Search results (tags) for: "information"

The Second Etsy Community Council

2009-12-14T16:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: The application process for our second Etsy Seller Community Council is now closed; we'll announce the new members in about two weeks. Thank you to everyone who applied for the first Community Council and for this one!

The Etsy Seller Community Council is a group of members who volunteer to meet with Etsy Admin at least once a month for a period of six months to discuss marketplace enhancements and community offerings. The meetings are held in the Virtual Lab and ongoing communications are facilitated through Google Groups.

We want you to get involved! We are opening up the applications for our Second Community Council today. If you applied for the first round but weren't picked, not to worry. We'll be including those applicants in addition to new ones in the selection process.

Thanks to everyone who applied!

As we did with the first round, we will be selecting the next set of 25 artists by choosing a diverse group of sellers who cover a wide range of success, history, and geography. We will not have access to usernames when going through the selection process. Once selected, we contact each member to confirm that they are still interested.

A huge thank you goes out to the members of our First Community Council, whose tenure just ended! We learned so much from these members and are grateful for the insightful and honest feedback they provided. They're a talented group too! See the items below for some of their work.

Seller Handbook | Handmade Video Portraits

Etsy Statistics: November 2009 Weather Report

2009-12-07T12:29:00-05:00

Etsy's holiday shopping season sprung into full effect during November of 2009. We'd like to share these encouraging numbers with you.

Here are the stats:

$21.9 million of goods were sold by our community in November, roughly 24% higher than October's $18 million.
That represents 1,297,964 items sold for the month, 22% higher than October’s 1,065,475.
1,931,988 new items were listed in the month, 16.4% higher than October's 1,659,220.
246,230 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 43,218, or 21% from October.
680,742,203 page views were recorded on the site this month.

(Sources: Etsy and Google Analytics.)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in November!

Curious about how other months and last year compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Etsy Statistics: October 2009 Weather Report

2009-11-10T16:00:00-05:00

Here are some facts and figures for our marketplace during the month of October 2009.

The stats:

$17.7 million of goods were sold by our community in October; roughly 11% higher than September's $16 million.
That represents 1,065,475 items sold for the month, 10% higher than September’s 967,037.
1,659,220 new items were listed in the month, 8.6% higher than September's 1,527,969.
203,012 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 13,210, or 7% from September.
610,284,313 page views were recorded on the site this month.

(Sources: Etsy and Google Analytics.)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in October!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Being Safe on Etsy: Spotting and Avoiding Advance Fee Fraud

2009-10-26T18:15:00-05:00

It's important for us at Etsy to ensure our community is safe while using the site. Unfortunately there is no foolproof way to ensure safety online at all times. Sometimes all we can do is give information and hope that well informed users will be able to protect themselves. As the Etsy name spreads throughout popular culture and the world, it is bound to attract more and more unscrupulous individuals with ulterior motives. Unfortunately, this happens to web companies as they become more popular.

One of the most common scams is known as Advance-fee fraud. Also called the "Nigerian scam" or the "419 scam," this type of scam is frequently seen in emails where a person claims to be looking to engage in a business deal involving a large some of money, but these scams are now cropping up more and more on online retail sites.

How this scam shows up on Etsy:

Typically this scam begins with the scammer sending out conversations (also known as "convos," Etsy's internal messaging system) to a wide range of Etsy sellers, specifically those that list one or more high priced items. In some cases the scammer may simply purchase a large number of these expensive listings. If they have checked out and committed to buy these listings, it's likely they have not "paid" in any sense and will send a conversation along with their purchase.

The convo will usually indicate that this buyer will pay with a money order or a check and will need to tack on an extra amount for their "shipping agent." Usually this amount is very high — sometimes even higher than the original cost of the listing. If this is agreed upon, then the buyer will send out the money order or check and typically a fake "invoice" from the shipping agent. They will then request that any over-payment from the money order be sent back to them.

This works because the check or money order (typically from an overseas bank) is a forgery. Your bank will allow you to deposit it, and then by the time the bank realizes it is a forgery, you have already sent back the over-payment to the scammer. Once the forgery is detected your bank will hold you liable for the amount, and now that the con artist has their money, you will not hear from them again.

What to do:

If you receive any suspicious convos like this the best thing to do is ignore them and report it to abuse@etsy.com. You can cancel the transaction as well.

