Search results (tags) for: "statistics"

Etsy Blog Survey: Getting to Know Our Readers

2010-02-03T17:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: The survey closes tonight, Wednesday, February 3, at 11:45 p.m.! Take it now, if you haven't already, pretty please!

We're running a survey all about this Etsy blog, the first since we launched The Storque back in September of 2007. We kindly ask you to offer up ten minutes of your time to tell us about yourselves and your reading habits. Stand up and be heard!

Even if you're not the most regular reader, we still want you to take the survey. Question topics range from basic demographic info to types of posts people want and your opinions about the future of blogging on Etsy. This is super important to us, so thank you in advance.

Click here to take the survey!

Survey closes on Wednesday, February 3 at 11:45 p.m. ET. (It was launched on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.)
You may only take this survey once. (The link will redirect you to the blog if you try to take it again.)
We will not share any of your personal information.
After we've combed through all the data, we'll post some of the compiled results.

Read Posts About Other Etsy Surveys

Etsy Statistics: December 2009 Weather Report

2010-01-12T10:00:00-05:00

This holiday season there were quite a few Etsy presents under the tree.

The stats:

$25.6 million of goods were sold by our community in December; roughly 17% higher than November's $22 million.
That represents 1,449,171 items sold for the month, 12% higher than November’s 1,297,964.
1,815,177 new items were listed in the month, 6% lower than November's 1,931,988.
307,671 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 61,441, or 25% from November.
671,752,056 page views were recorded on the site this month.

The $25.6 million of goods sold by the community represents a 98% increase from from 2008's total. At the same time, items sold were up 78%, which means the average price per item sold was up. We translate that to mean that sellers are doing a better job of pricing their items, thus increasing their income.

Some of our members have been reaching out to me with specific requests for stats. Each Etsy shop is as unique in its data needs as it is in its product lines, so figuring out what stats to distribute is challenging — and that's if we even have the information available. We are working on selecting a few metrics we think will be useful to the seller community, but we need your help. I will read the comments left on this post to see if a popular request sticks out. Hopefully, we can add the data to future Weather Reports.

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

Handmade Code: Statsy

2009-12-18T13:45:00-05:00

As part of our Handmade Code series, we're bringing you news and how-to's about the innovations emerging from the Etsy Developer Community. Located at developer.etsy.com, the Etsy Developer Community serves as a hub for third-party software developers who are making neat and helpful programs for Etsy shoppers and sellers. In this edition, TheCrocodileRock tells us all about the applications on Statsy.

I started Statsy this summer as an experiment with the Etsy API to try to see how effective renewing items is. The first tool I created, the Locator, was created so I could see how long my stuff would stay on top of search results when I renewed. Later, I decided to share it and announce it publicly, and thus Statsy was born! The tool was quite a success, and that motivated me to create more tools for everyone to enjoy. Afterwards, I wrote the Biggest Fan and Featurator tools, and in August, my favourite – Vutrac.

What's the basic idea of the application? What need does it fill?
Statsy has a variety of tools designed to assist sellers in finding out cool info about their shops and the listings inside them! Currently, you can see where your shop and listings are when someone searches for certain keywords in Google/Etsy search, track your listings' hearts and views across time, find out who hearts you most, and get notified by email when you're featured on Etsy's front page!

Who is it for? How many people are using it right now?
Any Etsian with a shop! And my statistics say that there are about 7000 of them!

Where do we go to find it? What's the URL, etc?
The tools live at http://statsy.org/

How do you use it?
Well, everything is quite simple! For Vutrac, simply enter your shop name, and hit enter, and wait a bit (the tool needs to get a lot of data about your stuff from Etsy). And...

Ta-da! A table with the counts of new views and hearts since your last update (it needs something to compare the new data to) shows up, and you can even click on the number of new hearts, to see who's hearted you! The Biggest Fan tool is just as simple to use, and tells you who has hearted the most items in your shop:

The Featurator, apart from your shop name, also needs an email address, so it can know where to send the featured-on-the-front-page notification and the Locator just requires a shop name or listing # and some keywords!

Are there any costs or further opportunities/ways to get involved?
Nope! Statsy is free for anyone to use and enjoy! However, sellers can support the site and promote their shops by getting advertised.

What should one do if there's a bug or a problem? Who should one contact?
Just drop me a line at info@statsy.org or send me a convo.

