Archive for Features
July 16, 2008 at 3:44 pm · Filed under Featured Listings, Features, Listings · By GreenMamba
Admin marymary announces, in this thread, a terrific new addition to all Etsy ‘Sold Item’ pages.
marymary says:
Dear Sellers,
We’re happy to announce a new feature on Etsy: your sold listing pages will now show available related items from your shop. This means whenever shoppers come across one of your sold items, they’ll see up to three items currently for sale from your shop. So if a shop is featured on a blog or website and your items sells out, the buyer is immediately shown other items from that seller still available for purchase. And if there’s an item that has the exact same title, that one will be shown first to make it easy for buyers to find.
FAQ’s
Q. Where will I see related items?
A. Related items will appear on the listing and transaction pages of sold items. So any way a buyer gets to a sold item’s page, they’ll see related items from that shop. The only place you won’t see related items is if you are a seller looking at your own sold listing, or if there are no other items in a shop.
Q. How many items will show in the related items?
A. Up to three related items will show on your sold listings pages at one time. If there are less than three items to show, we’ll show as many as are available. If there are no items to show, then the page will appear in the same way sold listings originally appeared — without this new feature.
Q. How does Etsy choose which items to show for each sold item?
A. First off, we search the shop for an item with the exact same title as the sold item. If there is an exact title match, we’ll show that first. If there’s more than one match, we’ll just show the first one. After that, we pull from the seller’s featured items; this will help give the seller a little control over what may appear on their sold listings pages. Finally, if there are no featured listings in the shop, we show the seller’s most recently listed items.
Q. What if there are no active listings in a shop?
A. No related items will appear on the sold items page if there are no active listings in the shop at that time.
To see a screen shot of what it might look like, please see the official Storque announcement for this feature:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/tech-update-related-items-on-sold-listings/2233/
Hope you enjoy and thank you for your feedback,
Mary
Posted at 3:13 pm, July 16 2008 EST
July 14, 2008 at 3:42 pm · Filed under Features, Miscellaneous · By GreenMamba
In this Etsy forum thread admin marymary introduces the latest new feature.
marymary says:
We are pleased to announce the addition of an Invite a Friend feature to Etsy. Registered Etsy members can now send an email to a friend or contact, inviting them to check out Etsy. Eventually, this new feature will tie into a referral program. For now, please help us by telling all your friends about Etsy in a quick and easy way and watch the number of referrals that have become registered Etsy members because of you grow straight from Your Etsy!
You may have noticed a few changes to the look of the top right of your Etsy screen! We have added an additional text link between Help and Logout called Invite.
Once you select the Invite text link, you will directed to the main Invite a Friend feature where you can enter in up to 3 unique email address at one time.
You might also notice some changes to the Your Etsy page on the left hand side bar. You now have an addtional heading in Your Etsy called Promote which houses the following shop administrative features: referrals, showcase, and Etsy mini.
When you select the referrals text link, you will be directed to a page that looks like this where you can see how many registered users you’ve helped bring to Etsy since the launch of this new feature.
FAQ:
Q. What if I enter in the Wrong email address?
A. You will receive a confirmation screen alerting you to the exact email addresses you typed in so you can resend the invite if you typed in the wrong address.
Q. Can I invite more than 3 friends?
A. Sure! Invite as many friends as you like; however, you will only be able to enter in 3 unique addresses at one time.
Q. What if I forgot if I sent an invite to an email address and type it in again?
A. No worries, Etsy will remember which email addresses you have already sent invites for and will remind you that an invite has already been sent if you type in a duplicate at any point.
Q. Can I enter in my own message to my friends?
A. Yes! There is a space for you to enter in your own unique message to your friends or to just go with the preset message from Etsy.
Q. Will my referrals be kept track of?
A. Yes! We will be keeping track of all the new registered members that sign up for Etsy from your invites starting from the launch of this feature. You can even watch the number grow from the new referrals section of Your Etsy.
Q. What happened to all of my previous referrals; weren’t you keeping track of those?
A. All referrals will start fresh with the implementation of this new feature. Unfortunately, we were not able to recover and transfer previous referrals into this new system. We appreciate all the help you have sent our way thus far and hope you will continue to refer your friends to Etsy moving forward.
Please see the official announcement about this new feature in the Storque where you can see some screen shots of how it looks: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/tech-updates-invite-a-friend/2178/
We hope you enjoy this new addition and that is makes spreading the word about Etsy a little easier.
Posted at 3:22 pm, July 14 2008 EST
The Storque article referenced above has graphics to demonstrate how this feature works and looks.
