#etsynews

Welcome to my latest coverage of Etsy and other ecommerce news, early May edition. I am off for a short vacation Monday, so thought it best to get this report out now.

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TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy’s first quarter financial report for 2024 was not great, but that was expected.  The real news is that they no longer expect the current quarter to be much better [Tumblr post by me]. Also, they are still planning on changing search. 

Canadian shipping service Chit Chats is shutting a dozen offices in 4 provinces, starting April 29 through May 15 [LinkedIn Post by me]. It appears they expanded too fast and have much more competition now than when they first opened, so the additional locations were not very busy. Some may be replaced by drop off points. There is a thread in the Etsy forum with more info.

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman made over $16 million in 2023, roughly the same amount as 2022 [pdf; see page 56]. Almost all of that was stock options. Chief Financial Officer Rachel Glaser made over $8 million, as did Chief Technology Officer Rachana Kumar. 

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy buyers are receiving emails asking them to rate their recent purchases, as discussed in this Etsy forum thread. The owner of Garden Path Rosaries at Peter's Square Marketplace sent me the screenshot below, which popped up after they clicked the email to confirm they had received the order.

These questions may be connected to details popping in recent reviews, even though the popups and emails say the feedback “won’t be shared with the seller or shown on Etsy.” See this screenshot from Kathie from PillowDetail’s shop:

It’s also possible these review details come from a different test, or even from the act of leaving a review, as some buyers report getting similar options when they leave public reviews. [As is usual with Etsy, they change a lot of things without explaining how any of it works.]

Etsy seems to have deleted most Messages in seller spam folders without any warning, and some shop owners are not happy about it. [The only one I have left is a recent Message that Etsy moved there erroneously.]

Etsy is still promoting its TurboTax discount to Canadian sellers - even though the integration only works in the US. [post by me on LinkedIn]

Canadians no longer need to have a Canada Post Solutions for Small Business account to use Etsy Labels - and the discount for Tracked Packet to the US is very good. [Patreon post by me]

NBC News calls out Etsy for AI crochet patterns that don’t work. While the article blames the images being made by AI, I’ll bet the patterns were too. 

Despite this type of criticism over allowing AI items to be sold on the site, Silverman told a recent investors conference that he is still all in on AI in many forms. “Many sellers on the platform are generating content in collaboration with a machine, Silverman said, and a large amount of new item listings are generated in collaboration with GenAI. But given that Etsy is a platform for handmade goods, the boundary between man-made and machine-made required some clarification. “We had some discussions about, is that handmade or not? Does that belong on Etsy? And we decided, ultimately, that it was—in the same way that electronic dance music, the most popular form of music in the world right now, is collaborations between humans and synthesizers,” said Silverman. “I think this collaboration between humans and machines to generate art is actually going to be the next frontier.” He did admit that the search chatbot tested on the app many months back was poorly received. [The article is really worth reading, in my opinion.]

Gift Mode has now launched worldwide [text with embedded video], and gift teasers will soon include videos from the giver. The teasers have been growing in popularity, with 7% of gift orders in March using the teaser. 

The Marketplace Trends report for spring & summer is out, and apparently there has been a 266% increase in searches for divorce gifts. Even more impressive is a ”2,159% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for lawn games”. Skim through the whole report if you want to know what is trending up. 

Etsy released 2 different “impact goal” posts on Earth Day, which included Reverb and Depop. While you can read a lot more detail in the 2023 Integrated Annual Report [pdf], here are the individual posts: 

Environmental impact goals: reduced carbon emissions, on track to be net zero carbon emissions by 2030. “[S]ellers created 108 million listings with circular attributes on the Etsy, Depop and Reverb marketplaces, including vintage, upcycled, used and secondhand items.” The document mentions increasing Disaster Response Grants (for U.S sellers only) and “open source resource guides that help makers access climate-related disaster information and funding.” 2024 goals are listed. 

Social impact goals: discusses gender, race and disability representation in its workforce, and funding for “creative entrepreneurs from low-income and underserved communities.” 

Related to the environmental impact goals, Etsy published a disaster guide (mostly US-focussed), and put out a (very short) funding guide for US sellers at the same time.  

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon added over 5 million sellers since 2018, 2 million of them in the US. That's only about 100,000 more than Etsy in the same time period, comparing 4th quarter 2018 to the end of 2023. 

