Etsy's Handmade Blog
Tech Updates: Changes in the Item Renewal Process
Story by bethela, TechUpdates
Published on April 21, 2008 in Etsy News 		Photo by lauri

Dear sellers:

I am always surprised to see an item listing set to expire in 2050 (we have some items expiring in 2100!). Wow! I am not sure what I’ll be doing next year, let alone 42 years from now. We expect that Etsy will be around for a long time, and we are concerned that buyers will be frustrated and disappointed if — 10 years from now — a number of shops with active listings have been abandoned or forgotten about by the seller. In an effort to keep the shops on Etsy updated and limit the opportunity for a store to be sitting idle with active listings for years and years, we are changing our renewal policy, as mentioned in a recent Town Hall meeting.  

Currently, when you renew an item, 4 months are added to the end of your existing listing.

Example:  An item listed on February 9, 2008 will expire on June 9, 2008. If you renew today, April 18, 2008, your listing would expire October 9, 2008. Renew again, another four months are added and the item will expire February 9, 2009, and so on.
As part of our ongoing initiative to upgrade the site’s ease of use and improve everyone's experience, we want to avoid this problem and have made the following change: if you renew an item, four months will be added to the item listing from the date of renewal.
Example:  An item listed on February 9, 2008 will expire on June 9, 2008. If you renew today, April 18, 2008, the listing will expire on August 18, 2008.

Current listings with expiration dates beyond four months from today will not be affected. This will only impact listings renewed from today forward. You can read more about this and other upcoming changes in Rob’s summary of our recent Town Hall meeting. 

We know that many people use renewing to promote and help gain exposure for their items. Search results and categories are both currently sorted to show the most recently listed items first. I have written about experimenting with pricing and promotion in the past. There are other ways to promote yourself on the site such as buying a Showcase spot, which many sellers find successful. We are also working on new promotional opportunities for sellers. At the end of the day, it is really about learning what works for you.

We want to do all we can to keep Etsy a vibrant and fun place to buy and sell handmade goods. If you have any ideas, add your suggestions to Rob’s recent forum thread. We want to hear from you.

If you are unsure about the Showcase, get a general introduction from Matt's article 13.5 Questions about the Showcase, and for deeper thoughts on figuring out if Showcase is right for you, see my Showcase Deconstructed article.

Tags listings, renewing, selling, Tech Updates
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15 comments     Login to add your own!

April 21, 2008 at 11:37 a.m. bagsbymelanie

Great idea! I know it is extremely frustrating to see the same item over and over and over and over again. I am all for the occassional renew, but jeepers.

April 21, 2008 at 12:03 p.m. MagpieCollections

I like the idea a lot...I cater to renew a lot when I get busy and thought it is weird that as I renew the expiry dates went beyond my control..lol..Four months from the day of renewal is perfect for me :)

April 21, 2008 at 2:31 p.m. SapphireChild

Wow, I had no idea. I thought it was already set so that if you renew the new end date would be four months from renewal. Maybe that's because I usually don't bother to renew listings until they're close to expiration, so I would never have noticed. Thanks for the update!

April 21, 2008 at 2:54 p.m. catherinechandler

That's a great change! I was wondering how some of my listings had such far off expiration dates!

April 21, 2008 at 5:20 p.m. curlyfrysc

Thank you! Maybe my items will actually get seen, now, instead of getting lost in the mass-relist. :)

April 21, 2008 at 5:49 p.m. GreenMamba

Personally, I am neither happy nor unhappy about this change. But, any chance a notification will be sent out to all Etsy sellers? So few visit the fora and/or read the Storque - and this does constitute a material change in terms for any sellers who signed up prior to today. Everyone needs to know.

April 21, 2008 at 8:02 p.m. Justpickedvintage

"There are other ways to promote yourself on the site such as buying a Showcase spot, which many sellers find successful."

Really? Who finds them successful?

April 21, 2008 at 10:19 p.m. saltandpaper

this change is ok with me, but I think it should be coupled with the ability to change the order of items in one's store. merchandising a store chronologically, rather than visually, may make sense to you, but it bugs me.

April 21, 2008 at 11:36 p.m. anandi

This is a great change. I think it would also be cool if you could have some sort of policy where if someone didn't log into Etsy for x days (or months) their store would go into 'inactive' mode and you wouldn't be able to buy things.

There are a lot of items here, and I wonder how many of these shops have been abandoned?

April 22, 2008 at 11:52 a.m. operatic

Renewing has been the only successful way to promote oneself on Etsy -- there's no indication that Showcases are worth the money.

And aren't you still going to have the problem of items expiring in 2100? This does nothing to address that problem.

April 22, 2008 at 1:31 p.m. pancakeandlulu

I think the change is fine--I always thought it odd with the old system (odd, but generous!)

I don't think it will change the amount people renew much...but it will solve the problem of more and more items expiring in a rediculous number of years.

Doesn't etsy already automatically close inactive shops after a certain period, though?

PS: I would LOVE to have the ability to rearrange my shop items without renewing.

April 22, 2008 at 5:41 p.m. Iamnotfruit

So is this a way to cut back on people renewing to move their items to the front of search listings?
I do that, because if I listed a new item every day, and things sold from my shop at the same rate, I would soon have a billion items listed. And I make jewelry, which has a milliondy-billion items, so it makes sense for me to do this. I don't like the idea that I will not be getting the 4 months when I renew added on to the rest.....

April 23, 2008 at 12:55 p.m. PrincessInDisguise

On the one hand, I can see why Etsy would want to make this change, especially considering the issues around mass-renewals and prolonged expiration dates.

But, at the same time, I do feel a bit ripped off and don't intend to renew any more of my items before they are set to expire. I only did it for the odd item anyway, and only to help my shop get exposure. But now, it simply isn't worth the cost.

April 24, 2008 at 3:10 a.m. theshadowcat

It makes sense to me to do it this way. If i did'nt sell an item and it had been here for 8 years then i would sincerely have to admit to myself that i was doing something wrong!
4 months from the date of renewal is fine by me.

Now, about the question of being able to reorganise the order of your shop items.........
:)

Aug. 23, 2008 at 9:13 p.m. threemusesart

In theory, this is fine... but months later, when I renew old listings, more time is added to their already ling life. Instead of expiring 4 months from the date of renewal, they are extending even longer. Now I have listings, recently renewed, expiring in 2010. I was hoping that, by renewing, they would expire sooner.

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