Storque articles by saralouhicks

Talking Product: An Update on 2009 Site Feature Priorities

2009-11-02T15:00:00-05:00

Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest installment of Talking Product. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these posts, they are part of a regular series from my colleagues and me. Our CEO, Maria, started this series last year with her Talking Shop posts. In 2009, we’ve offered more posts by disciplines: Talking Product, Talking Marketing and Talking Tech. In June, all of us got together for a talkfest that we offered up as an audio podcast to more personally communicate with all of you about what’s happening at Etsy.

I am excited to offer you this latest update that covers the last few months. It also presents an overview of our priorities for the remainder of this year and into early next year, as well as a few general Product Team updates.

As a reminder from my previous updates, our first and foremost priority in recent months has been improving the shopping experience. We believe that among the most valuable things Etsy can do for sellers is attract buyers to the site, get them shopping and keep them coming back. While there is much work ahead and this will be a constant focus for us, we’re excited about some of the changes we’ve made so far and about the upcoming features we have in the queue.

So, what we have been up to lately?

Search

As I’ve indicated in past updates, improving the search and discovery experience on Etsy has been our top priority. We’ve made important strides in our efforts to improve Etsy's searching and shopping experience. Here are a few highlights:

Now when you perform a search on Etsy, you will often see links for recent popular related searches above your results. These related searches are actual searches recently performed by Etsy shoppers. They serve as suggestions for shoppers to refine their initial search or to stimulate ideas for successful similar searches. Related searches also offer sellers ideas to effectively tag items.
We made improvements to the way subcategories are suggested during the item listing process. Now, only those subcategories relevant to an item's top-level Category are suggested as item tags. This adjustment is helping to make the Category browsing experience more relevant.
We gave shoppers the ability to filter their search results by Category. This new feature provides shoppers a quick and easy way to narrow and refine their search results. Many Etsians tell us that this enhancement makes finding just the right item on Etsy easier and faster.

Checkout

We continued to work on making Checkout as smooth as possible, especially for new buyers. Our A/B testing framework allows us to test Checkout changes with a small percentage of shoppers, to make sure the changes will be understood and actually improve the user experience, before rolling the changes out to all shoppers.

We enabled new buyers to register on Etsy as a part of the regular Checkout flow. This was an important change since previously new buyers were required to leave Etsy.com in the middle of the Checkout flow in order to complete registration. The old process often resulted in buyer confusion.
We're currently A/B testing removing non-essential elements from the header of Checkout pages to focus shoppers on completing the Checkout process.

Seller Tools

Over the past few months, our new shipping tool with regional shipping options and the ability to rearrange items in your shop moved from the beta testing phase to full launch.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In the last couple of months, we’ve devoted a fair amount of attention to SEO. With the help of our friends at SEOmoz, Etsy developed a stronger SEO strategy and implementation plan. The most significant changes of the last few months are:

Giving sellers more control over your shop page title, Item listing page titles, and Section page titles
Canonical tags for improved search engine ranking for these pages
Updating shop URLs to be more search-engine friendly as well as changing to 301 redirects

We focused on shop and item listing page SEO and launched improvements, including tools to help sellers preview how their shop home pages and item listings will appear in Google search results. We believe that these changes are, in part, responsible for the continued strong traffic to Etsy.com.   In partnership with SEOmoz, Etsy also created the Etsy Guide to SEO.

SEO is an ongoing effort, and we'll continue to make improvements. We are grateful to Etsy sellers who actively participated in our Virtual Labs sessions on this topic and to those who are diligently using the guide to improve traffic to their Etsy shops.

Community

We recently launched a redesign of the Community Hub. The goal with this redesign was to provide clear, more immediate access to information for the Etsy community about important news, events and activities occurring on Etsy.

Many of you have asked us to communicate frequently and with as much relevant information as we can. Prior to the launch of the new Community Hub, Etsy had only one blog, The Storque. To date, The Storque has served as a resource for Etsy buyers, sellers, staff, and the general public. It showcases a lot of terrific content and information, but the content that’s most relevant to Etsy sellers is not always easily accessible. The Community Hub is a step in the direction of focusing our communications on distinct audiences. We appreciate your patience and your feedback along the way and hope that you find the new Community Hub useful.

What is in store for the remainder of 2009 and early 2010?

As the year winds down our main focus is on keeping the site stable for holiday shoppers. Starting mid-November and going through December, we will go into a bit of a code lockdown so as not to disrupt the buying and selling experience on Etsy. During this period we will only release changes that will not risk the performance and user experience of the site. This is a common practice for most ecommerce sites and one that we believe is critical. With that in mind, some of the updates below will launch before this lockdown while others will launch early next year. Also, some of the changes might only launch to a small subset of users, and then over time we’ll expand to all users. We’ll provide updates on the specific timing and plans for each of these items via the Forums, Community Hub, and The Storque as we get closer to each launch.

Search and Discovery

Many shoppers, especially those new to Etsy, don’t know what they’re looking for when they arrive at the site. Maybe they are searching for a gift, or they know they’re going to find something they love at Etsy, but they’re not sure what. In addition, some Etsy shoppers describe their search experience on the site as “overwhelming” while others describe it as “addictive.” We’re looking to convert those who may feel overwhelmed into addicts. We believe a key to that lies in enabling shoppers to refine search results in various ways.