UPDATE by GreenMamba 7.14.08
Inputting a personal message is not available at this time. marymary corrects herself here.
marymary says:
Hey guys!
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for writing that one could enter in their own message, when in fact this is not currently an option. I jumped the gun in posting that possibility and for that I am sorry (maybe it’s cause I really want that feature, haha).
At this time, you cannot enter in your own message, but if this is something you are interested in, let me know here and I will add it to the list of user requested ideas.
Thanks again for helping me catch that mistake and I sincerely apologize. I have since edited the Storque article to reflect the correct answer to the FAQ.
Mary
Posted at 3:39 pm, July 14 2008 EST
July 7, 2008 at 3:10 pm · Filed under Features, Listings, Shop Sections · By GreenMamba
Fromt this Storque article:
Dear Sellers,
You asked for it, and now it’s here! We’ve just integrated the step of placing an item in your shop sections into the listing process. No more annoying extra step after you are finished, and no more forgetting once an item is listed.
Here’s a screen shot of what it looks like during step 3 of the listing process:
If you still have items that are not listed in sections, you can manually add and edit them the exact same way as before by clicking on the “sections” link in Your Etsy. Now would be the perfect time to list a brand spankin’ new item to test out this great new feature! There have been several related requests that items be allowed in more than one shop section at a time. This is a feature we are still researching, but is not on the list of priorities at this time.
Again, thanks so much for all of your continued feedback and suggestions! We appreciate it. Here’s an article with some ways to use your shop sections.
July 2, 2008 at 2:42 am · Filed under Search, Site Use · By JB
Etsy has gotten rid of the old “brick wall” graphic that you used to see when trying to access deleted shops or accounts that never existed. The new error page has links to continue shopping. This improves the navigability of the site and is much more buyer-friendly than the old brick wall, which had no navigation links.
June 28, 2008 at 9:36 am · Filed under Alchemy, Features · By GreenMamba
In this Etsy Bugs thread YadaYadaYada asks, “Why is my private Alchemy shop announcement now my Message from the Seller?”
My private Alchemy shop announcement, saying that I do not accept private Alchemy requests, is now my Message from the Seller on a public Alchemy bid that I won.
It looks unprofessional for my Message to Buyers on this Alchemy bid to say “Thanks for your interest in my shop, but I’m not accepting private Alchemy requests…”
Posted at 9:19 am, April 11 2008 EST
(Emphasis added here.)
In a nutshell:
RevolvingDork says:
This is actually done purposely — on alchemy transactions, your alchemy announcement becomes your announcement to buyers. :]
Posted at 2:07 pm, June 26 2008 EST
June 26, 2008 at 12:57 pm · Filed under Features, Search · By GreenMamba
Now, users can easily switch between searches for Handmade, Supplies and Vintage.
kfarrell says:
Here’s latest TechUpdate from the Storque: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/tech-updates-prompt-to-switch-between-searches/2106/
“Since we launched separate drop-down searches for Handmade, Supplies, and Vintage items, we’ve been getting a lot of feedback from buyers and sellers. Thank you to everyone who let us know what you think of the changes — we’re listening!
We wanted to make switching your search between Handmade, Supplies, and Vintage a little easier, so we’ve added a little prompt to the top of the search results page. If you search in Handmade, links to perform the same search in Supplies and Vintage will appear. Searches in Supplies will show links to Handmade and Vintage, and searches in Vintage will show links to Handmade and Supplies.
We hope these changes makes searching on Etsy a little easier for you!”
Posted at 12:38 pm, June 26 2008 EST
Quoted from the companion thread, which can be found here.
June 23, 2008 at 3:37 pm · Filed under Categories, Listings, Search · By GreenMamba
As detailed in this Storque article, Etsy delivers on its promise to give a one-time listing extension, of four full months, to eligible vintage and commercial suppy listings. This offer was made to compensate sellers of these items for changes to the default search feature which separate their listings from the pool of handmade items.
Excerpt:
Dear Etsians,
Back in February when Etsy announced upcoming changes to the way search would work, we made a promise to our Vintage and Commercial Supply sellers that we would extend the life of their item listings by four months, for free.
The search changes took effect May 5, and we are now ready to honor our promise. We intend to start rolling out the additional four months beginning on June 30, 2008.
The four month free extension will apply only to Vintage and Commercial Supplies sellers.
Here’s the Plan for the Four Month Extension:
- Only properly tagged listings will get the four month extension, so this is a great opportunity to make sure your Vintage and Commercial Supplies items are properly categorized. In other words, make sure the top tag is “Vintage” or “Supplies.” In the case of Supplies, items should also be tagged with “Commercial.”
