Search results (tags) for: "checkout"

Tech Update: New Checkout Updates

2009-09-24T19:20:00-05:00

As we mentioned in the previous Checkout Update, we're working to make Checkout a simpler, smoother process for shoppers, and we are rolling changes out gradually to make sure they improve buyer conversion. ("Conversion" is the percentage of shoppers who complete Checkout.) Improving buyer conversion helps more shoppers get a taste of Etsy and leads to more orders for Etsy sellers. In short, more happy Etsy members!

Today we're rolling out a change to a small percentage of Etsy traffic that removes non-essential elements from the header of Checkout pages, to make the process clearer and faster. Simplifying the page header in the Checkout process is an e-commerce practice used by many great shopping sites, such as Amazon and Apple.

Here's a preview of the shipping information page with a simplified header:

We're going to see if this change makes it easier for shoppers to complete Checkout, and we'll make adjustments as we learn more. If we're certain the changes improve the Checkout experience for shoppers, we'll roll the changes out to all of Etsy's traffic.

We'll update this post as we learn more.

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.

PayPal Workshop in Etsy's Virtual Labs

2009-09-17T10:22:00-05:00

On August 31, 2009, PayPal customer service representatives Deb and Tim hosted a live Virtual Labs chat to answer sellers' questions about PayPal and walk Etsy sellers through some of the features and tools that PayPal offers. If you missed the workshop, you can watch clips below and check out the links that were shared by the PayPal team.

1: Verifying Payment

How do you know you received payment from a buyer? Tim walks you through the multiple ways to find out. You can even use PayPal's download log feature to view your transactions in a spreadsheet or in software like Quicken or Quickbooks. For more information: Downloadable History.

2. Shipping and Seller Protection

Tip: When shipping on your PayPal invoice is incorrect, it's often a problem in your PayPal account settings. If you need to revise the invoice for the customer, go to your PayPal account and click on "request money."
Then, be sure to enable transaction-based override:
    1.    Log in to your account at http://www.paypal.com/.
    2.    Go to My Account > Profile > Shipping calculations (in the Selling Preferences column)
    3.    Select the Shipping Method and click Edit
    4.    Select Yes for "Use the shipping fee in the transaction instead of my calculator's settings" and press Save Changes.
Please note that if you have not set up any Shipping Calculations in PayPal, the default is to override shipping methods per transaction. (You should not need to change anything.)

3. Types of PayPal Accounts

Ever wonder whether you should upgrade to a Premium or Business PayPal account? Tim explains the benefits of each account. Helpful Links: PayPal Account Types & Which account is right for you?

4. Refunds

Want to know how to send a full or partial refund through PayPal? Or how fees work when refunding payment? Watch the video above. Helpful link: How to Send a Refund.

If you have another PayPal question that wasn't answered here you can probably find an answer in one of three ways:

PayPal Help Center
Ask Sarah — an automated PayPal customer service rep
Contact PayPal by phone or email

Want to attend a Virtual Labs workshop? Learn more about our online meeting space here.

Listen to the audio podcast of Deb Popek's last PayPal Virtual Lab here: Seller How-To: PayPal Coming to Etsy Virtual Labs!

Etsy's PayPal FAQs | PayPal Tips for Sellers | Etsy's Seller Handbook

Tech Update: Checkout Updates and Buyer Conversion

2009-08-27T16:20:00-05:00

UPDATE: In the post below, we described testing improvements to the registration process for first-time Etsy buyers. For the last few weeks, we've been testing in-line registration, which enables first-time buyers to register as a part of Checkout instead of having to leave Checkout to complete registration. We're happy to announce that our tests showed that in-line registration resulted in more first-time Etsy buyers completing Checkout, and we have now rolled in-line registration out to 100% of Etsy's traffic.

Here's to making it painless for shoppers to check out on Etsy! We still have many more changes in mind, so stay tuned as we continue to improve this aspect of the site.

[The following was originally published July 22, 2009.]

As we move into the latter half of 2009, one of Etsy's main projects is to update Checkout in order to make it a smoother, simpler experience for shoppers. Here among Etsy's Product Team, this is part of what we call "improving buyer conversion." Buyer conversion is simply the percentage of buyers who both start and complete Checkout. The higher the conversion rate, the more shoppers are buying from you!

For example, one of the improvements we are working on has to do with first-time buyers on Etsy. Often, first-time buyers have not yet registered for Etsy, and so it's during Checkout that they first encounter the membership requirement. In other words, they are required to both register and check out to complete their first purchase. We know we can make sign-up during Checkout more convenient for shoppers (and therefore good for Etsy sellers).