To that end, many of the features currently in development will be designed to give visitors a better view into the kinds of unique items available on Etsy and help them more easily refine the results displayed. We know that shoppers who perform a search on Etsy are significantly more likely to buy something than those who do not use the search function.

One feature in development is what we call Search Suggestions. This means that we'll suggest relevant search queries as site visitors begin to type a query into the search bar. These suggestions will be specific to Handmade, Vintage, Supplies, All Items or the Category page from which you search. The suggestions will be derived from Etsy’s search logs and will be displayed in a dropdown box as is the practice on many heavily trafficked ecommerce sites. We believe this functionality will help shoppers more quickly and easily discover items of interest on Etsy.   We're also dedicated to improving the overall search experience by focusing on improved handling of misspelled search terms, the page shoppers see when they perform a search with no results, and more.

Checkout

We remain focused on making Checkout as easy as possible for all Etsy buyers, especially new buyers. We're working on a project we call Guest Checkout, which will enable new buyers to check out on Etsy without first choosing a username and registering on the site. This type of functionality exists on many ecommerce sites and is generally an expected option for shoppers. By introducing it on Etsy, we intend to remove hurdles in the Etsy Checkout process.

International

Many buyers and sellers have asked for an easier way to communicate prices in currencies other than U.S. dollars. We plan to introduce a currency calculator on item pages so that shoppers can quickly (and without leaving the page) calculate prices in currencies other than U.S. dollars. The actual transactions will still occur in U.S. dollars.

Google Product Search

Many Etsy sellers use their Etsy shop RSS feed to schedule uploads of their items to Google Merchant Center, for placement in Google Product Search.

Later this year, Google is changing how sellers on marketplaces like Etsy upload items for placement in Google Product Search, and we're working with Google on a solution that will allow Etsy to automatically upload items from your shops into Google Base if you choose to opt in to the program. This functionality will be launched in beta form to a small group of sellers and will gradually roll out to the entire Etsy seller community. More details on this initiative will be announced soon.

Help

As mentioned in my last update, we have been working to launch a new Help site to make it easier for our members to find information more quickly along with a new set of internal tools for Etsy's Support Team. We’re pleased to report that this is about ready to launch. Please stay tuned to Etsy’s blog, The Storque, the new Community Hub, and to the Forums for further details.

Updates From the Etsy Product Team

We’re delighted to welcome Michael Craig to the team. Michael joins us as our design director focusing on user experience design. Among other things, he will focus on creating design standards for the site. Welcome, Michael, a.k.a. mcraig71!

We’re also thrilled to welcome two new babies to the team. Congrats to Beth, a.k.a. bethela, on the birth of her very cute son, Rowan! (MCR, who heads up Etsy's Sys Ops Team, and his wife also had a boy!)

We love to hear from you. You can find the Product Team on Etsy:

Sean is sean11
Tom is kutty
Eric is ericds
Beth is bethela
Amy is amydec
KC is okaysee
Jen is jendoo
Michael is mcraig71
And I’m saralouhicks

Lastly, but most importantly, we appreciate all of your input that you provide in the Forums, Storque blog comments, and in emails to Etsy’s Support Team regarding improvements and suggestions for the site. We take the suggestions from our community as one of the greatest considerations in determining our product roadmap, and we’re personally committed to make progress against them. We understand that it may seem that many long-requested features have not been prioritized, but we want to stress that we are listening, we appreciate your suggestions, and we are making progress.

There’s more ahead so please stay tuned. I’ll be back at the beginning of the year with another Talking Product post that provides an overview of our priorities for 2010. As always, your feedback is important, so I look forward to a continued dialogue around our priorities.   Thanks!

All About Etsy FAQ: Welcome to the Community Hub

2009-10-09T16:00:00-05:00

Today we're excited to unveil your new Community Hub!

There's a lot going on in the Etsy community on any given day — at any given moment. This page is designed to gather together the main streams of activity so you can see the latest at a glance. You can participate in any way you want. We hope you'll join us!

The Community Hub is linked in the main Etsy top navigation bar found on every page on our site — just click on Community. If you want to bookmark it, use this url: http://community.etsy.com

From the Community Hub you can:

get quick updates about goings-on
access the Forums and Chat (there's also a "From the Forums" feed with some of the latest topics)
pop into the Virtual Labs for real-time, interactive events
reach the Teams pages on Etsy, where groups of members self-organize
jump to The Storque, Etsy's blog, where we post content ranging from shopping to seller how-to's
check out the Resources pages for helpful tools and graphics
join in community shopping polls with the Voter

Social networking has taken off in the Etsy community, so we're streaming in our Twitter feed. We're also providing you with the links to our other social networking pages, such as Facebook, and our media feeds, such as YouTube, Flickr, and iTunes (coming soon). There's much to explore, so dive in!

For upcoming events, check out the calendar embedded on the page.

Stay tuned for more improvements to some of these pages. We'd love to hear your feedback, so please share your thoughts in the comments below.

