Wednesday, July 8, 2009

experiment - renewing hourly

I've decided to run a little experiment in my Etsy shop, pandacub. For those of you who are fellow Etsy sellers, you'll probably know what this is about and understand what I'm talking about. For everyone else, please feel free to ignore this post as it probably won't make much sense. :)

On Wednesday, July 8, at around 9 am I started renewing or listing an item every hour (renewing an old item or listing a new one). I'm hoping to keep this up for the next 48 hours to see what kind of effect it has in attracting new people to my shop. Of course, it won't be a truly scientific experiment since I don't plan on giving up sleep, so there won't be much renewing overnight (my overnight, which I know is daytime in other parts of the world) and of course, there are other reasons people may be venturing into my shop that are not a direct result of my actions, so please, PLEASE take these numbers with a grain of salt. :)

I don't expect to get much sales immediately from this, just more exposure for my shop, but I added the sales column just in case!

p.s. I also started a post in the Etsy forums about this experiment, so some shops views/hearts will be a result of that forum thread.

p.p.s. After some feedback (some nice, some...uh, not so nice) I'm going to add another "chapter" to this experiment in the hopes of making it more useful. Later on, I will do the whole thing again (renew/relist for 48 hours) on a Wed/Thurs, but without telling anyone until after I'm done. That way, those numbers will not be affected by people who are curious about the shop because of the experiment. And then, there will be Chapter 3, where I won't do anything at all for 48 hrs (again, on Wed/Thurs) and post those numbers as well. The 3 chapters added together should give a fuller picture into this whole renewing thing (I hope).

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 (all times listed are Eastern Standard Time)

TimeActionItem ViewsShop HeartsSales
8:57 amre-listed expired item10,4886750
10:06 amre-listed expired item10,5236750
11:08 amrenewed item10,6726770
12:05 pmre-listed expired item10,7176800
1:08 pmre-listed expired item10,7496810
2:08 pmrenewed item10,7516810
3:13 pmrenewed item10,690*6811
4:07 pm

re-listed expired item

10,6976810
4:48 pmrenewed item10,7346810
6:13 pmrenewed item10,565**6830
7:14 pmrenewed item10,5716840
8:13 pmlisted new item 10,5806850
9:16 pmre-listed expired item10,6206850
10:38 pmlisted new item 10,6316850
11:42 pmlisted new item 10,6416850


*the drop in item views is because I sold an item, so that item's view counts is no longer counted into the total.
**the drop in item views is because several items expired and so were removed from the shop

Thursday, July 9, 2009 (all times listed are Eastern Standard Time)

TimeActionItem ViewsShop HeartsSales
12:25 amre-listed expired item10,7186850
6:56 amrenewed item10,7636850
8:40 amrenewed item10,7846850
9:25 amrenewed item10,7926850
10:23 amrenewed item10,8016860
11:19 amlisted new item10,8166860
1:04 pmrenewed item10,8276860
2:10 pm

listed new item

10,8396860
3:07 pmlisted new item10,8506870
4:35 pmrenewed item10,8626880
6:07 pmre-listed expired item10,8726880
7:28 pmrenewed item10,9206880
9:10 pmrenewed item10,9486880
9:58 pmrenewed item10,9526890
11:17 pmrenewed item11,0146900

13 comments:

Silja Erg said...

Interesting:)

headchange said...

Yes please keep posting.
I tweeted the blog so others can watch.
And thanks for sharing.

daffknee said...

Can't wait to see how this turns out! I'll twitter it too!

frizzyfairy said...

Have been reading the thread in etsy with interest. Great experiment and can't wait to see what happens

Unknown said...

I think the experiment is great, but I'll admit I'm terrified of the results. If you do create a repeatable study that shows that relisting increases sales substantially. That would make everyone start relisting more, which would further bury everyone's products, prompting them to relist more. It seems like an unfortunate cycle where fees spike way up and the only winner is Etsy.

I hope I'm wrong, but the pessimist in me just always thinks the worst.

Celtic Cat said...

Good Luck!

Megan said...

awesome! Thanks for sharing this with all of us!

Tiffany said...

Cool experiment. I see that you sold an item, and so it must work! Congrats!

skiingweaver said...

How fun! Thanks for posting this. Interesting that the new item listing prompted a lot of views... Were they mostly for that item?

Suziesaurus said...

Very interesting & insightful comment from Susan.

On the flipside, perhaps if your experiment yields no spike in sales it will stop those sellers that relist constantly in hopes to bury competition to makes sales from doing so. =P

You should do more experiments like this (when you're done with this 1 of course) with other ideas!

Unknown said...

What an interesting experiment. I've often thought that renewing wasn't all it was cracked up to be so I'm anxious to see your results.

Anonymous said...

This is great. I love the science of it all. We should start multiple experiments at the same time. Each person from a different field.

I see a new etsy team in the works. Experimenters? Maybe a different name.

Seriously though, let me know if you are interested.

http://squidart.wordpress.com

Eveline said...

I hope the 30x $0.20 and not to mention the time and effort that took was worth the 1 sale..

In other words: don't believe the hype of renewing....