Sellers should never send any money in a situation like this, no matter what reason is given. If you do find yourself facing a potential loss, or realize too late that you were being targeted by a scam, be sure to contact your financial institution as soon as possible. You may also want to contact local law enforcement. Again, let us know about this and send us the pertinent information, so we can take steps to remove and block these types of users from our site. Please share this article with your family and friends so we can spread awareness!

More posts about Scams | Seller Handbook

Etsy Statistics: September 2009 Weather Report

2009-10-12T15:16:00-05:00

In this month's edition of the Etsy Weather Report, we share some September 2009 figures with you.

The stats:

$16 million of goods were sold; roughly 7% higher than August's $15 million.
That represents 967,037 items sold for the month, 7% higher than August’s 905,492.
1,527,969 new items were listed in the month, 5% higher than August's 1,454,017.
189,802 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 3,865, or 2% from August.
560,495,644 page views were recorded on the site this month.

(Sources: Etsy and Google Analytics.)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in September! We're keeping close watch on the site as we move into the holiday shopping season.

Curious about how other months compare?
Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Etsy Statistics: August 2009 Weather Report

2009-09-09T14:09:00-05:00

Here is the Weather Report for August, 2009.

The stats:

$15 million of goods were sold; roughly 10% higher than July's $13.6 million.
That represents 905,492 items sold for the month, 10% higher than July’s 824,138.
1,454,017 new items were listed in the month, 8% higher than July’s 1,345,289.
186,000 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 15,000, or 9% from July.
558,114,207 page views were recorded on the site this month, an 8.6% increase from July.

(Sources: Etsy and Google Analytics.)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in August!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Etsy Statistics: July 2009 Weather Report

2009-08-07T14:45:00-05:00

Here is the Weather Report for July, 2009.

The stats:

$13.6 million of goods were sold; roughly 6% higher than June's $12.8 million.
That represents 824,138 items sold for the month, 5% higher than June’s 787,692.
1,345,289 new items were listed in the month, 2% higher than June’s 1,315,547.
171,000 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 14,000, or 9% from June.
513,698,360 page views were recorded on the site this month, a 6.1% increase from June.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in July!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Etsy Statistics: June 2009 Weather Report

2009-07-10T13:45:00-05:00

Here's a report on the numbers we recorded from the Etsy marketplace for June 2009.

The stats:

$12.8 million of goods were sold, roughly 4% lower than May's $13.3 million
That represents 787,692 items sold for the month, 4% lower than May’s 817,070
1,315,547 new items were listed in the month, 0.1% lower than May’s 1,316,977
157,000 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, down 3,000, or 2% from May
484,227,357 page views were recorded on the site this month, a 2.7% decrease from May

Overall, June results were more or less comparable to May’s after factoring in that there are 30 days in June and 31 in May. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in June 2009!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Infographics: One Seller's Visualization

2009-06-18T10:00:00-05:00

When I first heard of Etsy in 2007, through a blog written by my friend, I thought, "This is what I need! I have to join."

Around this time, I was knitting a lot of wrist warmers as gifts for my friends, and eventually everybody around me had wrist warmers, but I wanted to continue knitting. Etsy was the opportunity for me to continue knitting and start selling my wrist warmers. I saw what other sellers were offering, and started experimenting with new patterns and forms; it was a motivation for me to get better at my craft. Then winter was over, my wrist warmers didn’t sell anymore, but I wanted to continue selling on Etsy, so I started to crochet. Etsy was a huge inspiration for me to improve my knitting and crocheting.

And now, after so much knitting and crocheting, after 240 sales, I had a desire to do something else besides showing my goods on Flickr and selling them on Etsy. Thus I started with the first infographic:

I recorded all my knitting and selling activity since January 1, 2009, and incorporated it into the infographic. As you can see, the graphic shows:

1. how long I knitted every day on each piece;
2. how long each piece was posted on Etsy until it sold;
3. where the items was sent to.
Click here for larger image.

That was very interesting to make, so I made a another infographic about all my Etsy sales (pictured at the top of the article). Click here for a larger image.

The graphic shows all 240 sales, sorted by cities and noted on the world map. Originally, I had intended to include time components, but that quickly became too complicated. Maybe that will be next, as I definitely want to continue creating visualizations of my work and Etsy activities!

