March 11, 2009 at 11:19 pm · Filed under Checkout System, Payments, Search, Seller Opportunities, Showcase, Site Security, Site Use, The Future · By JB
The Head of Etsy’s Product Team has posted an update on their progress and projects for the coming months.
Source: The Storque
Sara recaps the changes from the past several months including Google Analytics, beta testing of API, the Etsy Shop application on Facebook, and changes to the RSS feeds.
She also mentions features which had previously been promised but have now been put on the back burner, including more tools for Etsy teams, and the Super Etsy Mini.
Key points in their plans for the coming months include:
- “Search is our top priority for 2009. We anticipate numerous updates to Search throughout 2009.” (more details are available in Product Manager Sean Flanagan’s Storque article here.)
- Payments: There is currently a seller survey about payments, which Sara did not mention but that will possibly result in some new payment options being incorporated into Etsy, such as google or RME. Sara only mentioned changes which have already occurred such as sellers being able to pay their bills with paypal, and the fact that Etsy now employs a collection agency.
- Checkout: In the coming months we will be working to better clarify the functional elements of the overall (checkout) process, including introducing inline registration (i.e. letting first-time buyers checkout on Etsy without forcing them to confirm their registration first).
- Safety, Security, and Trust: No specific details are given here, but Sara says “While it may not always be possible for Etsy to disclose its fraud deterrence practices…Etsy takes these issues very seriously and thus we continue to update our infrastructure to keep fraudulent behavior off of our site.
- Showcase: In March you will see improvements to the design of Etsy’s Category pages and, more specifically, the design of the Category Showcase promotional modules at the top of those pages. …
In the coming months, we are looking to expand Showcase placements to other relevant areas of our site to provide more opportunities for sellers to gain additional exposure. (ed:this is possibly related to Sean’s mention of possibly selling paid ads on the search results pages.)
- Seller Tools: In the next month, Etsy plans to release tools to allow sellers to rearrange the items in your shop.
- Site Performance: Sara does not mention any details, but refers readers to Chad’s recent article here which goes into detail about site performance.
Sara closes with the promise of more regular updates:
I’ll be back with regular updates on what we’ve accomplished from this list and what else we have lined up for the remainder of the year.
For the full text of Sara’s article please see The Storque.
Commenting is closed for this article, but there is a forum thread open to comments.
February 7, 2009 at 4:28 am · Filed under Email Notifications, Marketing, Miscellaneous, Site Use · By JB
On January 9th, 2009, Etsy added a little check box to the login page. Right below the password box, this box said “Yes, send me emails about hot items and gift ideas.”
Matt explained it here
matt says:
Hi,
The Etsy news alert email sign-ups have been integrated into the seller sign up process.
Thanks, Matt
Posted at 6:05 pm, January 8 2009 EST
The box was removed on February 6, 2009.
Editorial: I am glad they removed it. The location right under the password box was where most sites put their box for “remember me” or “keep me logged in all the time”, so I tended to check that box just out of habit, even though I knew it was for something else. Then I would have to opt out of those emails immediately after. It was counter-intuitive, and felt like I was being “tricked’ into checking it. Also, it was not for Etsy “News”. I am already signed up for that. It was for Etsy FINDS, purely promotional emails. Also, it was not only on the registration page to make a new account- it was on the login page for existing accounts and you had to avoid it every single time you logged in.
Thank you Etsy for removing that.
January 9, 2009 at 12:20 pm · Filed under Shop Statistsics, Site Use · By GreenMamba
After the successful completetion of beta testing, Etsy has released their new Web Analytics to the general membership. From the announcement thread:
| |
stellaloella says: |
| From the Storque announcement …”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.
“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.”
- - - - - - -
RELEVANT LINKS:
Your Etsy > Shop Setup > Web Analytics : http://www.etsy.com/shop_analytics.php
Etsy Web Analytics FAQ : http://www.etsy.com/faq_selling.php#ga
Google Analytics Help Center : http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/
Read the article here : http://www.etsy.com/storque/article/3141/
- - - - - - -
A big THANK YOU to the sellers who participated in the beta test group for Etsy Web Analytics! The testing process proved to be a valuable step, and we are grateful for the help and feedback provided by the testers.
