One What a design earns — unit and total
0 if you absorb it
all-in — Etsy ~13% UK (with VAT on fees)
Etsy UK ~£0.43 (listing renewal + fixed processing + VAT)
What it earns
⚠️ Judge keep-or-cut on total contribution, never unit alone. A "thin" £1.59 design that sells 18 (£28.62) can beat a "fat" one that sells once.
Rank this design by total, not by gut — it's the keep-or-cut method in Print on Demand: Intermediate →
Two The funnel — where do buyers fall away?
The read
These are per-listing engagement signals — not the shop conversion Etsy also reports (orders ÷ visits, a different denominator). And a tiny sample proves nothing: give a listing a few hundred views before you trust the read.
Pick the one thing to fix, then set a date — it's the review loop in Print on Demand: Intermediate →
Three The basket lever — two in one order
the per-ORDER part of the fixed fee (Etsy UK ~£0.24)
One basket vs separate orders
Does the coupon still leave margin?
A bigger average basket lifts margin, not just revenue — because one order pays the per-order fee once. That is what the repeat and cross-sell engine is really buying you. A blanket coupon, though, can gut a thin design. Ten percent off a £16 item knocks £1.60 off the price — but you keep ~13% of that in the fee you no longer pay, so a £1.59 contribution falls to about 20p: not below zero, but almost nothing left, and a deeper coupon does turn negative. So set a minimum-basket floor. (The coupon check uses the platform fee % from the margin box above.)
Set a minimum-basket rule before you discount — it's the repeat engine in Print on Demand: Intermediate →
How to read it Two instruments, read separately
Contribution is what one sale leaves you after base cost, shipping, the platform's percentage and its fixed fee. Total contribution is that figure times how many sold in a window — the number that actually pays your bills, and the one you judge a design on.
The funnel tells you where a design fails, and each pattern points somewhere different to look first: few views is a discovery problem (get it seen), plenty of views but almost no favourites is a listing problem (photo, title, offer, price), and favourites with no orders is likely friction at the till (price, shipping, thin reviews). None of these is a proven verdict — they are the first place to look.
Keep a copy: the same dashboard as a spreadsheet, and the fill-in cull worksheet that turns these numbers into a keep-or-cut decision.
It is the instrument at the heart of Print on Demand — Intermediate, which turns a scatter of listings into a niche one buyer returns to.
See the Print on Demand series →