We will roll out these changes gradually, using an A/B testing framework, which Sara, Etsy's VP of Product, described in her recent post. This A/B testing framework 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. Therefore we can compare the two and quantify the effectiveness of the new process. Once we optimize the best way of flowing through the process, we will roll out these improvements to all of Etsy's traffic.

Looking to the future, we have additional improvements for conversion that we will test and implement between now and October 2009. If you have suggestions on how we can improve conversion for buyers on Etsy, please visit this associated Forum thread.

P.S. If you would like to receive 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: Checkout Updates

2009-04-14T16:20:00-05:00

Checkout is a core experience on Etsy, one which we are working to improve. Our goals for Checkout are to make it easy for buyers to purchase items on Etsy and to reduce the occurrence of buyers who complete Checkout on Etsy but do not complete payment on PayPal.

Today, we completed the first phase of updating the Etsy Checkout process. This first phase consists of improving messaging. Our changes include:

Updating the language on each page of Checkout to better inform buyers on the steps required to checkout.
Changing the wording on the third page of Checkout. This page is now messaged to the buyer as the "Final Review" page. Also, the button to continue is now called "Commit To Buy" — driving home the point that they still need to pay, whether with PayPal or any other method.
Updating the design of the last page of Checkout. See below for a screenshot. When using PayPal, we now tell the buyer how many payments are remaining and clearly provide a payment status on each item.

Looking into the future, we are planning a number of improvements to the Checkout process. For now, we hope you check out the new Checkout as you're checking out with some great handmade and vintage items!

TechUpdates | Shopping Posts | Explore all the fun ways to shop on Etsy

Tech Updates: Beta Release of Etsy Bill Payment with PayPal

2009-03-03T18:37:00-05:00

UPDATE: This feature is now live! Read about it here.

Sellers,

Today, Etsy is kicking off a beta test of functionality that allows sellers to pay their Etsy bills via PayPal. Many of you have asked to be able to pay your Etsy bills with PayPal. International sellers in particular overwhelmingly prefer PayPal as a method of payment, and sellers have told us it would be convenient to pay their Etsy bill with the same PayPal account they use to collect payments from sales on Etsy.

A small group of Etsy sellers will begin testing this functionality today. Once we have their feedback, we will communicate more details about the timing of a full launch. Details will be announced here on the Etsy Blog, in the Etsy Forums and to the Etsy News email list.

We have also updated the Etsy-to-PayPal experience: Etsy branding has been incorporated into the PayPal checkout pages linked from Etsy. This is designed to reduce buyer confusion during checkout. Now, when a buyer is sent to PayPal from Etsy during the Etsy checkout process, the Etsy logo will be visible at the top of the pages where the payment is made. We think this will help lessen the confusion experienced by some new buyers on Etsy, as we've seen in user testing, research, survey results and feedback from the community.

See how-tos about using PayPal.

More enhancements to the Etsy checkout process are in the works, and we will communicate further details about them as they near completion.

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 Updates: Etsy Shopper Survey Results & Payment Enhancements

2008-12-18T17:45:00-05:00

A big thank-you to everyone who took our brief Shopper Survey! We've been working on a number of important payments-related enhancements and your feedback is critical. These surveys are a fast and efficient way to get structured feedback from many of you; they complement our usability testing, traffic analyses and financial metrics.

We wanted to share some of the results of this survey with you:

In the five days that the survey was offered, we received close to 3,000 responses from shoppers throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, Aruba, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Thailand! Clearly, the Etsy community is global, and one of our follow-up surveys in the New Year will focus more on international buyers and sellers.

PayPal was the overwhelming current preferred method of payment, with 90% of respondents preferring to log in directly to PayPal to make purchases, rather than to not log in and use a credit card processed by PayPal (PayPal calls this 'Guest Checkout').

In response to our question about future methods of payment, PayPal was also the winner by a 40% margin over the other possibilities presented: credit cards processed by Etsy, credit cards processed by PayPal, Direct Debit, Google Checkout and Amazon Payments.

Etsy's site search was the number-one way respondents said they find items on Etsy. As noted recently by VP of Product Management Sara Hicks, we're working hard to make improvements so stay tuned. Browsing categories and Favorites were the next most popular ways to find items on Etsy.

Speaking of Favorites, 95% of respondents said they actively add items to their Favorites and 50% said they add items to their Favorites almost every time they visit Etsy. 75% of respondents said they regularly purchase items they've added to their Favorites. We knew Favorites were important and this was a welcome confirmation.