UPDATE: Due to some limitations we had to remove the top links from the new Community Hub (e.g. Cart, Sign In, Favorites, Conversations, etc.). If you are Signed In to Etsy when you visit the Community Hub you will still be Signed In even without the top links. We understand that this is a confusing experience and longer term we hope to find a solution to improve this. In the meantime, you can always go to www.etsy.com to view your top links.

Read more posts in the All about Etsy FAQ Series | Visit the Community Hub

Etsy and SEOMoz: Helping the Etsy Community with Search Engine Optimization

2009-08-10T16:30:00-05:00

UPDATE: Join us for the first in a series of workshops with Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, a well-known search engine optimization consultancy. Rand will provide an understanding of SEO tactics, give tips to increase your Etsy Shop's visibility in search engine results, and take questions.
When? August 14, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET
Where? Etsy's interactive online classrooms, the Virtual Labs.

[The following was originally posted on July 21, 2009.]

We are pleased to announce that we have hired SEOmoz, a well-known search engine optimization consultancy, to assist in helping Etsy and its sellers to increase their visibility in search engine results. SEOmoz will work with us in the coming months on a comprehensive SEO strategy as well as an implementation plan.

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz’s co-founder and CEO, is a renowned SEO expert and has spoken around the world on SEO topics. We wanted you to meet him and hear from him directly as he begins his work with Etsy. Without further ado, here’s Rand.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by some of Etsy's staff, asking for my assistance. They explained to me that a lot of folks in the community have been thinking about search engine traffic and how Google, Yahoo!, Bing, & Ask.com can help drive business to their stores.

I was only too happy to help. After all, Etsy had been a crucial resource in one of the most important days of my life: my wedding. My wife's headpiece, the fascinators that her bridesmaids wore, and even her garter were from Etsy. She told me that she wanted something special that she could pass down to our children — not something mass-produced and sold at the mall. Etsy was her answer. Her experience was incredibly positive, and since then, Etsy's role in our lives has grown — from birthday presents to thank-you gifts to the holidays, Etsy has helped us time and again.

I know the value of Etsy, and all of the amazing creations that are offered on the site. But how could I get that message out to the millions of shoppers on the web? More importantly, how can I empower Etsy sellers with the skills they need to get the message out themselves? I've faced some of these same struggles myself — I started my SEO company with my Mom, out of a tiny office in Seattle. We were responsible for everything — managing finances, making sure we had satisfied customers, and having a steady stream of business coming into the company. It's very similar to what a lot of Etsy sellers have to do.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Some Etsy sellers are very familiar with the term, and others aren't. My goal is to help everyone. There's a lot of misconceptions about SEO — some people think it's black magic or random luck. But like my friend Susan's perfectly knitted creations, it's more of an exact science combined with a dash of creative marketing. You start with some raw materials, and bit by bit, intricately weave them together to create something amazing — you just need to understand how all the pieces come together.

In order to do that, you need to know a bit about how search engines work to rank documents. The process can be complicated, but there are a few important things to remember:

Search engines rely on the use of keywords — the words and phrases people type into search engines — as indicators of relevance. Employing the right terms in the right places is a basic tenet of good SEO, but it's important not to go overboard or appear manipulative.
What you say about yourself is valuable, but when Google was conceived in 1999, they realized that what others say about you is both more credible and more useful for producing relevant results. Thus, the engines in the past 10 years have turned to links as a huge part of the algorithms they employ to rank the search listings. If many unique websites link to your page, you're viewed as a more credible, relevant result.
The engines don't just look at individual pages, they look at entire domains. If you've ever noticed low quality, half-empty pages from Wikipedia taking over the top rankings, you've observed this phenomenon in practice. Search engine algorithms have evolved to measure "trust" and "reliability" on a domain-wide basis, and thus, Etsy.com is a very exciting opportunity. Every member of the Etsy site who points a link to their shop and every news article on the web that links to Etsy.com helps every one of us rank a little bit better. In the SEO world, we call this phenomenon "the rising tide lifts all ships," and it works in precisely this fashion — the rising tide of Etsy, through the traffic that comes to the site and the links it earns, means that every page has a better opportunity to earn traffic.

So, as an Etsy seller, what can you do to optimize your page and get more business? There are a few quick tips I'll share now, but it's my goal to get a comprehensive "Etsy Guide to SEO" online in the weeks to come.

Research Keywords

Google offers a great tool for researching terms and phrases that people are searching for in their engine. By typing in a few words and phrases that relate to your products, you can see what keywords have higher and lower degrees of search volume. Remember that high volume keywords are going to be harder to rank well for, so taking advantage of the "low hanging fruit" can be a great tactic.

Get Links

Many of us have personal websites or blogs and networks of friends, colleagues and family who operate websites as well. Creating links to your products and stores is a terrific way of boosting your rankings and it also encourages direct traffic who will come through those links and see your work.

Read the Ranking Factors

Every two years, SEOmoz runs a survey of the world's top SEO minds, asking for their opinions about what factors matter most for high rankings. This collection of data is available here — SEOmoz's Search Engine Ranking Factors — and a new version is only a couple weeks away. If SEO is important to you, take a few minutes to browse through — while the engines use hundreds of factors to determine rankings, only the top 10-20 are really important to worry about.