German version:
Als ich 2007 in dem blog einer Freundin das erste mal von etsy erfahren habe, da dachte ich: das ist es was ich brauche.
Ich habe zu der Zeit viele Pulswärmer gestrickt und meinen Freunden geschenkt.
Irgendwann hatten alle um mich herum Pulswärmer, aber ich wollte weiterstricken.
Etsy war eine tolle Gelegenheit weiterzustricken und die Pulswärmer zu verkaufen; ich sah auch was die anderen Verkäfer anbieten, und habe dann angefangen neue Patterns und Formen auszuprobieren, es war eine Motivation für mich besser zu werden. Dann war aber der Winter vorbei, meine Pulswärmer wurden nicht mehr so richtig gekauft, ich wollte aber auf etsy weitermachen, deswegen habe ich angefangen zu häkeln.
Etsy war also einen große Motivation für mich besser in meiner Strick- und Häkelarbeit zu werden.

Und jetzt, nach so viel stricken und häkeln, nach den 240 verkauften Objekten, hatte ich ein Bedürfnis etwas mehr zu machen, nicht nur Bilder auf Flickr zeigen und zu Verkauf auf etsy anbieten.

Deswegen habe ich meine erste Infografik gemacht:
Infografik
Ich habe in den drei Monaten seit den 1 Januar 09 alle Informationen rund um meine Häkelaktivität notiert.
Und im April setze ich es in eine Infografik um wo man sehen kann:
1. Wie lange ich an jedem Tag gehäkelt habe (und wie lange jedes einzelnes Objekt).
2. Wie lange jedes Objekt auf etsy stand, bis es gekauft wurde.
3. Wohin ich die Objekte gesendet habe.

Es war sehr aufregend diese Visualization zu machen, deswegen habe ich eine weitere Infografik gemacht:
Infografik
Hier sieht man alle meine 240 etsy-Verkäufe, nach Städten sortiert und auf der Weltkarte notiert.

Ursprünglich wollte ich auch die Zeitkomponente in die Infografik einbringen,
doch bei der Zahl der Objekte wäre das zu verwirrend.
Vielleicht mache ich eine Infografik nur mit den Kaufdaten.

Auf jeden Fall möchte ich mit dem Visualisieren meiner Häkel- und Etsyaktivitäten weitermachen.

Statistics Posts | Etsy International Posts

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.

Etsy Statistics: May 2009 Weather Report

2009-06-08T17:00:00-05:00

We'd like to share some information about the marketplace from the past month, May 2009.

The stats:

$13.3 million of goods were sold; roughly 6% higher than April's $12.6 million.
That represents 817,070 items sold for the month, 4% higher than April’s 786,825.
1,316,977 new items were listed in the month, 3% higher than April’s 1,277,442.
159,000 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 5,000, or 4% from April.
497,434,747 page views were recorded on the site this month, a 1% increase from April.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in May!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

P.S. The items below were all found with Pounce Undiscovered!

Etsy Seller Survey: Shipping Address and Order Management

2009-05-19T15:50:00-05:00

Attention Etsy Sellers!

We want to make the selling experience better on Etsy and we need your help. We value your input and would love to gain some more insight into your process regarding shipping procedures and notifications about sales.

If you are an Etsy seller, please take our brief Shipping Address / Order Management Survey. It'll take three minutes!

Click here to take the survey.

The survey closes in one week, so don't delay! And we thank you for your participation!

See related posts about other surveys.

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.

Etsy Shopper Survey: Getting to Know You

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

UPDATE: The Shopper Survey is now closed. A hearty thank you to all the fine shoppers who took the time to share their experiences with us. Now it's time for us to dig into the data!

Attention Etsy Shoppers*!

We already know you’re awesome, but we'd love to hear more!

Today we're launching a Shopper Survey so you can tell us a bit about you, how you interact with Etsy.com, and what more you might want from Etsy in the future. It’s a quick and easy way to share what you’re all about and why you come to Etsy to shop. We want to make sure you have the best experience possible when shopping with us, and that means we need to learn more about you.

Concerned about privacy? We will not share any personally identifying information. Click here for our privacy policy.

So please, help us serve you better and take the Etsy Shopper Survey today. It will take about 5-10 minutes of your time. We expect the survey will close on Friday, May 22 at 12pm EDT, depending on the number of responses received. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.)

Many thanks in advance,
Etsy's Marketing Team

*A note to Etsy sellers: This survey is for Etsy shoppers. We know many of you do shop from your fellow Etsy sellers, in addition to running your own shops. If that's the case for you, please do take the survey and provide feedback on your experiences as a shopper.

