Etsy Mentioned by USA Today
Etsy and Matt Stinchcomb are mentioned in a USA Today article, along with more sales figures.
USA Today: “To give a gift from the heart, why not make it yourself?”
Archive for Marketing
Etsy changes the “Buy” page links.
Etsy has changed the links on the “Buy” page.
current links in order are:
Categories
Treasury
Gift Guides
Showcase
Storque Related Items
Time Machine 2
Colors
Time Machine
Geolocator
Suggestions
Connections
Birthdays
Sellers
Featured Sellers
on Nov 22, 2007 the links on the buy page were in this order
Categories
Sellers
Treasury
Colors
Geolocator
Time Machine
Time Machine 2
Suggestions
Connections
Featured Sellers
Showcase
Birthdays
Storque Related Items
All categories now have showcases; mistagged items “might be removed”
Today Etsy began selling showcases for all categories. You can read more about it in this Storque article.
The showcase gateway, where showcase spots are booked by sellers, now displays the following message:
Please note: items in the Category Showcases must be in the correct Category, or they might be removed. Please see read our Showcase Help Guide FAQ for more info.
Etsy plans “Gift Guide” feature
Sneak Peak of new feature!
In Charles’ “weather report” in today’s Etsy newscast, he mentions Etsy’s promotional campaign for the Holiday season.
Charles says:
“What are we doing to support that effort? Three major things.”
1. Etsy gift guides
2. The buy handmade initiative
3. sending Etsy items to press outlets, so they will include them in their own Gift Guides
Here is a screenshot from the newscast, it looks like a mockup of the gift guide.
I believe these are screenshots from a staging environment on the Etsy office server.
There was no time frame given in th e Etsy newscast as to when the Gift Guide feature will be released into production. It needs to be pretty soon for the Holiday 2007 shopping season.
You can also see the account logged in is Rokali, and the navigation bar is slightly different than the current version in production. There is a separate tab for supplies.
current navigation bar: Buy Sell Alchemy Forums Storque Your Etsy
staging navigation bar: Buy Sell Alchemy Supplies Community News Search Your Etsy
I don’t know if this is also a sneak peak at proposed changes to the navigation bar, or just leftover code in the staging environment that they never cleaned up. The Gift Guides is the only new feature they mentioned in the newscast.
(to see the screenshots full size, just click them)
Category Showcase *is* random
sagittariusgallery did an informal survey on the category showcase and the number of times an item shows up on the main category page is not evenly distributed amongst the 25 items.
jared, the one who wrote the showcase code, chimed in with this in this thread:
The ticker is completely random.
I know this for certain because I wrote the code:
// randomize order of results
function byRandom(a,b) {
if (random(2)) return 1;
return -1;
}
que.sort(byRandom);
kfarrell explained further that, mathematically, it would take a very large number of tries for the showcase to be random with even distribution. She explains in this thread:
Every time you reload you have the exact same chances of seeing your item (1 in 5) as you did the previous reload. With 25 items and 5 spots, you would have to reload many many times to reach the point where you would expect to see even distribution. Luckily, the tens of thousands of views the category pages get per day is high enough to approach that point. :)
Etsy explains the recent rise in Showcase prices
In this Storque article, Beth from the Etsy Business Operations team explains the reasoning behind the recent jump in main Showcase prices and why they created the Category Showcase, as well as things to keep in mind when considering purchasing a spot.
So the price for the Main Showcase has gone up. We mentioned that the reason for the increase is because of the tremendous demand — but we didn’t talk about why demand is higher.
Increased traffic to Etsy: Etsy has put a lot of effort into our public relations and outside advertising efforts. In addition to word of mouth and our sellers marketing their own shops, this effort has been highly successful, bringing a tremendous amount of traffic to Etsy. As our traffic continues to grow, the Showcase spots increase dramatically in value. Every spot has an increased opportunity to drive more traffic and more exposure to not only the item highlighted but also the seller’s store.
Location on site: Just like in real estate, location is everything on the internet. Our homepage gets the most traffic and the Main Showcase is highlighted on this page.
Success stories: We have many examples of great successes using the Showcase. Some sellers have seen an immediate increase in sales, selling many items from an individual Showcase. The value however, is beyond the immediate sales. Most report that the increased exposure that the Showcase provides drives future traffic and sales. We are developing additional tools for sellers to measure the performance of their store and evaluate success for themselves.
Value: Compared to other ways to promote and advertise items or a store, the main Showcase is a great value. Yes, even at $15! It is up to an individual seller to decide whether purchasing a Showcase spot is good for their sales strategy and the types of products they are selling.
Shiny new Showcases and new price for main Showcase
Just in case you haven’t seen this in The Storque, I am posting it here. Etsy is introducing three new Showcases to the following categories: Art, Bags and Purses, and Jewelry. The spots will go on sale Nov 2nd at 6pm EST (subject to change by Etsy).
History of time edits:
From Nov 1st 6pm to Nov 1st 8pm
From Nov 1st 8pm to Nov 2nd 6pm
Each category Showcase will have 25 spots (in a 5 by 5 grid), sold for $7 per day. You can purchase these spots through the showcase gateway, with the first spots going on sale tomorrow, November 1 at 6:00 pm EST. There will also be a link in Your Etsy showing you all the Showcase spots you’ve reserved.
Read the entire story here.
Prices on the main Showcase will be going up to $15. The new price will be reflected when the next slots go up for sale on Nov 12. Great! Just in time for Christmas!
“Ideas for your shop” workshop - Oct. 31 @ 3pm EST
In this thread, daniellexo invites sellers to attend a workshop today at 3 pm eastern time:
TODAY, October 31st in the Virtual Labs, specifically the “marketing room” room at 3pm Eastern sharp for the next online Labs workshop!!!
http://www.etsy.com/virtual_lab.php?room_id=marketing
We will be talking all about simple and easy ways to market and promote your Etsy shop! We will give you some marketing tips you can do in 10 minutes and our best secrets for promoting and advertising your shop for free or next to nothing!
See you there,
Etsy Labs
Etsy Street Teams Pages Redesigned
In this thread, Etsy admin wonderamy announced,
Last night, we launched a new version of team.etsy.com.
It is not the long-awaited NEW Teams section - but it is an improvement on what was already there, and is a better organized solution while we wait for the expanded future Teams section. Sarawearsskirts and I are busily working on a bunch of guides and tools to help Teams promote themselves and their members’ shops this Holiday season, and the new design will accommodate those offerings.
Your Team profile pages have not changed much yet, aside from the Etsy header graphics being replaced (your team graphic is still there).
There is now an email signup on the front page of the Teams section. If you are on an Etsy Team, please sign up for a weekly email! We want to keep you in the loop with all of the Teams-related updates, tips, surprises and news for the season.
And….there is a letter from us to you about an exciting new Etsy project for Teams that is launching very soon. Click the links under “Etsy Teams and the Holidays” to get the breaking news.
New updates for team leaders email list
In this thread sarawearsskirts has asked for email addresses from street team leaders for a new updates email list:
are you an etsy team leader, coordinator or perhaps an etsy teams superstar?
if you’re the head of an etsy team, please email me at teams [!at] etsy.com with your email address and the name of team you’re representing so that we can get you updates for team leaders.