What's one surprising/fun/amazing story you've heard about someone using your app? Or what is your favorite part about the app?
My favorite parts of the app would be Vutrac and the Locator. I usually use the Locator to tweak my tags, and then use Vutrac to see if it made a difference! Granted, I'm not a great seller, but it's still a lot of fun! They also happen to be the most popular tools, and I get a lot of feedback on them.

Anything else you'd like to add?
I work a lot on Statsy, and I've got a couple of incoming new tools up my sleeve, so stay tuned!

Calling all Statsy users! Post in the comments below and let us know what you think.

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.

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

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.

Etsy Statistics: January 2009 Weather Report

2009-02-06T11:37:00-05:00

Every year, January is an interesting month at Etsy: we know that sales will be down when compared to the prior month, December, but listings will go up, as folks re-stock their shops after the holiday season. We also pay very close attention to how sales change from week-to-week. As we approach Valentine’s Day we expect the last week of January to exceed the first.

We were pleased with January results: the numbers exceeded our expectations in these difficult economic times.

The stats:

$9.9 million of goods were sold; roughly 23% below December's sales figure (sales for the last full week of January represented a 9.3% increase above the first full week of January).
That represents 683,369 items sold for the month, a 16.2% decrease from December's stats.
1,203,417 million new items were listed in January, up from 1,098,644 items or 9.2% vs. December.
138,000 new members joined the Etsy community, 16.3% below December's record number of new members.
443,468,017 page views were recorded on the site, an 8.1% increase compared to December.

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

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

Tech Update: Etsy Web Analytics Enhancements

2009-02-02T15:45:00-05:00

Dear Etsy sellers,

Recently, Etsy launched Web Analytics for your Etsy shops (powered by Google Analytics). Today I am pleased to share with you two enhancements to Web Analytics. First, we updated our configuration for Google Analytics, which has reduced unexpected Traffic Source keywords in Google Analytics reports. Second, we have expanded the available features within Google Analytics to include info about Etsy's site search. More details on each of these items below.

1. Traffic Sources: Search Engine Keyword Referrals
Sellers can find the search query terms that lead visitors directly to your Etsy shop under the Google Analytics report Traffic Sources > Keywords. This report will show both natural search and paid search results, which is useful if you spend money on Google AdWords.

On January 15th, we posted in the forums about an issue in which sellers were seeing unexpected keywords in their Traffic Source reports. We updated our configuration with Google Analytics. This change to our configuration has not eliminated the problem with keywords but it has resulted in a noticeable improvement for Traffic Source keywords. There is nothing you need to change with your Etsy shop or your Google Analytics settings. The fix was already put in place, and you should already have observed an improvement over the past week. We appreciate your patience on this issue.

2. Etsy Site Search Tracking

We've made another improvement to Web Analytics. Sellers can now track which search terms used by shoppers on Etsy brought visits to their Etsy shops. When we say "on Etsy", we include the six types of search found on the dropdown shown below:

We tested this feature since January 27th and we will be monitoring your feedback to make continual improvements going forward.

When enabled, your Google Analytics reports will tell you both which terms the user typed into the search box to find your items and which search method was selected from the drop-down menu. This allows sellers to further refine how to best tag and describe items to maximize their exposure to shoppers.

To enable Site Search, follow the steps below:

Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
If you have more than one website profile, click on the profile name for your Etsy shop.
In the "Actions" column on the right, you should see a link that says "Edit." Click on the word "Edit."
You should now be on a page called "Profile Settings." In the gray header that says "Main Website Profile Information", click "Edit" on the right.
Under "Site Search," click the button for "Do Track Site Search." More options should appear.
Following the example shown in the image below, change the "Site Search" settings. Enter ga_search_query for the query parameter and ga_search_type for the category parameter:

Once you've changes the settings, click "Save Changes."

To see the Site Search data, view your Google Analytics reports and choose Content > Site Search (on the left). From there you can view the search terms and search types (Google calls this Category Parameter) that were used in Etsy's search to find your listings!

NOTE: Since Google Analytics updates every 24-hours, you may not see data in the Site Search reports until the day after you enable the feature. You will only see this data going forward from the date you enable it in your Google Anallytics account; it is not retroactive.