Curious about the survey results? Stay tuned; we will share a few highlights from our findings in a follow up post right here on the blog.

Etsy Statistics: April 2009 Weather Report

2009-05-05T14:26:00-05:00

We're tracking Etsy's progress, and we want to share some of the figures with you. Keep in mind that April was one day shorter than March.

The stats for April 2009:

    * $12.6 million of goods were sold; roughly 5% higher than March's $12 million.
    * That represents 786,825 items sold for the month.
    * 1,277,442 new items were listed in the month, 4% lower than March’s 1,321,317.
    * 154,000 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, down 3,000, or 2% from March.
    * 491,876,705 page views were recorded on the site the month of April. That's a 2% decrease from    March.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in April.

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Etsy Statistics: March 2009 Weather Report

2009-04-07T12:20:00-05:00

Etsians, we'd like to share some info relating to the site's March numbers.

The stats:

$12 million of goods were sold; roughly 18% higher than February's $10.2 million.
That represents 788,253 items sold for the month, 16% higher than February’s 682,631.
1,321,317 million new items were listed in the month, 16% higher than February’s 1,140,185.
157,000 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 25,000, or 19% from February.
502,705,157 page views were recorded on the site this month, a 15 % increase from February.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in March!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Etsy Web Analytics: Get It Straight from Google

2009-04-03T16:49:00-05:00

Back in January, we enabled Etsy sellers to access Google Analytics for their shops (see the announcement here). After seeing all the new accounts, the Google Analytics team has gotten in touch to share some resources on how to improve your store's performance with Analytics. Please welcome our guest Sebastian Tonkin, Product Marketing Manager for Google Analytics...

What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free tool that shows you how visitors are interacting with your shop. It can help you do things like:

See which of your items get the most visits.
Identify where your traffic is coming from.
Optimize your marketing and outreach activities.
Find out which keywords on Etsy are sending you visitors.

How do I access my Google Analytics account?
You can enable this feature by going to Your Etsy > Shop Setup > Web Analytics. Or, if you are logged in you can find the link here. After a recent Etsy Virtual Lab, a recap was posted with a useful pdf for Etsy sellers. Visit the Etsy Web Analytics FAQ for Etsy-specific questions.

Resources for learning more:
There's some great material out there about how to use Google Analytics to improve your shop's performance. Here are some good places to get started:

Google Analytics Blog - Advice and tutorials on how to use web Analytics to improve your business online. Back to basics posts happen every Monday.
Youtube Channel - Videos showing how to do common types of analysis, such as the video embedded above.
Help Forum - Get your analytics questions answered.
Seminars for Success - Comprehensive, in-person training on beginner and experts analytics topics.
GAIQ - Get certified in Analytics.

Share your knowledge:
If you are a seller with good tips, please share them in the comments.

More Web Analytics Posts | Etsy Statistics | Seller Handbook

Etsy Seller Payment Survey

2009-03-17T12:19:00-05:00

*Update* The survey has closed as of March 18, 2009. Thanks!*

Attention Etsy Sellers!

We want to make the selling experience better on Etsy and we need your help. We value your input and would love to gain some insight into your experience in accepting online payments for your business and on Etsy.

If you are an Etsy seller, please take our brief Payment Seller Survey. It'll take three minutes!

Click here to take the survey.

The survey closes in one week, so don't delay! Spread the word to your seller friends!

See related posts about other surveys

Web Analytics Recap: Seller Chat in the Virtual Labs

2009-03-13T12:05:00-05:00

Recently, we held a Virtual Lab on the topic of Etsy Web Analytics, which enables sellers to do tracking with Google Analytics. We had a great turnout, with over 100 sellers in attendance. If you were not able to attend, I wanted to recap the top questions and big ideas from the talk.

The big talking point concerned what Google Analytics can do for sellers. It is a powerful tool, but at the end of the day the real power comes from helping you make better decisions about your Etsy shop.

Think of Google Analytics as the pulse of your shop, with the pulse equating to the number of visitors viewing your items. A higher pulse rate means more visitors, and in general more visitors would correlate to more sales for your shop.

Over time your shop will get more or less the same amount of traffic, but what you can do is start to experiment with some basic marketing efforts and use Google Analytics as the yardstick to measure success. Marketing efforts could mean, for instance, using a better set of Etsy tags to describe your item, creating a blog, actively using services such as Twitter or Facebook, or even buying some online advertising. The key question to answer is — which marketing efforts pay off for me? By looking at Google Analytics, it can provide historical data and trending that show you how your marketing efforts drove traffic to your Etsy shop.