Great SEO doesn't happen overnight, and the constant evolution and myriad of issues make it a challenging subject to master. But over the weeks and months to come, I (and possibly a few other staff members from SEOmoz) will be participating in the Etsy community and working hard behind the scenes to give us all the best possible opportunity to succeed.

What's impressed me most about Etsy is the sincerity of the site. Everyone puts their greatest creations forward, and stands behind their work. It's something I intend to do as well. Etsy has been a great part of my life, and I can't wait to spread the word to even more people through the power of SEO.

Sincerely,
Rand (a.k.a. randfish)

Thanks to Rand for his thoughtful contributions to the future of SEO here at Etsy. As Rand noted, a comprehensive "Etsy Guide to SEO" will be available in the coming weeks. We will provide further details here in our blog once this is available.

As always, we appreciate your feedback and suggestions. We'll close comments here so we can follow discussion in this Forum thread.

Kind regards,
Sara (a.k.a. saralouhicks)

West Coast Etsians, Let's Get Together

2009-07-02T18:00:00-05:00

It's already July, and we're heading out West! Come visit Etsy at Renegade Craft Fair in Los Angeles (July 11th-12th) or San Francisco (July 18th-19th). We'll have a booth at both events and will be giving away lots of Etsy goodies, promos and maybe even holding a raffle or two. If you haven't been to a Renegade Craft Fair before, they are tons of fun, and many of your favorite Etsy artists will be vending.

But we can't go all the way to California and not visit a few more cities on the West Coast while we're there! If you're in or near Seattle, Vancouver, or Portland, we're heading to your town and would love to get together. Come to an Etsy meet up! We'll be answering questions about the site, talking about the future and listening to all your ideas (and eating snacks and having fun while we do it).

Etsy West Coast Tour - Please click here to RSVP for the cities below

July 11 — Los Angeles meet up with Sara and Anda, 8pm at the Veranda Bar of the Figueroa Hotel. We'll be at Renegade Craft Fair until 7pm, and the Figueroa is a short walk away. If you're vending at the Fair, stop by afterward to unwind and chat with us!

July 13 — Seattle meet up with Maria, Matt and Anda, 6pm at Greenwood Collective

July 14 — Vancouver meet up with Maria, Matt and Anda, 7pm at the Cambrian Hall

July 16 — Portland meet up with Matt and Anda, 7pm at the Doug Fir Lounge

See you out West this July! Post in the comments if we'll see you there!

See More Posts about Etsy Meet Ups

Talking Product: Etsy Site Feature Priorities for 2009

2009-07-01T19:00:00-05:00

Hi friends,

Following up on our recent Talking Shop podcast, I want to provide a few operational updates from the Etsy Product Team. We are excited to summarize what we’ve accomplished since my last Talking Product update and to provide a glimpse into the priorities for the second half of the year.

So, what have we accomplished in the last few months?

Search
As I noted in my last update, Search is our top priority for 2009. We made enhancements to Search designed to improve the Etsy shopping experience:

We simplified the Search drop down menu and launched an Advanced Search option.
We gave shoppers new options to sort search results by Most Relevant and filter by "ship to country."

Checkout
We’ve been working to make clarifications and improvements to the Etsy checkout process, and we launched several updates in the past few months to make it easier for shoppers to purchase on Etsy:

We made improvements to the Etsy checkout process.
We added the suffix “USD” across the site to notify users that our prices are listed in US dollars.

Seller Tools
We launched beta versions of two new features frequently requested by sellers: a new shipping tool which includes regional shipping options for Europe and the ability to rearrange items in your shop. We’re making a few updates to these features based on feedback we received during testing, and we will be rolling these new features out to everyone in July.

Payments
We provided sellers with the ability to pay their Etsy bill with PayPal. This was a highly requested feature for many sellers, and we hope many of you have opted in to use this new service.

Showcase
We gave Etsy Category pages a fresh new look, making Category Showcases more prominent. We also launched Subcategory Showcases for Jewelry and Art.

Sharing
We made it easier to share your Favorites and share Etsy with your friends on Facebook.

Developer Community
Lastly, we also launched the Etsy Developer Community and API and have seen some exciting applications enabled by it. Our Handmade Code series on Etsy’s blog, The Storque, has featured a number of them, including Craft Cult, Etsy Hacks, ColorMatch by 26OliveStreet and the “Etsy Addict” iPhone application.

What’s in store for the remainder of 2009?

Our top focus continues to be on helping shoppers find and discover unique items and making it easier for them to check out. Here are some further details on our top priorities going into the second half of the year:

Search and Browsing
Search remains our top priority. One important area of focus will be improving the category structure and introducing category-specific search refinements for shoppers.

As part of the improvements to our category structure, you will see in the coming months updates to certain categories. We’ve been working closely with sellers in specific categories to understand the best taxonomy for these areas, and we look forward to launching these updates.

Adding category-specific search refinements means, for example, if a buyer is searching or browsing for a sweater, we want to make it easier for them to refine their choices by options like size and color. In order to do this we will need to enhance the item listing process and update our category taxonomy. We think these enhancements will provide much needed improvements to finding, discovering and buying on Etsy.