We know many sellers will be excited about this new feature. We are too! There are a few things we want to make clear for the sake of discussion:
Etsy Web Analytics is …
… a tool for tracking and analyzing web traffic for your Etsy shop. You can see reports such as: pageviews, visitors data (like location), popular content (which pages in your shop are viewed most) and page referrals (where visitors came from). The Google Analytics platform provides various ways to view, sort and compare this data. There is a LOT of info available, so be sure to review the Google Analytics Help Center docs.
Etsy Web Analytics is NOT …
… the final answer to the “we want stats” requests made by Etsy sellers. There remains some Etsy-centric info that Web Analytics does not include, for example: comparative item Hearts data. Etsy Web Analytics is a solid step in the right direction, and we are continuing to work on new features that will help enable sellers to make the most of their Etsy experience.
So, with that said, please discuss and let us know what you think of Etsy Web Analytics. |
| Posted at 10:25 am, January 9 2009 EST |
Join the discussion on Etsy.
Read the Storque article.
January 5, 2009 at 3:08 pm · Filed under Search, Site Use, Tags · By quirke
In this Storque article, Etsy announces a significant change to its search function.
This week we are replacing Etsy’s existing search technology with Solr, an industry-leading, open-source search system. Solr is currently in use by major consumer sites like NetFlix as well as important e-commerce sites like Zappos. We believe it will provide Etsy the foundation to scale in terms of both speed and functionality.
You may recall that Maria Thomas, Etsy’s CEO, recently mentioned that we are going to be focusing on search in 2009 and that we intend to orient Etsy’s search function more to buyers’ needs. This first phase launch of Search is the first in what we expect to be a series of improvements to Etsy’s search function throughout the year.
For this initial launch we primarily focused on improving the speed with which search results are returned on Etsy. We believe you’ll notice immediate and significantly faster results though specific return times will vary based on your location and type of connection.
In addition to speed improvements, the Solr technology is smarter than our old search technology in how it handles certain queries. A specific improvement worth mentioning is the way in which the new system handles searches containing compound words. In our old system, a search for “notecards” would bring up items containing “notecards” in the tag, title or description field, but items containing only “note cards” (two separate words) would not show up in results. With our new search system, searches containing compound words like “notecards” or “hairbows” return all associated items.
There’s no need to make any updates to your item descriptions and tags to accommodate these improvements but this launch is a great time to remind sellers about the importance of accurate tags, titles and descriptions. You can find more info on how to best tag items in these tagging how-tos.
Future phases of Search will include upgrades to the relevancy and ranking of the results. The way current search results are displayed (ranking) is based on chronology (most recently listed items first). We believe that Etsy buyers will be better served by a system that takes into account both ranking and relevance in a way that helps them find items they’re looking for according to various criteria by category. And, for those buyers who may not know what they’re looking for, we also hope to introduce later in 2009 tools to foster discovery based on all the hearting and curating that takes place across the Etsy community every day..
While our main goal with search is to help buyers find what they’re looking for, we are mindful that sellers want various options to promote their items on Etsy. Redesigning the search function and creating new ways for sellers to advertise on Etsy are two important initiatives that are in the works for the first half of 2009.
Our new search system will be launching later this week; we will update this note when it’s actually live. We look forward to your feedback.
You can comment in the accompanying thread.
Information on Solr is available here.
Update by JB, January 8, 2009: The changes to search are now live in production.
September 11, 2008 at 2:44 pm · Filed under Listings, Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use · By GreenMamba
Today admin Matt, together with the Community and Customer Care Teams published an article in the Storque addressing the very hot topic of resellers on Etsy. It outlines the company’s plan for combatting the influx of infringing shops and goods, which will focus on the point-of-entry - or shop set-up - stage.