Also, to recap the top questions from the talk:

Excluding My IP Address
Many sellers wanted to know how to exclude their own IP addresses from Google Analytics. This is useful since for smaller sellers you yourself are likely to be a top viewer of your own pages. Here is a helpful link on how to exclude your IP address from Google Analytics. If you need to know your IP address, here is a free online tool that shows you your IP address. Note however that for many internet users, their IP address changed periodically (otherwise known as DHCP). Check with your internet service provider if you have a static or dynamic IP address.
Showing Pageviews by Hour
Another popular question was to see how many pageviews a shop got hour by hour. Normally Google Analytics shows views by day. To view by hour, go to the main page (your “Dashboard” view), on the left hand menu click on Visitors, and under Visitor Trending, select Visits. On the right hand side above the graph, you will see gray text that reads “Graph By:” and icon options to click on. The default view will be by “Day,” or the second icon. Select the first icon to the left, which is the “Hour” view.
Referral Traffic
Another popular question was the breakdown of traffic that a user sees as referrals. There are three basic types. The first is "direct" — in other words, traffic that comes directly from a user. This could be a link in an email, or a saved bookmark. The second is "referral" traffic, and this is an actual link on another website that linked to your shop. The third is "search engines." In this case your shop or item information was displayed in a search engine such as Google or Yahoo and that's how the visitor found you.
E-commerce Tracking
Sellers asked if Etsy would enable e-commerce tracking through Google Analytics. While this is on our road map, we are evaluating exactly how this would work in Etsy's marketplace. Remember that during checkout a buyer can purchase from many different sellers, so the tracking of e-commerce is more complicated than just one shop.

Lastly you can download the presentation that was reviewed during the labs called Google Analytics For Sellers Guide.

Thanks to all the sellers who attended. Post in the comments below if you have more helpful tips!

Seller Handbook | Statistics Posts

Etsy Statistics: February 2009 Weather Report

2009-03-06T13:00:00-05:00

February is a short month on days, but not on results for Etsy. We weathered the economic storm and had a great month. As a whole the numbers were a bit lower than January, but considering the fact that we are comparing a 31 day month to a 28 day month, we are very pleased with the results.

The stats:

$10.2 million of goods were sold; roughly 2% higher than January's $9.9 million.
That represents 682,631 items sold for the month, about the same number from January’s stats.
1,140,185 new items were listed in February, down from 1,203,417 items or 5.5% vs. January.
132,000 new members joined the Etsy community, down 6,000, or 5% from January.
436,393,107 page views were recorded on the site, a 1.6% decrease from January.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in February! It went by so quickly, didn't it? Get into the March mood with some St.Patrick's Day items below.

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Web Analytics: Seller Chat in the Virtual Labs

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

Recently, we launched Etsy Web Analytics, which enables sellers to do tracking with Google Analytics. Presently, about 20,000 sellers have opted into this site feature. This is a very powerful tool and we want to gather a group of folks together to share insights, tips and give feedback.

Sellers, please join Etsy admin Tom aka kutty and Etsy's analytics consultant John Mentgen in the Virtual Labs' Classroom on Tuesday, March 3 at 6:30pm EST. Tom and John will give a basic introduction to the tool, answer questions, and ask the seller community to share their own best practices. We will be posting followup with some of the tips gleaned during the session.

Please download this Google Analytics For Sellers Guide to follow along with during the workshop.

Who is going to come? Post in the comments below!

Seller Handbook | Etsy Web Analytics Posts

Survey Says: International Seller Survey Results Are In

2009-02-25T12:15:00-05:00

Thanks again to everyone who took the International Seller Survey, which was live from January 14-26, 2009. Below are some of the findings. Please bear in mind that this survey was not scientific and findings are provided for informational purposes only. Etsy makes no guarantees about the accuracy of the results.

International Seller Survey Demographics

Nearly 1600 people took the survey, and almost all (97%) were women. Sixty-seven different countries from around the world were represented—from every continent except Antarctica!

Here is a quick look at survey takers by country and/or region (e.g., Europe) – no country within a region had more than 3% of the respondents. (Note: Countries are not double counted in regions, e.g,. UK is not also counted in Europe.)