These are very large undertakings as listing, tagging, searching and browsing are at the core of our site experience. Improvements will occur over time, and we will do our best to communicate major changes.

Checkout
As mentioned in my last update, we are working on “inline registration” (in other words, letting first-time buyers check out on Etsy without forcing them to confirm their registration first). The goal is to make it easier for first-time buyers to check out on Etsy. This will be launching before the end of the summer using a new A/B testing framework. This A/B test will give us the ability to launch this new functionality to only a small percentage of our users, while a majority of members will still experience the existing functionality. This allows us to monitor performance and feedback before launching to everyone. We’ll provide further details as we get closer to launch.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
We are committed to implementing and sharing SEO best practices with our community. To that end, in addition to our own ongoing efforts, we are hiring SEO specialists to work with us on a comprehensive strategy as well as implementation plan. We're working to formalize an agreement with these specialists and will be sharing additional details in the coming weeks.

Community
We will be launching in the next couple months a redesign of the Community main page. The goal of this redesign is to provide better access to information to the community about important news, events and activities occurring on Etsy.

Help
Improving customer support is top of mind for us at Etsy. We will be updating our internal systems and processes in the coming months to provide better support to our members. This includes updating our Help pages to make it easier for members to find information more quickly.

There’s more ahead so please stay tuned. I’ll continue to provide regular quarterly updates on our progress as well as upcoming projects. As always, your feedback is important, so I look forward to a continued dialogue around our priorities. Please post your comments below.

Thanks,

Sara, a.k.a saralouhicks

Talking Shop Posts | Tech Updates

Talking Shop with Etsy Admin: Chad Dickerson, Sara Hicks, Matt Stinchcomb & Maria Thomas

2009-06-11T18:00:00-05:00

Hi All,

Thanks for listening to this podcast (otherwise known as online audio files) and for participating on Etsy. We asked for your questions in the comments of this post, and below we've embedded audio files with our responses. We are creating a written transcript of the audio files as well. With each response, we've clustered related links if you'd like to further explore a resource we refer to in our remarks.

We’ve done our best to provide context to your questions. As we listened to our remarks in their entirety, we of course thought, “Oh, we should have mentioned this” or “We could have been clearer about that.” Alas, we’re posting the audio and hoping that — along with our "ums and uhs" — you find this information helpful.

If your question was not answered, you may convo us, and we’ll do our best to answer. Please understand that many of us receive quite a few convos so our response time may not be instantaneous.

Thank you for buying and selling on Etsy.

Maria Thomas, Etsy's CEO

- Intro (download transcript)

Ideas Forums — Where members can suggest ways to improve Etsy.
Virtual Labs — Look for Newbie Chats, Community Chat with Matt, Shop Critiques, Team Meetings, and more.
Meet ups with Etsy Admin — Opportunities for Admin and members to meet face-to-face with each other.

Matt Stinchcomb, Etsy's VP of Community

- Advertising and marketing (download transcript)

Etsy in the Press — Our monthly round ups of major coverage.
Cooperative Advertising Program — Previously, we had more partners, but due to the economy and shifting media practices, CRAFTzine is now just online and no longer has a print version, and Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion is no longer published.
Handmade Moment — Etsy's video contest running throughout summer of 2009. Get involved!
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) — Learn more in our Marketing posts.
Team Grants — Etsy's program to assist creative, dedicated and energetic Teams with financial resources.
Guest Curators and Shop Live hosts, such as:
- Joy Behar of The View
- Rosie O'Donnell, Rosie's Broadway Kids charity
- Eddie Ross, of Bravo's Top Design
- and many more!
Holiday underwriting on NPR (National Public Radio sponsorship) — Some forum threads with reactions:
- http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6041353
- http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5889566
An example of another Etsy initiative designed to help promote the site and sellers:
- http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6130439

Sara Hicks, Etsy's VP of Product Development

- Seller tools (download transcript)

Tech Updates — Find out about new and improved site features through this featured column. Recent announcements include:
- Rearrange Your Shop — beta test of a new seller tool coming soon.
- Beta Test of Shipping Regions Tool — beta test of a new seller tool coming soon.
- Pay Your Etsy Bill with PayPal
- Etsy Web Analytics (Google Analytics for Your Etsy Shop)
Talking Product with Sara.

- Shopping site features

Search — Ongoing, iterative improvements to this site feature. Recent announcements include:
Checkout — Ongoing, iterative improvements to this site feature.
Favorites — Ongoing, iterative improvements to this site feature.

Maria

- Reselling & Flagging (download transcript)

Resellers on Etsy

Chad Dickerson, Etsy's CTO (Chief Technology Officer)

- Site traffic (download transcript)

Talking Tech with Chad.
Statistics, Surveys, and the monthly Weather Report.
Handmade Code — Our series profiling new applications to come out of the Etsy Developer Community. An API is basically a set of tools that allows third-party developers to build new applications based on the unique data and capabilities provided by, in this case, Etsy.com.

Maria

- Vintage & Supplies (download transcript)

Etsy Finds Vintage — Our blog/email series dedicated to vintage on Etsy.

