Should I keep my Etsy discount running after a listing starts selling fast?

Question

I sell handmade products on Etsy, and one of my listings started getting a lot of sales during a shop-wide sale. Now that it’s labeled as a popular item, I’m not sure whether keeping the same discount will help maintain momentum or just reduce my profit unnecessarily.

Is it better to continue the current discount, lower it, or end the sale and raise the price back to normal once a product starts selling well?

Answer

Hi! If your Etsy listing is selling fast, you usually don’t need the same deep discount to “keep it popular” — a good move is to **taper the discount down (or end it) gradually** so you protect profit while you test whether demand is still strong without the sale.

Here’s a simple way to decide what to do next:

- **Keep the discount** if you’re still in a short, planned promo window (like “weekend sale”), you have plenty of inventory/materials, and your profit is still healthy. Also keep it if the discount is clearly the reason people are choosing you over competitors (price-sensitive product).
- **Lower the discount** if you’re getting steady sales already and your margins are getting tight. This is often the sweet spot: you keep some “deal” appeal while slowly returning to normal pricing.
- **End the sale (back to normal price)** if you’re close to capacity, your processing time is at risk, materials are limiting, or you’d be happy with fewer orders at higher profit. When something’s trending, it can often carry itself on reviews, conversion history, and “popular now” momentum.

A practical, low-stress approach:
1) **Taper, don’t yank:** If you’re at (example) 20% off, try 15% for a few days, then 10%, then off. Watch whether conversion drops sharply or stays strong.  
2) **Guard your processing time:** If orders are piling up, raising the price back (or ending the sale) is often better than risking late shipments and stressed customers.  
3) **Improve profit without “raising price” suddenly:** If you’re worried about sticker shock, you can end the sale but keep the value strong by tightening photos, first line of description, and making sure your best keywords are in the title/tags (Etsy SEO can carry a listing once it has sales history).

One important note: instead of raising your “regular” price above what it was (just because it’s popular), I’d first test **removing/reducing the discount** and see if it still sells at your normal price. If it does, you’ve just increased profit without changing your baseline pricing at all.

If you tell me your approximate margin (even just “tight / okay / strong”), your current discount level, and whether you’re near capacity on production, I can suggest a specific taper plan.