Dear Etsians,
With the exception of properly tagged commercial supplies and vintage, Etsy does not permit the reselling of items not made by the seller (see the DO’s and DON’Ts on Selling). We take this rule very seriously, and we share your frustrations when we see resellers intent on listing here. We know that this has been a growing concern of late, and we are addressing it as such.
So, what are we doing?
Creating Measures at the Time of Shop Creation and Product Listing
To a large extent, we created this issue for ourselves by defining in great detail what is and is not permitted for sale on the site, but at the same time establishing few, if any, barriers to entry to setting up a shop on Etsy (simply put a credit card on file). There is no doubt that more emphasis needs to be placed at the first point of contact with new sellers. Our focus must be on keeping these products from ever reaching the site. To this end, we have created an internal team that is focusing on developing and building these safeguards, as well as clarifying and highlighting our policies to new sellers who very well may just be confused. We have been following the many good ideas that have been raised in the forums and sent to community@etsy.com, and we are including them in our planning. We appreciate your input, and ask that you continue to share with us.
This will take some time. So…
In The Mean Time
We have also more than doubled the number of our employees who are trained to properly investigate and remove those in violation. The expanded team is already at work. Furthermore, we have taken steps to make sure that banned resellers are blocked from creating new accounts.
Flagging:
A far more robust flagging system is also already underway and will be implemented in the weeks to come. We are confident that it will allow us to handle flagged items and moderation more quickly and succinctly.
We do ask that you do not use the forums as a place to call out members as resellers (see the Community DO’s and DON’Ts). Oftentimes, these individuals are simply confused. Etsy admin need to treat each and every case (which often involve both buyers and sellers) as a private matter. Furthermore, many cases are not nearly as cut and dry as they may seem at first glance. This sometimes means that shops will not always be removed as quickly as we all would like.
Please continue to flag items that you feel do not belong on Etsy. We do fully investigate every flag, and this takes some time. I know this can be frustrating when it seems that there is inaction on the part of our Content Team, but we assure you that flagging does work. Can it be improved? Yes. Are we improving? Yes.
All of these steps are just the beginning. We will continue to work tirelessly to maintain the integrity of our marketplace. Tomorrow September 12, the Chatt with Matt will be on this subject. Please join us in the Treehouse room of the Virtual Labs at 1pm Eastern time. In anticipation of this discussion, we have closed commenting on this article so we can follow all your comments and suggestions in this forum thread
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 29, 2008 at 12:09 am · Filed under Bugs, Down Time, Site Maintenance, Site Use · By JB
According to this Etsy thread, users of some ISP’s have been reporting connectivity issues to Etsy which are caused by Etsy moving their servers to a new data center. (These are the physical location of the server machines)
alternate link to Etsy thread if you cannot access Etsy
Rokali says:
Hi everyone,
As people here have seen, this is a DNS issue. Anytime any changes to DNS are made, those changes have to propagate to servers around the world. This can take a bit of time.
We’re in the process of migrating from one data center to another (larger) data center. As part of this migration, we moved our DNS servers. This means they got a new IP address. (There are always at least two DNS servers, for redundancy, so it’s multiple IP addresses, and we set Primary, Secondary, Tertiary etc. status for each of them).
It’s these new IP addresses that needs to propagate. Being well aware of this, we kept our old DNS servers up & running, so as the new IP addresses propagated, even if people still hit the old IP addresses, it would work.
This did work, but we recently discovered an edge case, which causes problems. This edge case is a good example of how intertwined the Web is.
In order for Etsy not to be loading for you, the following three ingredients need to be in the recipe of how you connect to the site:
1. Your internet service provider (ISP) has been slow to update its own DNS servers (this happens daily for almost all ISPs), and hasn’t recognized the new IP addresses of our DNS servers
2. You’re hitting the secondary DNS server at our old data center
3. You’re getting a specific type of error message from this DNS server, due to how your request has been routed (what “hops” it’s taking)
*Then* you have problems accessing Etsy.