For languages other than English, 20%-25% of survey respondents speak French, Spanish or Dutch with another 10%-15% each speaking Italian or German. Many other languages, such as Hebrew and Thai, were also represented. Interestingly, however, when asked about what languages other than English respondents’ customers speak, the most common answer by far was French at over 40%, with German a distant second at 20%.

In terms of areas of the site our international sellers would like translated—either for themselves or their customers—Payment/Checkout was the number one choice. Other areas included Terms of Use, the category list, search and registration. Thanks to all of you who offered to help with translation. It’s something we hope to do longer-term and it will be great to have this information when the time comes to put it on our road map.

International Currency, Payments & Shipping

We have heard from many non-U.S. sellers that would like more currency options on Etsy, and that they would also like Etsy to more clearly indicate that prices are in United States Dollars (USD). We are looking at the best way to make this clearer. Although we don't have an exact timetable yet, we'll keep you posted.

In terms of payment options, nearly 100% of you chose PayPal as a preferred form of payment (multiple answers to this question were allowed), with the next most popular selection being credit card transactions processed by PayPal. Direct Debit/Bank Transfer was an option that 21% of international sellers would like, especially those in Germany, Singapore and Australia, where these sorts of transactions are most common.

Shipping preferences and standards differ from country to country and region to region. Almost all survey respondents are using local post offices to ship their items to customers, though the Italians noted their postal service was relatively unreliable. Not many survey respondents use a premium shipper, but if they did it would likely be DHL. Our friends in Canada are hampered by relatively high shipping costs—which they often do not feel they can pass on to their customers—and those in Singapore and Israel note that while their cost of shipping is not exceptionally high, home package delivery is not yet entirely commonplace in their countries.

One thing most survey respondents agreed upon is that buyers often do not realize their orders are coming from another country. As a result of this misunderstanding, many buyers often "convo" sellers outside their home countries to ask why shipment is taking so long. In speaking with a few non-U.S. sellers about the possibility of somehow identifying a seller as international (based on the location of the buyer), there were equal arguments for and against this idea. As it stands now, most sellers find that a "convo" or two is enough to properly set delivery expectations. Some survey respondents also mentioned that they make a note of their location in the “message to buyers” email that buyers receive after making a purchase—great idea!

International Seller Marketing Approaches

The questions around marketing elicited some interesting information. When asked how they had heard about Etsy for the first time, non-U.S. sellers said “word of mouth” most often (36%), with online avenues such as blogs or other websites making up the vast majority of the balance of answers.

The majority of international sellers also responded that their Etsy shop is their primary sales channel. Craft or art fairs and their own websites follow in relatively distant second and third places.

In terms of promoting Etsy shops, many respondents indicated that social networking tools are becoming nearly as popular as their own blogs. Multiple answers were allowed to this question, and Facebook, along with the seller’s own blog, are the dominant online promotion tools. Twitter is also quite popular.

Regional social networking sites like Mixi, hi5 and StudioVZ did not rank particularly high overall. Of the 1,335 non-U.S. sellers who answered this question, 204 (15%) said they do not use any social networking sites to promote their Etsy shops. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of these respondents came from places (e.g., Israel) where offline sales accounted for a higher percentage of overall sales as compared to the international seller average. Be sure to check out the Resources area for tools you can use to help promote your Etsy shop!

Final Comments

Over 1,000 respondents chose to answer the question: If you could ask Etsy to do one thing for international buyers, what would it be? We received lots of useful comments and ideas, including several we’ve already touched upon like currency conversion and language translation. We also heard a more general plea for continued attention to issues unique to non-U.S. sellers. Our hope is that this survey is a step in that direction and we look forward to many more conversations with Etsians from around the world!

We also wanted to let you know that we want to make good on a couple of the more common requests, including an effort to add “Europe” as a shipping option. We will definitely keep you posted!

We are adding several countries and territories to the shipping options (e.g., Kosovo, Dominica, Aruba) and made a few corrections and clarifications in the shipping profile area. I’m sure these findings are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the learning we can glean from our sellers around the world, and again we really appreciate all of the international respondents taking the time to share your experience and ideas.

Etsy International Posts | Survey Posts | Shop Local

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.

Survey Says: We Want to Hear from International Sellers

2009-01-22T11:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: The International Seller Survey closes at midnight EST January 23, 2009. Please take the survey if you haven't already. We want to hear from our international sellers!