As reference, the following search types will be appear in the report:

Category Parameter value in Google Analytics	Type of search used on Etsy
tag_title	Handmade Items: tags, titles (NOTE: this is the default search on Etsy)
tag_title_description	Handmade Items: tags, titles, descriptions
tag_title_supplies	Supplies: tags, titles
tag_title_vintage	Vintage: tags, titles
tag_title_all	All items: tags, titles
seller_usernames	Sellers: usernames
materials	Materials
user_shop_ttt_id_<your user ID #>	Search within your Etsy shop

Finally, checkout this recent posting on Blog Handmade with a step-by-step video tutorial.

As always, we appreciate your feedback and will continue to improve Etsy for our seller community. Please join the discussion about this article in our community Forums.

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

Tech Update: Etsy Web Analytics Now Available

2009-01-09T10:26:00-05:00

Sellers, Etsy has completed beta testing of Etsy Web Analytics (provided through Google Analytics) and you can now enable this feature by going to Your Etsy > Shop Setup > Web Analytics. Or, if you are logged in you can find the link here.

This release of Etsy Web Analytics allows Etsy sellers to track metrics such as pageviews, site visits, popular content and page referrals. For more information, you can also read the Web Analytics FAQ.

This feature is free to use for all Etsy sellers.

Web Analytics is a powerful tool, but it can be complex to understand. We urge sellers to share information through the forums, and we are evaluating ways to share information with sellers on how to get the most out of this new feature.

We look forward to your feedback. Please post in this forum thread with your comments.

UPDATE 1/15/2009: There is a known issue with the Traffic Sources reports in Etsy Web Analytics. Please read this Forum thread for more information about the issue and Etsy's plans to resolve it. We apologize for the problem. Thank you.

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 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 Update: Beta Release of Seller Stats with Google Analytics

2008-12-24T10:15:00-05:00

Tom Kutter, aka Kutty, is a new product manager at Etsy and focuses on building products for Etsy sellers and developers. Welcome Tom!

Etsy is currently conducting a beta test with Google Analytics to enable Etsy sellers to track metrics such as pageviews, site visits, popular content and page referrals.

We have contacted a small group of sellers to help us with beta-testing. We're hoping to complete beta testing soon, and at that point, we will have more to say about the timing of releasing Google Analytics to the entire seller community. So expect an announcement here on the blog, in the forums, and to the Etsy News email list. The release will be accompanied by an FAQ and links to Google Analytics resources.

For now, we wanted to give Etsy sellers a heads up.

Etsy Statistics: November Kicked Off the Holidays in Style

2008-12-04T12:00:00-05:00

November definitely saw a start to the holiday season here at Etsy and a strong one at that – we saw great growth week over week and had 12 record sales volume days in the month.

Here are November’s key numbers, each of which represent the highest total ever:

$10.8 million of goods were sold — a 28% increase over October.
That represents 719,145 items sold, a 24.5% increase from October's stats.
1,143,942 new items were listed, up from 976,234 items last month, a 17.1% increase.
135,165 new members joined the Etsy community, including 22,744 new sellers.
410,634,499 page views were recorded on the site, a 14.5% increase from October.

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

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

Etsy Statistics: October's Fall and Rise

2008-11-06T11:13:00-05:00

We're definitely keeping our eye on the economic conditions here at Etsy, but despite the turmoil, we still had another record setting month in October.

Here are October’s key numbers, each of which represent the highest total ever:

$8.4 million of goods were sold — a 5.9% increase over September.
That represents 577,398 items sold, a 6% increase from September's stats.
976, 234 new items were listed, up from 911,191 items last month, a 7.1% increase.
102,778, new members joined the Etsy community, including 19,689 new sellers. That’s our first month ever with over 100,000 new members — a 6.5% increase vs. September.
358,000,000 page views were recorded on the site, a slight increase from September.

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

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

Etsy Statistics: September, Still Sunny!

2008-10-08T17:03:00-05:00

I apologize for the delay in publishing these — we're working on revamping the information we send out and were hoping to have these changes in place for this month.

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

$7.93 million of goods sold — a 5% increase over August.
That represents 544,157 items sold, a 5.3% increase from August's stats.
911,191 new items were listed, up from 869,000 items last month, a 4.9% increase.
96,473, new members joined the Etsy community, including 18,001 new sellers. Both of these rates of new sellers and new buyers are essentially flat from last month.
344,000,000 page views were recorded on the site, a slight increase from August.

A few things to consider with these numbers: September has one less day than August, which makes a significant difference as we start having $300,000 sales days (that’s right — even in these tough economic times, we set a single day record on Sept 30th: $305,000!).

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

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