Etsy's Category pages have a fresh new look—check them out. This is the first set of enhancements we have in mind for the Category pages. Our goal in implementing these changes is to enhance the shopping experience on the site, making it easier to navigate and to find items to purchase. We also hope that the improved design will encourage shoppers to spend more time on these pages.

So what’s changed?

More prominent Category Showcases. The Category Showcases have been given greater prominence at the top of Category pages and are more clearly distinguished from the rest of the page with a slightly shaded background and the title “Sponsored Items from Etsy Sellers.” The images are larger than in the previous version, and we have also added the item title and price to make browsing more efficient. We will be carefully following the performance of these pages and listening to feedback from shoppers and sellers. We may make design adjustments based on that information.

To accommodate these changes, three items from the Category Showcase will randomly display each time the page is loaded or refreshed (versus the five smaller item images in the previous version). To browse through the entire Showcase, there are navigation arrows on each side as well a link to a page showing all items in a particular Category Showcase. Items will continue to be randomly displayed in this section from the full pool of relevant Showcased items.

New area for Category title, subtitle and illustrations. We have also added an area for each Category's title and subtitle, making the purpose of the page more clear, particularly for those who land on the page from searching on Etsy or via a link outside Etsy. As an additional benefit, this will help improve Etsy’s visibility to search engines since they principally read text. The new illustrations on each of Category page are meant to add a cohesive visual element from Etsy’s front page.

Nested subcategory list. Now when you browse to a subcategory, you will see a nested list of the other subcategories on the left side menu. This allows a shopper to quickly navigate from one subcategory to another.

Here's the big picture:

As noted above, we will have a few other changes to Category pages coming in the near future. One of these future enhancements will be highlighting related content from Etsy's blog on Category pages. Content that is relevant to each top-level Category will be featured in the left side menu. We have seen that engaging content draws shoppers into the site and can inspire people to discover new treasures. We’ll keep you posted on other improvements to the Category pages as we get closer to releasing them.

We welcome your feedback on these design changes to the Category pages in this discussion thread in our Forums. (We’ve closed commenting on this article to consolidate the conversation.)

Here's to a better shopping experience on Etsy!

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