Greetings! As a new Etsy employee focusing on internationalization, I've had a great first couple weeks, highlighted by the opportunity to speak with about a dozen Etsy sellers from around the globe. (Many of their shops are featured below!) Everyone was super nice and very helpful in sharing ideas and suggestions on how to make the selling experience even better.

From these conversations, we've put together a brief survey (which takes about 5-6 minutes to complete) focusing on issues unique to international sellers. The survey will be open through next Friday, January 23, 2009. If you are a seller who runs your business from outside the U.S., you are eligible to take the survey. People with whom I spoke, and those of you on a geography-based Team outside the U.S., should also receive notice about the survey by email. We'd love to hear from as many sellers from outside the U.S. as possible, so please spread the word and link to this post!

Click HERE to take the International Seller Survey.

Once we compile the data we'll come back to you with the highlights about what we learned. As always, thanks for your insight!

Cheers,

Liz aka Muka

Etsy Statistics: December Celebrated the Holidays

2009-01-06T16:00:00-05:00

All of us here at Etsy were very anxious to see the December results and I have to say, they were worth waiting for!

$12.9 million of goods were sold — a 20% increase over November.
That represents 815,327 items sold, a 13.4% increase from November's stats.
1,098,644 new items were listed, down from 1,143,942 items last month, a 4% decrease.
164,789 new members joined the Etsy community — a 22% increase. That number included 19,481 new sellers.
410,365,372 page views were recorded on the site, essentially the same number as November.

Happy New Year and thanks for everyone's hard work. It was a terrific year here at Etsy.

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

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!

Etsy Statistics: Summer Storms in August?

2008-09-09T11:00:00-05:00

...We avoided them last month! August was another month of good stats, and August 15th was the biggest day we’ve ever had: 18,484 items sold for a total of $287,000!

Here are August’s key numbers, all of which represent the highest total ever for their categories:

$7.55 million of goods sold — a 6.5% increase over July.
That represents 516,600 items sold, a 6.1% increase from July's stats.
869,000 new items were listed, up from 813,000 items last month, a 6.9% increase.
96,100 new members joined the Etsy community, including 18,300 new sellers, both increases in sellers and buyers from last month.
340,000,000 page views were recorded on the site — a 4.9% increase.

Thanks to everyone in the Etsy community for all of their hard work in August!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Team Tip: Etsy Teams Survey!

2008-07-21T11:26:00-05:00

We love getting feedback from the Etsy Teams, because Teams are such a unique and dynamic part of the Etsy Community. This week we've created a survey for Etsy Team members to take. We hope all Team members (all 14,440 of you!) will click the survey link and take the opportunity to give us some insight on how your Team communicates, what you're doing and why you're doing it. It should only take moment or two to answer this short series of questions. This information from you will really help us understand the best and most important ways for us to strengthen the Etsy Teams program. Thanks so much!

Update: Thank you to the many, many Etsy Teams members who took a moment to participate! The survey is now closed.

For more Team Tips, please check the Teams Resource page. Also, we discuss the Team Tips, news and ideas in the Etsy Teams email list! Keep up the great work, Etsy Teams!

Tech Update + How-To: Download your Sales and Billing Data to a Spreadsheet

2008-03-20T09:52:00-05:00

Sellers who do their own accounting will be excited to hear this: you can now download your sales information to your computer in CSV format ( Here here! for "comma separated values")!

A CSV is a type of file that can be opened by programs such as Microsoft Excel or Open Office Calc (a free spreadsheet program). If you go to Your Etsy > Sold (orders) you'll now see a link at the bottom to "Download this sales data as a CSV." By selecting the month and year near the top of the page, you can download sales info from your shop for each month you've been in business.

Did you know CSV files are also available for your monthly Etsy bill? To download a month's worth of billing information, click on the appropriate month in Your Etsy > Your Etsy Bill and click "Download this entire monthly statement as a CSV file."

If you've never used a CSV file before, we'll walk you through downloading it to your computer and opening the file. It's easy!

First, save the file to your hard drive.

Next, open the file with your spreadsheet program. You may need to select "All files" in the list of file types.

It should open up to a list of all your sales for the month. You can use formulas to calculate your total sales for the month, shipping costs, etc. For details on how to set up formulas, see the help documents for your spreadsheet program.

Voila!

Comment below if you have other ideas for fun ways to sort at the data in your new spreadsheets!