We have made special changes to how the secondary DNS server handles these requests, and we expect this to resolve the issue. It might still take a bit of time, because the fix needs to propagate out to the rest of the world.
In an ideal world, our changes would propagate out to all the DNS servers in the amount of time they’re supposed to (1-2 days). Alas, some ISPs take their time, and for that ~1% it can take more like 5 days.
As some people here have noted, you can manually change what DNS servers you use on your computer, but in general this isn’t something we’d recommend. It can slow down accessing other sites on the Web.
Of course please keep letting us know here if any of the issues persist.
Footnote: What is an IP address? It’s a numerical locator, that gets mapped to a domain name. For example, www.etsy.com is also 72.37.157.20 — you can copy that string into your Web browser and use it to visit this site. (Your browser might try and force you to use the domain name though.)
Back when the Web first started, there weren’t domain names, there were only IP addresses. But these were really hard to remember, hence the need for domain names.
A DNS server is what connects the domain name (www.etsy.com) to the IP address (72.37.157.20), approximately speaking. There are master lists on DNS servers around the world, and anytime a domain name points to a different IP, these servers need to update what domain points to what IP address.
Disclaimer: This explanation is oversimplified, and I’m not a system administrator. This is what I’ve learned from reading up on the issue, and getting some input from Etsy’s own sys admins, who have been amazingly busy keep the site up & fast. They’re doing a great job.
If you *really* want to learn more, there’s always Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address
Posted at 11:19 pm, June 28 2008 EST -
earlier in the same thread, Revolving Dork said:
RevolvingDork says:
Hi all,
We’ve gotten some scattered reports of users being unable to access Etsy, generally receiving “cannot connect” errors from their browsers.
We’ve run all of our diagnostic tools, and everything appears to be running properly within our network. Our global monitoring tools also have not shown any activity out of the ordinary.
We have been in touch with various ISPs, and we believe we have found the root of the issue. With their cooperation, the issue should be resolved quickly.
We’ll share more information with you as we receive it. In the meantime, if you or anyone you’re in contact with is having Etsy connectivity problems, please post their location here and the nature of their problems.
Thank you!
Posted at 5:24 pm, June 28 2008 EST -
There was an earlier thread that was locked, in which RD said the problem was not on Etsy’s end, and the failure was most likely due to some ISP.
RevolvingDork says:
Hi all,
We’ve gotten some scattered reports of users being unable to access Etsy, generally receiving “cannot connect” errors from their browsers.
We’ve run all of our diagnostic tools, and everything appears to be running properly within our network. Our global monitoring tools also have not shown any activity out of the ordinary.
The evidence we have so far is pointing towards a failure in one or more ISPs ( internet service providers ) around the world, causing routing problems and cutting some users off from Etsy’s servers. This issue is unfortunately out of our hands, as we only have control over our internal network.
We are in contact with our ISP to see if they have any more information about potential issues. They are also reporting no problems currently, but we’re working with them to figure out the root cause of the issue.
We’ll share more information with you as we receive it. In the meantime, if you or anyone you’re in contact with is having Etsy connectivity problems, please post their location here and the nature of their problems.
June 25, 2008 at 11:16 pm · Filed under Site Use, Uncategorized · By JB
Source: this Storque article
Etsy has added a printer-friendly link at the top of every Etsy invoice page.
The printer-friendly invoice is a stripped-down version of the invoice we’re all familiar with, it basically removes the Etsy sidebar and other unrelated stuff from the page.
The Storque article is closed to comments but if you have questions or comments there is a forum thread for the topic.
May 16, 2008 at 12:18 am · Filed under Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use, policy change · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article by admins bethela, Community, emilybidwell, matt, SarahSays, stellaloella, TechUpdates, Etsy details changes to two core site documents, the D&Ds and the TOU. Here is the article in its entirety.
Dear Etsians,
It’s spring! Time to refresh and renew. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing here at Etsy — a bit of spring cleaning. We brought out the site policies and noticed they were looking a little dusty, rusty and rough around the edges. So we’ve polished up the DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use and are pleased to present some shiny, new and improved updates!