- On Thursday June 30, Etsy will capture a snapshot of all Vintage and Commercial Supplies listings on the site.
- Immediately thereafter, we will begin rolling out a free four month extension on all of these listings.
- The rollout will take approximately 30-45 days from June 30.
- We will keep you updated on the progress and will announce when the process is complete.
- After the process is completed, if you have any questions or concerns about specific listings, contact support@etsy.com. Please include the following words in the subject of your email: “4 month extension.” This will help us target your questions and get back to you more quickly.
Please see the article for a list of FAQs regarding this extension plan.
Also follow the announcement thread here.
June 18, 2008 at 5:24 pm · Filed under Bugs, Features, Views / Counters · By GreenMamba
No kidding. The view counters have been upgraded and improved to be more stable and accurate and, in many cases, lost views from months past have been restored.
Read about it here.
RevolvingDork says:
To the delight of our engineers and (hopefully) our sellers also, we are very pleased to let you know that view tallies should be functioning properly once again.
As many of our sellers know, we’ve experienced a recurring problem for the past several months that caused listing view tallies to sporadically reset. This forced the affected view counts to drop to “1″.
We’ve developed a new, more reliable view tally system. As a result, most sellers will see a shift in their item view counts today. In addition to keeping accurate counts going forward, we were able to restore all view count data since January 1, 2008, even if a listing’s view count was reset during this time. Unfortunately, we were unable to retain data prior toJanuary 1, 2008, so some listings may experience a decease in views if they were on the site prior to the start of the calendar year. Think of it as a fresh start for the new year, with (most importantly) accurate information.We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused by this problem, and we thank all our members for your patience as we worked on a solution. We are hopeful that this new tally system is a solid solution that will provide reliable info. Giving credit where it’s due, we’d like to give big thanks to Etsy engineers, Jorge and CB aka etsybozo who solved this challenging problem. We’ve tested this system thoroughly, but there is always a chance that an issue may arise once we have it running on the live site. If there is an issue, we’ll be sure to alert you through the Storque and the Etsy News Alerts email list. If you continue to experience problems or just have questions, please let us know here!
Here is a brief Q & A about the new system:
Q. Some of my listings lost views counts AGAIN! What’s going on?
A. We’ve been able to restore all view counts that occurred between the dates of January 1, 2008 and June 17, 2008. If your listings’ views occurred outside of that range, they were not able to be included in the new count.
Q. My view counts jumped up! Why did that happen?
A. Your listings now reflect all of the view activity between January 1, 2008 and June 17, 2008. If your view counts have jumped, it’s because they were reset in the past and have now been restored.
Posted at 4:07 pm, June 18 2008 EST
June 6, 2008 at 6:37 pm · Filed under Categories · By GreenMamba
Prompted by Etsy artists’ ongoing - and long-standing - questions, comments and suggestions about how best to tag their listings, Etsy hosted a Treehouse Chatt With Matt this morning (Friday, 6 June 2008) to begin addressing their concerns. Minutes can be found here.
Pursuant to the coming changes and clarifications to the top level Art Category, which will include new sub-categories, Etsy admin HeyMichelle has been seeking input on a variety of specific areas.
HeyMichelle says here (excerpt):
Hi there everyone! We just had a meeting in the Virtual Labs with the Artists of Etsy (those who are listing work in the Art Category). What a great meeting! Now, it’s time to get more feedback on some things we discussed, so I’ll be posting a few more threads today.
Posted at 1:54 pm, June 6 2008 EST
Visit these threads to join in the discussions:
The Art category- let’s talk about it
The Art Category- digital art!
Printmaking has been added as a subcategory under Art
Art Category: originals
June 6, 2008 at 6:05 pm · Filed under Bugs, Features · By GreenMamba
After unveiling the new Shop Policies page On May 15, many members reported that their policies would randomly blank out, requiring them to input the info anew. Admin RevolvingDork started two fact-finding threads to help pinpoint the cause, and it was determined that expiring listings somehow affected the policies’ ability to ’stick’. After four days and no new reports of vanishing policies, it now appears that the issue has been succesfully resolved. Yay!
RevolvingDork says:
We’re pretty sure that the issue with the policy page has been resolved, meaning that policies should no longer be cleared out on their own.
If you have policies that have been cleared, they will not come back on their own — you’ll have to enter them again. If you have entered them newly as of the time of this posting, and they dissapear *after* that point, please let us know!
Posted at 1:41 pm, June 2 2008 EST - Report this post
UEN previously covered this issue here.
Next entries »