There are now Amazon shoppable livestreams on Prime Video and Freevee. “Amazon Live’s FAST channel will feature 24/7 programming from popular creators and celebrities, such as reality TV stars …Brands like Tastemade and The Bump will also host streams to sell their products.”

Amazon drone delivery is ending in California, but continues in Texas and will soon start in Arizona. 

Amazon’s first quarter was great, but note that ⅔ of its operating income comes from the cloud services, not ecommerce. 

BigCommerce

BigCommerce announced many new features, including more country localization, new builder options, syncing inventory through Feedonomics, and of course, AI. 

eBay

eBay is now testing an Explore feature to put together a clothing shopping feed with AI. I don’t have this in Canada yet, but it has been spotted in the US and the UK, and the links in the article do work in Canada. I selected a bunch of women’s options and was presented with a feed that had a lot of men’s clothing, so this appears to work about as well as Etsy’s Gift Mode, which Liz Morton compared it to.

eBay’s sales and revenue were both up slightly in the first quarter, while active buyers were down 1% from the year before. 

Shopify

Shopify is reorganizing Support, in part to inject more AI into the process. Employees are worried about possible layoffs. 

Walmart

Cart.com is now helping new sellers start on Walmart Marketplace, and is offering multi-channel syncing for existing businesses as well. 

All Other Marketplaces

Vinted has turned a profit for the first time, riding the trend of interest in secondhand clothing.

Ruby Lane will be increasing its shop fee to $45 from $25 as of June 1, and will be removing the rebate for listing 15 new items monthly. 

Bonanza’s annual Spring sale runs May 8th to 15th. The coupon code sellers must activate is SpringSale2024. 

The EU has forced Shein under the umbrella of the Digital Services Act.”The European Commission specifically noted new requirements for Shein around illegal products on its site. The company will have four months to submit a risk assessment report and will need to introduce mitigation measures against “the listing and sale of counterfeit goods, unsafe products, and items that infringe on intellectual property rights.”

Shipping 

Labels service Shippo is introducing paid tiers for any businesses printing over 30 labels a month through its service. Anyone printing 30-200 labels a month will be charged $19 monthly; under that is free.

But they might finally be taking some Trust & Safety issues a bit more seriously?

(Image ©️ Etsy) It's amusing that Etsy chose to head up this report with an image of a human hand grabbing a paper folder, since almost all of their oversight seems automated these days.

Etsy's annual "Transparency Report" is out, and much of it isn't a whole lot different than the 2022 version, but there are a few developments worth noting.

It looks like they didn't like me calling them out for their policy flags having a 95% error rate in 2022, so they didn't provide the total number flags from 2023, meaning no one reading this report in isolation would be able to calculate Etsy's false flag rate as I did last year. Fortunately, they did provide enough figures that I can do the math backwards using 2022's totals, so I can update that number.

It seems like the might finally be treating a few of the largest problems a bit more seriously, as they are showing some improvement in several areas. A lot of this feels a bit too little, too late to me, though.

Let's dig in and see what else is interesting...

Policy Enforcement

In last year's report, Etsy claimed there were 36 million flags of "potentially non-compliant content" and 1.9 million listings removed "for violating our policies". That report said 95% of the flags were automated (aka bots), so almost entirely internal to Etsy, not from buyers or sellers. There is no way to know whether the bots were more accurate at reporting possible infractions than humans were, as we didn't get that information. When you do the overall calculations, though, that means almost 95% of the flags were declared false, and the listings were allowed to stay on the site. So 19 out of 20 flagged items were not violations, but were removed or deindexed while investigated (which can take weeks).

For 2023, Etsy says they reduced the number of flags by a full 10%, which would leave only 32.4 million flags, a number they curiously omitted from the report. They also removed twice as many listings as in 2022, for a total of 3.8 million. That means that over 7 out of 8 items flagged (and often removed temporarily) were not policy violations, or 88.3% of the total.

Well, that's better than 95%, but it is still atrociously lousy. Surely there must be a better way to program these automated systems? After all, the corporation has been using them for years - why don't they work better by now? Don't forget that temporarily removing or deindexing a listing is not without consequences for the innocent sellers. They lose potential sales while the item isn't available/searchable, and they also lose traction in Etsy's algorithms during that time, which is sometimes irreversible. In short, 1 out of 8 is bad, as in incompetently bad.