Last week we posted a sneak peek preview of the proposed updates to get feedback from the community. After a very positive reception and a few minor tweaks, we’re ready to put these into effect today.
For the most part, the policies are still the same. We’ve reorganized and clarified the existing policies to address some concerns expressed by members over the past year. We have made a few changes and additions. This update is in response to questions and issues raised by our community; our aim was to make the policies easier to understand and to address some of the preceived “gray areas.” For your convenience, we’ll outline the basic changes below, but we expect every member to read through the updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use in their entirety.
Both documents have been reorganized to provide a more logical arrangement of information. The Terms of Use has been tightened up as strictly the legal agreement for using the site. The DOs & DON’Ts contain all our site-wide polices that pertain to specific features and functions of Etsy. The DOs & DON’Ts have also been reformatted out of the constraints of the “Do/Don’t” list structure.
Below is the Cliff’s Notes version of the updates. (This will look familiar to those who participated in the preview last week.) Please follow the links to see the specific section where these policies are defined.
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list is no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Transaction disputes: Buyers and sellers are encouraged to communicate and resolve matters on their own. Transactions may only be reported in three situations: non-payment, fraud and non-delivery. Issues should only be reported after there has been an effort to resolve the issue between the buyer and seller.
Shop Policies: Sellers now have a dedicated page in their shops to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. You can read more about the Shop Policies feature in this article: Hello Policy.
Non-payment time frame: We have removed the “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service. We encourage all sellers to post their payment terms on their Shop Policies page.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations in which Etsy will consider removing feedback for members. You have up to 30 days from the date feedback was left to contest feedback. Additionally, we’ve expanded Kiss and Make-Up to allow members to resolve neutral (as well as negative) feedback issues on their own. Another feedback change we’ll be making soon: the ability to leave feedback will expire 90 days after the transaction date. That change will go into effect on July 1, 2008, so get your backlog of waiting feedbacks cleaned up before then.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in the community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
Terms of Use: The alterations to the Terms of Use have been mostly cosmetic, so we won’t get in to the nitty-gritty here. We cleaned up the language to make it easier to understand and reorganized some information to more appropriate sections. We added a new section on Meetings and removed the section on Feedback (as this info is more appropriate for the DOs & DON’Ts). In general, the Terms of Use and DOs & DON’Ts complement one another.
The updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use are effective as of today, May 15, 2008. However, there are some changes that will impact existing sellers and shops, and we want to give everyone a fair amount of time to adjust and edit. As such, we are allowing everyone a grace period of seven weeks. The deadline for full compliance is June 30, 2008 (by the end of the day at midnight EDT, for those of you who are sticklers or procrastinators). The grace period only applies to compliance with the changed policies as mentioned in this article.
Be sure the email address in your Account Info is up-to-date; we use this address to send vital messages about your account. An email will be sent to all members about this policy update, as well as the recent Search and Category changes. We are revising the Help section (FAQs and Help Guides) to be consistent. If you’re interested in getting other important news sent directly to your inbox, subscribe to our Etsy News Alert emails.
If you’d like to comment, ask questions or discuss these updates to our policies, please join us in this Forum thread. Etsy Admin Beth (aka bethela) and Lauren (aka stellaloella) will also be hosting office hours in the Virtual Labs on Friday, May 16 at 3pm EDT to chat about the site policies.
March 21, 2008 at 12:35 pm · Filed under Listings, Site Use · By Kate Black
Tech Update: Apostrophes Allowed in Item Titles
Thanks to several community suggestions, we’ve updated the listing process to now allow apostrophes in item titles!
Brush up on your grammar skills and learn everything you ever wanted to know about the apostrophe on wikipedia. Now you can officially do the happy dance about grammatically correct item titles! It’s a perfect time to list a new item to test it out or simply edit some of your current titles to reflect the change!
source: The Storque.
