Search results (tags) for: "internationalization"

Notes from Etsy's Canadian Meet Up

2009-05-06T10:12:00-05:00

Sara, Chad and I had a fantastic trip up to Canada this past weekend and had the pleasure of meeting with Etsy sellers, buyers and friends in both Toronto and Montreal! We're Etsy Admin for Product, Engineering, and International, respectively, and we learned a lot from our travels North.

Though Air Canada added a wrinkle to our travel plans we did finally get up to Toronto in time to meet with about 45-50 people, most of whom are pictured below.

After we gave a brief introduction, we opened up the floor to questions and suggestions. We heard a range of good ideas for tools such as batch editing, taking orders while in vacation mode (to be processed after vacation) and the ever popular local pick-up. We also talked a bit about how to strengthen the relationship with the maker through expanded profiles, video and having links such as "follow me on Twitter" (about 1/3 of the the attendees have Twitter accounts). Chad and Sara took copious notes. Some of the requests, such as rearranging items in your shop and more clearly stating USD next to prices, are slated for release soon. Our host Karyn, a current Etsy buyer and owner of The Workroom, where we held the event, was kind enough to publish this blog post about the event. And minouette also did a great write up on the Trans-Canada Etsy Team blog.

It was a quick stop in Toronto as we were on the 8am flight to Montreal to meet another group of 40-45 people at Headquarters Galerie & Boutique, where our host Angie set us up.

The format was the same and there was a lot of energy in the room — must have been that extra bit of sleep we allowed by moving the start time to 11am :) There were loads of ideas, including getting the word out to more buyers (we noted a number of suggestions on this front), making it easier to search within the listings in your shop, improving communication tools for Teams, and a comment about accents not showing up in Shop Local. Note: We're looking at many changes to Shop Local, but for now it's best to eliminate accents from your profile location (in other words, type Montreal with no accent over the e, to ensure you're found in the Shop Local feature).

Special thanks to MileEndSoapandCandle who gave us this totally cool custom Etsy candle. I'm not sure she knew that Etsy was turning four this June but we'll be sure to put it on our cake!

The Q Team also had a nice showing with the eight members below in attendance.

Team members from left to right, back row: Mezzo, JulieWebb, GiftedDesigns (member coordinator), nellyvansee. Front row: KatjaDesign, LunarWorkshop (Q Team leader), juliejongleuese, Suza.

The Q Team's stated goal is "to promote the work of crafters and artists living and working in Quebec and to support one another in taking our business to the next level." From their enthusiasm I'd say they're living up to it!

Overall, I can't say enough good things about the people, the cities and Canada in general. We had a great visit and look forward to my the adventure North!

Please add photo notes with your names to the Flickr photos!

Cheers,

Liz, a.k.a. muka

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

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About Us: Liz Wald aka muka

2008-12-19T14:06:00-05:00

Bonjour, G'Day, Guten Tag, Hola, Konnichiwa Etsy!

My name is Liz Wald and back in November, Maria mentioned in her post on the Etsy blog that I would be joining Etsy to work on international development. My first day is January 5th and I'm really looking forward to being a part of the team. I just wanted to say a quick hello, wish you all a very happy New Year, and let you know that I'd be reaching out to some of the international Team leaders so they can introduce me to their Etsy worlds.

My Etsy name is "Muka," a nickname I received while working with artisans in Rwanda. It's an abbreviation of a Kinyarwandan word that loosely translates to "a woman who lifts up others." It was generous of them to give me this name because I always felt like the artisans did as much to lift me up as I did them, and I can already tell that the Etsy community is a place where people lift each other up every day. While I'm sure there are far too many international buyers and sellers to get to know you all, please feel free to convo me if you'd like to share some thoughts.

Etsy has had quite a growth spurt, and we have the awkward pictures to prove it. You've seen the admin badge, and maybe you're a bit curious about the person behind it. Check out our series of About Us pieces to help you get to know the Etsy admin (and since many of us work remotely, for the admin to get to know each other!).

For more on Etsy's mission and about the company, please see our About page (the link is in the little blue footer of every Etsy page).

Ms. One Million: dorothywyn

2008-06-13T15:00:00-05:00

On June 10th, 2008, Etsy had its 1 millionth registration. Needless to say, this milestone has symbolic value to us and we're so excited about it! But it led admin and the community alike to wonder about the person behind that big, round number. Who is she?

We are happy to welcome dorothywyn to the Etsy community. She is a seller based in Hong Kong, and she makes cute, quilted cellphone coozies, as well as crocheted items.

dorothywyn initially found Etsy through a Google search, when she was looking for Japanese fabrics. In fact, if you search "Japanese fabrics" in quotes today, Tokyo-based supplies seller Matatabi.etsy.com comes up on the first page of results, a search engine optimization feat that makes Eric aka likeomg very, very happy. (Eric is our Etsy admin who works on SEO. Read more about SEO and Etsy here.)

When I asked her what drew her to Etsy, dorothywyn said that it's "a great place for handmade lovers. Interface is good and users friendly." Her favorite site feature so far is Time Machine. And perhaps most importantly, she seems excited to be part of a community that "encourages creativity and personal style." Here here!

And while dorothywyn is just one in a million registrations,* I think it's interesting to consider how her profile reflects what's going on at Etsy more generally. Etsy is attracting more and more international members like dorothywyn. We have begun thinking longer-term about how to create a truly international marketplace to serve makers and buyers. At some stage, we hope to call upon our "early-adopters” outside the U.S. for their input. If you have thoughts or ideas on internationalizing Etsy, please share them in the comments.

And, another aspect to consider: dorothywyn found Etsy through a search for supplies. (We have recently changed the way search works to make it easier to parse searches through the drop-down menu in Etsy's main navigation bar). The Supplies Category continues to be important to the growth of our marketplace. In this case, the supply was "Japanese fabric" — which I think points to the continuing cultural flow in our global marketplace. Increasingly, trends, fashion, and creative impulses do not heed national boundaries. This may have always been the case, but technology allows these global connections to be made very rapidly through grassroots, user-generated sharing of information and content.

Etsy is striving to bring more meaning to commerce by connecting makers and buyers globally. Thank you to dorothywyn and the other 999,999 other Etsy registrations for helping Etsy get closer to its vision.

*(That number includes multiple accounts from one member as well as accounts that may have been closed. In other words, members have gone completely through the registration process 1 million times.)

Please join us in giving our Ms. 1 Million a warm welcome in the comments below!