Matt Stinchcomb, Etsy's VP of Community

- Home page and other curated areas of Etsy (download transcript)

Tune in to Merchandising Desk posts and seller chats.
Treasury How-To's
Photography How-To's, such as:
- Photographing for Success
Voter — FAQs about this interactive site feature.

- How to get your items noticed

Seller Handbook — All our how-to's about selling on Etsy. In particular check out:
- Photography How-To's, like Feature-Friendly Photos
- Social Networking How-to's, such as Etsy's Guide to Blogging
- Google Analytics for your Etsy Shop, which allows you to track traffic to your shop
Etsy Teams — Self-organized groups of members who band together because of a common, interest, craft, location, or marketing philosophy.
Etsy Success email list — Subscribe and get helpful tips delivered to your inbox.

Maria

- Closing remarks (download transcript)

It's been an experiment recording this podcast. We're not sure about the format ourselves, but we'd love to hear your thoughts in this forum thread.

We found all of the items below through Pounce Undiscovered.

San Francisco Etsy Meet Up June 9, 2009

2009-06-08T10:20:00-05:00

REMINDER: We can't wait to see you tomorrow! Please RSVP if you can come.

[The following was originally published on May 29, 2009.]

Greetings to our Bay Area friends!

As we mentioned in our Summer Tour post, a group of Etsy Admins will be meeting up in San Francisco, California on June 9th, 2009. We will be out in San Francisco for a meeting, and we are very excited to meet any and all interested Etsy members. Admins attending include Maria Thomas, Etsy’s CEO, Sara Hicks, Etsy's VP of Product, Chad Dickerson, our Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Jesse Hertzberg, Director of Business Development, and Carrington Williams, Director of Strategic Finance.

Come on by, say hello, and have some snacks and drinks on us.

If you plan to join us, please RSVP HERE.

Here are the meeting details:

June 9, 2009 – 6:00 p.m.

Crossroads Cafe
699 Delancey Street
San Francisco, CA
(phone) 415-512-5111

Hope to see you all there. Post in the comments if you want to come!

Billing Alert: Clarifications to the Billing Collection Process

2009-03-16T16:30:00-05:00

UPDATE: This article was corrected on March 16, 2009. We have removed the message on the Sign In page about overdue accounts at this time. We have decided to postpone implementing this billing reminder change until later this spring. We will communicate in advance when this will take effect. (The article was originally published on the evening of March 15, 2009.)

Dear sellers,

Beginning at 12:00 am UTC on March 15, 2009 until roughly 4:00 pm UTC, an automated email was sent out to sellers who had not yet paid their Etsy bills. In addition, if those sellers signed in to their Etsy account, they would have seen a similar message on the site. The automated email is a new billing reminder we began using with this month’s billing cycle. By mistake, these overdue notices were sent one day early, as Etsy policy states that a seller has 15 days to submit payment before the account is considered overdue.

We apologize for the confusion caused by the email and the related message on the Sign In page about overdue accounts. We can and will do better to communicate with our seller community. We have made some changes to Etsy billing collection recently that we communicated in December 2008 and again earlier this month, however, the entire process was not clearly communicated. Adding to the confusion, the new reminder email was sent at 12:00 am UTC, which for many sellers in other time zones was still the evening of March 14.

We have removed the message on the Sign In page about overdue accounts at this time. We have decided to postpone implementing this billing reminder change until later this spring. We will communicate in advance when this will take effect.

This article is intended to clarify our billing collection process. Our goal has always been to implement a fair policy, while also recognizing that Etsy relies on collecting fees from our members in order to continue developing and growing our business.

Here are the common questions we’ve seen related to Etsy billing collection:

When does a bill become overdue?
Billing statements are emailed on the 1st day of the month at 12:00 am UTC; these statements detail all the fees incurred by an account for the previous month. There is a payment grace period of 15 days; the balance must be paid in full by 12:00 am UTC on the 16th day of the month (this is the beginning of the day on the 16th). An account not paid in full by that time is considered overdue.

What time zone does Etsy billing use?
Etsy billing operates on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is essentially the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Etsy begins sending monthly billing statements on the 1st day of each. Unpaid bills are considered overdue on the 16th of each month at 12:00 am UTC. To translate 12:00 am UTC on the 16th day of the month into your time zone, please follow these links: March 16, 2009 / April 16, 2009 / May 16, 2009 / June 16, 2009 / July 16, 2009 / August 16, 2009 / September 16, 2009 / October 16, 2009 / November 16, 2009 / December 16, 2009.

Where on the site is this stated? I read something different.
We recognize that we have conflicting information on the site regarding the exact timing of our billing cycles. We will be updating all billing related content on the site to be consistent and accurate.

Why didn’t sellers receive an email stating the changes to the billing process?
We will be sending an email to all registered sellers this week. In that email, we will include the information reviewed here, as well as additional relevant information about Etsy billing.

Will an account be suspended if a seller does not pay their Etsy bill?
Right now, we are not taking this level of action for currently overdue bills. Eventually, yes, as specified in our policies, a seller’s account may be suspended for not paying their bill. This will happen in the future as outlined below. We will communicate in advance of this policy becoming effective, which we anticipate will be later this spring. In addition, the new process will include email reminders and a message on the Sign In page for accounts which are overdue.