It gets worse when you realize 2 things:

some of the removed listings were not violations. While some sellers can occasionally get those listings reinstated after several weeks of appeals [7 weeks!], others simply give up, or never get beyond the first-level cut and paste fiasco that is now seller support on Etsy. I get emails on this topic almost daily. That means some of the 11.7% of flags that Etsy brags about should not have been permanently removed. The corporation's true success rate is even lower than that abysmal score.

many, many violations that should be easy to remove through automated systems are still up. Of course, there will always be new violations, and no business this large should be expected to have a perfect record, but when entire shops full of manufactured snack foods thrown in to a cardboard box are still open after years and even feature the Star Seller badge, you can see that Etsy isn't going for the low-hanging fruit.

Remember, Etsy's Gift Basket Policy says "a care package for new parents, a college student, or somebody experiencing an illness containing any new items you did not make is not allowed, no matter how caringly curated it otherwise is."

I've flagged this twice in the last 2+ years:

It's a clear violation, but the last time I flagged it, the shop was a Star Seller. Etsy never removes the listing, and is clearly not serious about getting rid of these supposedly-disallowed items. I mean, I am even doing the flag part for them! They only have to review it.

Heck, you don't need a bot to distinguish "care packages"; just search for Cheetos, or for KitKats, and you could clear out a ton of food/gift basket violations as well as counterfeit ones. Etsy could do way better here. I don't expect perfection, but after several years of practice, I do expect some basic competence, especially when livelihoods are at stake. Anyone proud of a 11.7% accuracy rate isn't living in the real world.

Violations of Etsy's Handmade Policies

The above numbers are for all policy violations. For handmade specifically, Etsy removed 4 times as many listings and twice as many sellers as they did in 2022 (when they increased non-handmade removals by 4 times over 2021's totals). As has been mentioned in a few quarterly financial reports, they now estimate how many shoppers might come across a problem listing before it gets removed, which is called the "Not Handmade Violative View rate (VVR)." This rate improved by 60% from April to the end of 2023, and got down to "the low single digits".

In theory, this sounds great - improve Etsy's image by hiding or removing the items they most often get called out for. Problem is, if they only count the items that do get removed, they are missing the bigger group of all the violations that never get flagged or removed in the first place. More transparency on how they actually "estimate" this number would be helpful.

Another problem in this area is that the handmade flags are not being handled the way Etsy says they are. The Transparency Report states:

"Now, when a listing is flagged by our automated controls for potentially violating our Handmade Policy, it'll remain active but not appear in search results and recommendations in order to give our specialists time to review the listing. Our team will determine if it should be removed, or if it can be sold on Etsy and be made visible again. The review process typically takes between 24 and 48 hours."

This matches what Etsy announced in September 2023, when they acknowledged that their takedowns were harming innocent shops. They even said that

"we’ll also be working to add more transparency to let sellers know if their listings have been temporarily removed from search for review...Any listings not reviewed within 48 hours will automatically be made visible in search and recommendations."

However, we know that is not happening for many shops. I have heard of very few people who were warned their item had been deindexed for up to 48 hours while a human being reviews it. And if Etsy were removing products from search first but not notifying sellers, we would definitely hear about, as many shop owners track their search position daily.

What I do hear all the time is that Etsy permanently removed an item for not being handmade, and the seller is not able to get their appeal heard. They never got a notification or experienced deindexing, but only find out once Etsy deactivates the listing. For example:

I get emails almost every day that read similar to this, and often even worse.

Currently it seems to take an average of about 2 weeks for an appeal to be dealt with, but some have waited as long as 2 months, and some sellers just give up. So why isn't Etsy notifying sellers, and why are so many of the supposed "human" reviews getting it wrong? (based on Etsy's claim that they only remove an item under the handmade policy once a human can evaluate the automated flag) This is not being transparent; this appears to be actual lying.

Intellectual Property Enforcement

These removals tend to take two forms: either the intellectual property rights holder files a report against a listing, or Etsy removes a listing under its automated counterfeit flags. The first type of removal was up 10% in 2023 to 1.2 million listings, and the takedowns for "potential counterfeit violations" totalled 1.45 million, up 216%. (Since the latter ones are all automated, there are likely more errors there.)