We also received many thoughtful responses to the open-ended survey questions about Etsy's current checkout process and overall shopping experience. The responses ran the gamut from "Everything is amazing!" to "It's terrible! Fix it!" Many respondents said they found the jump to PayPal during checkout confusing at first. We're going to be incorporating Etsy branding into the PayPal checkout pages linked from Etsy to lessen the confusion experienced by some new buyers.

And as noted last month by CEO Maria Thomas, we're going to be offering sellers the option to pay their Etsy bill using PayPal in the coming weeks. These enhancements are a small part of a comprehensive look at all payments processes on Etsy. Improving the checkout process and shopping experience on Etsy is one of our major focus projects for 2009.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey. We're reading and listening and putting your constructive feedback to work.

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.

Etsy Shopper Survey

2008-11-25T19:01:00-05:00

Attention Shoppers!

We want to make the shopping experience better on Etsy and we need your help. We value your input and would love to gain some insight into your experience of Etsy's current checkout process, how you find what you want to buy, and how you prefer to pay for your purchases.

If you've ever purchased on Etsy, please take our brief Shopper Survey. It'll take three minutes! This survey will only be live until Sunday night, November 30, 2008, so please don't delay!

UPDATE: The survey is now closed. Thanks for participating!

Tech Updates: Favorites in Your Shopping Cart

2008-11-14T10:05:00-05:00

Attention shoppers!

We heart hearts, so as mentioned in CEO Maria Thomas's article last week, we've decided to share the love in a very important corner of the site: checkout. Now, as you begin the checkout process, you can dip into your Favorites and add them to your Cart.

After signing in, look right below your Cart under the checkout button for the last three available items you added to your Favorites:

Click the 'Add to Cart' button on the items in your Favorites to add them to your Cart right away! Want another look before you buy? Click the item images to peruse the listing pages again.

Or, if you decide you can't buy an item then and there, you can move items from your Cart to your Favorites, rather than removing them and forever losing track of the cool stuff you've found—just click the 'Move to Favorites' link next to the items in your Cart. Later, you can come back to your Favorites and purchase when the time is right. But be warned: we all know the sadness of passing on that one-of-a-kind item when we had the chance and finding it sold when we return!

More improvements to the checkout process are in the works—stay tuned.

Thank you for supporting indie artists and crafters this holiday season and beyond. We hope this makes your Etsy shopping experience more convenient!

See more Tech Updates about site features.

Tech Update: Changes to the Final Checkout Page

2008-02-21T17:34:00-05:00

Based on the community's feedback and suggestions, we have been able to make several tweaks to the final checkout page (aka page 4) during the payment process!

The changes break down like this:

The biggest change you will notice is the big green button that says "Pay with PayPal" rather than the former text link.
We changed the text from "total for this order" to "total for this seller."
We changed the text from "Please send all payments now. Remember you have to pay each seller individually" to "Pay each seller individually. Each order is not complete until you pay."
We changed the credit-card-through-PayPal help button to say: "Use PayPal for credit cards. Need PayPal help?"
Changed the text from "view full receipt" to "view full invoice;" this lets the buyer know that they aren't finished yet!
Changed the text and wording of the help guide for payments on the right hand column of the screen.

Here's what it looked like before, in case you forgot:

Thanks again for all of your feedback and suggestions; this is something that we have been working on to create less confusion during the checkout process and less work for our sellers! This would be the perfect time to go buy your most favorite item in your favorites list to see exactly how it works!

xoxo,

Etsy

Tech Update: "How They Found You"

2008-02-08T12:03:00-05:00

Thanks to the community's help and suggestions in the ideas forum, we have been able to add some helpful text during the checkout process. Upon checking out during the "submit order" step in the process, the following text now appears above the text field:

"Message to the seller (optional): Please share how you found this shop, confirm address details, or anything else you'd like to say!"

Now your buyers will be prompted to enter details of how they found your shop or the specific item they purchased from your shop!

This is the perfect opportunity to go buy that item you have been eyeing in your favorites so you can see exactly how it work...Hint hint...

Thanks for another great idea from the community!

Tech Updates: Pay NOW with PayPal

2007-12-06T14:17:00-05:00

We have made some changes to the check out page. It now says "Next step" next to "Pay with PayPal," and has a link to the Storque article that tells you how to pay with a credit card at PayPal, and how to set up a PayPal account. Also, the text "Pay with PayPal," along with the PayPal AND credit card icons link to PayPal.

Previously:

Now:

Buy something now if you wanna see it!