Here is how the upcoming changes to the billing process will operate:

Etsy bills are issued for the previous month’s fees. Billing statements are emailed to all seller accounts on the 1st day of the month. There is a payment grace period of 15 days.
If a bill is not paid before 12:00 am UTC on the 16th day of the month, the bill is considered overdue. On the 16th day of the month, an account that has an overdue bill is sent an email reminder and is shown a message at the Sign In that their account is overdue.
An account that is overdue less than 2 months will be sent email billing reminders and see the message at Sign In until payment is made. The account still retains full capabilities.
After 2 months from the date the bill was originally issued, an account that has an overdue bill will lose the ability to list, relist and renew item listings until the balance is brought up to date.
After 3 months from the date the bill was originally issued, an account that has an overdue bill will be closed until the balance is brought up to date.

Do I have to pay if I only owe less than $1.00 USD (between $0.01-$0.99)?
Previously, Etsy only accepted payments of $1.00 or more from sellers. Now that we have implemented PayPal as a means to pay Etsy bills, we ask those owing less than $1.00 to pay their balances in a timely manner, just like other Etsy sellers. If you are billed $0.60, you can now pay $0.60, and you have the option to pay via PayPal.

More details about paying your bill via PayPal can be found in this announcement from March 10, 2009.

What happens to an account when the Etsy bill is 2 months overdue? 3 months overdue?

When the new billing process is in effect, an account that is overdue by 2 months, regardless of amount owed, will lose listing, relisting and renewing abilities.
When the new billing process is in effect, an account that is overdue by 3 months, regardless of amount owed, will be closed.

Why am I receiving errors when paying my Etsy bill with PayPal?
We have investigated these reports. There was an intermittent problem for some sellers over the past weekend. For those who attempted to send an Etsy bill payment via PayPal and received a failure notice, no funds changed hands. Please try again. We believe this issue to be resolved now.

Again, we are very sorry for the confusion and poor initial communication surrounding these changes. Should you have further questions, please email billing@etsy.com.

Talking Product with Etsy’s VP of Product Sara Hicks

2009-03-11T11:50:00-05:00

Hi friends,

Following up on the latest installment of Talking Shop with Maria Thomas, I wanted to provide a few operational updates from the Product Team here at Etsy.

We are excited to talk about what we’ve accomplished so far in 2009 and provide a glimpse into the priorities for the rest of the first quarter of the year (Q1) and into the second quarter of the year (Q2). Consider this the start of an ongoing series of regular updates.

So, what have we accomplished in the last few months?

Web Analytics (via Google Analytics) for Etsy sellers rolled out in January.

In February we introduced the Etsy Developer Community in beta form. We believe the full launch of Etsy’s API will unleash pent-up creativity and many new exciting applications for Etsy sellers and buyers.

We also rolled out three viral marketing tools:
- The first is a “Bookmark and share” feature, which is available on every item listing page, shop page and blog posting. This feature allows you to quickly and seamlessly share your Etsy discoveries on sites like Facebook and Twitter.
- We also updated the Etsy Shop application on Facebook. The Etsy Shop Facebook application is similar to the Etsy mini but it’s specifically for Facebook. More and more buyers and sellers are using Facebook to spread the word about Etsy items and events.
- In early December we made some relatively small but important improvements to the RSS “feeds” available from Etsy. Shop feeds now contain thumbnail images, are available on every item listing page and come pre-formatted for easy upload to Google Base. Scheduling item uploads to Google Base is a great way for sellers to help Google — specifically Google Product Search — find their items. Shoppers will then be able to find sellers' items via the 'Shopping' link on the upper left of any Google search page.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, starting in November and December, you should have noticed speed improvements when searching on Etsy and across the whole site. My colleague, Chad Dickerson, posted a technology update that has more detail on some of these improvements.

And, here are a few items we said we were going to deliver but, for various reasons, we opted to defer for the time being. We haven’t abandoned these items completely, but we have shifted some priorities. When we have further details on timing for these important initiatives I’ll be sure to let you know.

We have not yet introduced new tools for Etsy Teams as Maria outlined in her November 2008 Talking Shop article. This is something we know is important and intend to provide, but as Matt Stinchcomb recently explained in an Etsy Teams Virtual Lab, we have a few more urgent priorities in front of us first (I’ll mention those in a minute).

We did not roll out the Super Etsy Mini as described in Matt’s holiday marketing plan post. We realized that the Super Etsy Mini was probably trying to do too much, so we’ve gone back to the drawing board and are working on a broader “widget” development plan.

Now, where are we headed? As Maria said in her post, “2009 is a time to keep our heads down, replenish the soil, and focus on making better the basic elements of the site.” Here are some further details on our top priorities going into the second quarter of the year:

Search

Search is our top priority for 2009. We understand that Search is vital to your business and though we expect to make changes throughout the year, we won’t launch any surprises. We will test, preview, and communicate before we make significant alterations to Search. This week, Product Manager Sean Flannagan posted an article about our plans for Search. We anticipate numerous updates to Search throughout 2009 with the goal of improving the experience for both buyers and sellers. Many more details can be found in Sean’s article and we will provide additional details, in the form of Virtual Lab events, Blog articles, and Forum posts, as we get closer to each new feature.

