NOT IN CHARGE OF YOUR OWN SHOP

Etsy sellers are always talking about Etsy taking control of our shops and how we run them through the shop features they give us or those they take away.  Well, folks, sometimes we hand control of our shops right over without batting an eyelash.  And we don’t even realize it.

When you give the Etsy machine the power to take over your entire product line and relist your items without you ever having to lift a finger or click a button, you are no longer in charge of your products or your shop.  Unless you are a religious watcher of your Etsy stats, you may be renewing listings that aren’t selling and have SEO that is simply not getting you any results or revenue in your shop. But you are saying, “Nah, Etsy, you know my shop better than me.  You run things your way.”

If your Etsy search SEO is way off for your product and you don’t stop to correct it, you are going to be running your online business into the ground without even knowing it.  This easily happens when you have auto renew set.  You set it and forgot it and it’s costing you big time.

 

YOU ARE THROWING MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN

Etsy will gladly take your money.  That’s one of the reasons I simply will not, under any circumstances, let listings auto renew.  I’m way too conscious of where my revenue dollars are reinvested in my business to allow for this, and you should be too.  Fix this today.

For many Etsy sellers, you are looking to quit your day job by growing your Etsy store or you have already jumped ship, and your Etsy shop is your sole form of income.  By allowing Etsy to renew for you, you are allowing Etsy to take your hard earned dollars, sometimes unnecessarily.  Etsy SEO that isn’t working but auto renewing away isn’t going to bring in $$ to your bank account, and you may not be running your shop for very long as a result. 

I have seen countless Etsy sellers taking the easy road here and don’t even realize how much this feature is really costing them in the long run.  A few dollars here or there may not be a huge deal, but bigger sellers, those with sometimes thousands of listings, could easily set up their shops for failure and be none the wiser.

 

 

YOU ARE MISSING BUSINESS GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES

When you’re so used to Etsy running your listing renewals for you, you may be neglecting to actually pay attention to your listing stats, both on Etsy and Google Analytics.  This may seem obvious to experienced sellers that have sales every single day but watching your stats can help you make wise decisions about product line direction, which products get the ax, etc. 

When you automate this process, you sometimes forget to keep track of shop trends and other invaluable information that you NEED to be watching. Auto renew will be renewing all your products all willy-nilly (every 4 months) so when you look at your listing dashboard, you see the good with the bad all shown in order of what renewed most recently, whether by a purchase or the auto renewed feature.  If auto renew is turned off, you’re only going to see your top selling or most recently sold items at the top of your listings screen, which is set to Expiration: Latest First by default.

This lets you know what products are selling like hotcakes and helps you determine what direction to pursue with new products.  If something is a best seller, it’s right there in your face.  You can focus on creating new products that are similar or complimentary to what is working. 

With auto renew on, you don’t have that immediate indicator of what is making your Etsy shop sales because you are seeing the duds, and psychologically, because they are right there at the top, you’re thinking they are winners.  Wrong.

Lots of sellers get this kind of backwards and focus on what isn’t working instead of feeding what is working, focusing on the crappy products instead of the thriving ones.  In your off-season, work on fixing the non-sellers.  They may still have potential, but this shouldn’t be your main focus.  Auto renew puts the junk in the way of progress.

 

OTHER AUTO RENEW THINGS TO BE MINDFUL OF

There is more than one place to locate your auto renew settings.  You can bulk un-enroll your listings all at once quickly using the bulk editor on the listing dashboard.  Select the items you want to change the renewal options for and click the EDITING OPTIONS drop down > then click CHANGE RENEWAL OPTIONS.  Super easy-peasy.

 

 

 

 

 

A new place to watch when renewing your items manually, is if you select several listings at once and select renew, Etsy now put a little check box that is AUTOMATICALLY CHECKED to set that listing(s) to auto renew.  You MUST UNCHECK the box EVERY TIME you use this function or those items will be right back to auto renewing and snatching away your hard-earned dollars.

 

 

 

BUT WAIT!! 

There’s one more place your need to watch.  And it’s when you are creating a new listing.  The next time you set up a new listing, whether from scratch or by duplicating a listing and editing the important parts (it doesn’t matter which way), you need to make sure you are looking for the auto renew section on the listing creation screen too.

This can be found right above the listing description box and where you select if it’s a physical or digital product. Set that sucker to manual right from the start.

 

 

 

Etsy’s always finding new ways to slide these little things in right under our noses, and it could be costing you your hard-earned income and could cost you your business if you aren’t aware.  Be sure to keep up on changes as they roll out.  Take control of your listings and ensure you are KEEPING your revenue and not needlessly watching it flutter off into Etsy’s bank accounts instead of yours.

 

Are you thinking about starting your own Etsy shop??  Use this link to get 40 FREE listing credits!!

 

 

 

SAVE THESE FOR LATER.