Payments

Yesterday we launched new functionality enabling sellers to pay their Etsy bills with PayPal. Many sellers have asked for this, and we hope many opt in (sellers, this means you can use PayPal if you want, but you also have the option to use a credit card).

We’ve also evaluated our collection policies for sellers' Etsy bills. The result of this evaluation was announced in December and will go into effect in March 2009. Etsy relies on collecting fees from our members in order to continue developing and growing our business. The majority of Etsy sellers do pay their bills promptly and in full, and for that, we are very thankful. However, there are also some sellers who allow their bills to become overdue and these new policies are intended to help Etsy collect its fees from those sellers.

Checkout

You will see more clarifications and improvements to the Etsy checkout process in March and throughout 2009. We understand that Etsy’s checkout process (and the text we use to guide buyers through it) can be confusing, especially because items are marked as “sold” in Etsy’s catalog in a separate step from the payment processing. In March, we will be clarifying language around this process. In the coming months we will be working to better clarify the functional elements of the overall process, including introducing inline registration (i.e. letting first-time buyers checkout on Etsy without forcing them to confirm their registration first).

Safety, Security, and Trust

We continue to focus on creating a vibrant marketplace that is built on the principles of safety, security, and trust. While it may not always be possible for Etsy to disclose its fraud deterrence practices, you can have confidence that we are doing everything to make sure buyers and sellers on our marketplace are safe and community places like the Forums, Chat, Virtual Labs remain meaningful. Etsy takes these issues very seriously and thus we continue to update our infrastructure to keep fraudulent behavior off of our site.

Showcase

In March you will see improvements to the design of Etsy’s Category pages and, more specifically, the design of the Category Showcase promotional modules at the top of those pages. Our goal is to make these promotional slots more relevant and attractive to Etsy shoppers.

In the coming months, we are looking to expand Showcase placements to other relevant areas of our site to provide more opportunities for sellers to gain additional exposure. Again, more details will be provided as we get closer to launching these updates.

Seller Tools

I know that there are certain seller tools that are critical to managing your shops. According to many of the forum threads and support emails I’ve read, being able to rearrange items in your shop should be at the top of the list. We are going to provide some tools to let you do this in the next month.

Site Performance

This is listed last, but site performance is one of the features that we always keep on our minds here at Etsy. As mentioned above, Chad’s article details our progress in this area.

There’s much more ahead so please stay tuned. I’ll be back with regular updates on what we’ve accomplished from this list and what else we have lined up for the remainder of the year. As always, your feedback is important, so I look forward to a continued dialog around our priorities. Please post your comments in this forum thread (we'll close commenting here to consolidate discussion).

Thanks,

Sara

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Improvements to Search

2009-01-07T13:01:00-05:00

UPDATE: Our new Search system is now live! Please post in this forum thread with your comments.

This week we are replacing Etsy’s existing search technology with Solr, an industry-leading, open-source search system. Solr is currently in use by major consumer sites like Netflix as well as important e-commerce sites like Zappos. We believe it will provide Etsy the foundation to scale in terms of both speed and functionality.

You may recall that Maria Thomas, Etsy’s CEO, recently mentioned that we are going to be focusing on Search in 2009 and that we intend to orient Etsy’s search function more to buyers’ needs. This first phase launch of Search is the first in what we expect to be a series of improvements to Etsy’s search function throughout the year.

For this initial launch we primarily focused on improving the speed with which search results are returned on Etsy. We believe you’ll notice immediate and significantly faster results, though specific return times will vary based on your location and type of connection.

In addition to speed improvements, the Solr technology is smarter than our old search technology in how it handles certain queries. A specific improvement worth mentioning is the way in which the new system handles searches containing compound words. In our old system, a search for “notecards” would bring up items containing “notecards” in the tag, title or description field, but items containing only “note cards” (two separate words) would not show up in results. With our new search system, searches containing compound words like “notecards” or “hairbows” return all associated items.

There’s no need to make any updates to your item descriptions and tags to accommodate these improvements but this launch is a great time to remind sellers about the importance of accurate tags, titles and descriptions. You can find more info on how to best tag items in these tagging how-tos. We will be holding a Tagging Workshop in the Virtual Labs on Wednesday at 5pm (Eastern).

Future phases of Search will include upgrades to the relevancy and ranking of the results. The way current search results are displayed (ranking) is based on chronology (most recently listed items first). We believe that Etsy buyers will be better served by a system that takes into account both ranking and relevance in a way that helps them find items they’re looking for according to various criteria by category. And, for those buyers who may not know what they're looking for, we also hope to introduce later in 2009 tools to foster discovery based on all the hearting and curating that takes place across the Etsy community every day.

While our main goal with Search is to help buyers find what they’re looking for, we are mindful that sellers want various options to promote their items on Etsy. Redesigning the search function and creating new ways for sellers to advertise on Etsy are two important initiatives that are in the works for the first half of 2009.

Our new Search system will be launching later this week; we will update this post when it’s actually live. We look forward to your feedback. Please post in this forum thread with your comments.

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.