Of interest to many sellers will be the fact that Etsy actually rejects over a quarter of the infringement claims (up 54% from 2022), "indicative of our increased focus on preventing fraudulent and abusive takedown notices". That's right, the Etsy forum myth that Etsy must always obey any IP takedown claim is just that: a myth. While Etsy can't make determinations of law (e.g., whether or not something rises to level of legal infringement), they can and do reject obviously fraudulent claims such as when the email address is fake, or where key parts of the report are not filled out correctly. It's a good sign that they are taking this problem more seriously, given that false takedowns can devastate a shop's income and momentum in Etsy's various algorithms.

Also of interest: 9% of copyright claims resulted in the seller filing a counter claim.

A Few Other Highlights

Product safety: "We removed 63% more items that were subject to product recalls compared to the prior year."

Issues with orders: "Etsy made it even easier for buyers to report issues and get them resolved with Etsy Purchase Protection by proactively reaching out to buyers when we think there may have been an issue with their order. This helped more buyers easily report order issues and led to faster resolutions." [my emphasis] I was hoping that those emails asking if your untracked order arrived yet were about developing a way for customers to confirm untracked/hand-delivered orders for Star Seller status, but it looks like I was wrong, sadly. Guess we are still waiting for the in-person delivery solution that Etsy promised nearly 3 years ago. I'm not sure what other reasons Etsy might have for suspecting "an issue" with an order, but that possibility does worry me. Also, 1 out of 200 orders involves a case from the buyer, and cases are now solved in an average of 2 hours, down from 14 hours in 2022. [That's because they are almost all automated now, of course.]

You might be surprised to learn that Etsy will "freeze or divert funds from a member’s payment account to comply with a legal obligation, such as those relating to liens, levies, or garnishments."

Plans for the Future

Some of this section of the report has already happened, such as updates to certain policies (e.g., Hate and Violence), and the new fees and procedures for setting up a new shop.

What we haven't seen yet is "clarifying our policies to buyers and sellers on what belongs on Etsy and why, including in emerging areas such as AI-generated content." An interview already revealed that Etsy is okay with the use of AI (artificial intelligence) to create products, with CEO Josh Silverman inaccurately likening AI art to electronic dance music. Comments during the first quarter financial call this year made me wonder if Etsy is going to start setting up filters or categories of different types of listings on Etsy, somehow distinguishing handmade from designed and made with production help and from personalized. That may help on the buyer clarification end.

I do expect new statements on what can be sold on Etsy some time this year, possibly with changes to the current rules. Comments during the first quarter 2024 call roughly echo the Transparency Report wording. That will have to include changes or clarifications to the "gift baskets full of commercial items rule" that Etsy has ignored for a few years, of course - I keep expecting them to remove that rule, since they never enforce it.

Otherwise, they are going to continue to do the same stuff - more automation, more removals - with increases in certain areas.

My Final Thoughts

No doubt you are asking yourself: why does she think Etsy is now taking some of its biggest issues more seriously? To be honest, that impression is mostly not based on this year's Transparency Report, given that there are only marginal improvements in the number of items incorrectly-flagged by automated systems, and given the dishonest claims about how they handle non-handmade flags. (I did like the improvement in rejecting phony intellectual property claims, and the slow increases in removing ineligible listings.)

What actually makes me feel slightly encouraged is that Etsy is getting pressure on these issues from investors, and that means they might have to start showing some results. During the recent quarterly results call, Silverman said that sales were about half a percent lower than they would have been if they hadn't removed so many shops and listings. He mentioned that the analyst he was answering had previously discussed the non-handmade removals with him, and that they were important to the integrity of the site.

That surprised me, but it probably shouldn't have. Issues with non-handmade and actually dangerous or illegal items on Etsy were expertly raised by the Etsy Strike organization 2 years ago (now the Indie Sellers Guild), and have continued to ripple through media coverage of Etsy ever since. And we all know that Etsy does respond to negative coverage more than it responds to seller complaints. The company is being forced to show some results in these areas, since other people keep talking about them.

The fact that these results are not yet enough, and are probably coming too late to really save Etsy's reputation as a trustworthy shopping destination, should surprise no one. The site makes too much money on cheese gift baskets not made by the seller and on repackaged dollar store goods to throw it all away at once, and hiring humans to police the site would cut into profit even more. Etsy clearly can't "keep commerce human" by throwing more AI at the mess - we see that isn't helping much so far, even if they won't admit it - and leadership seems bereft of other solutions.

Etsy's new Gift Mode is a real embarrassment for the corporation - did you know they are suggesting dangerous gifts for infants?

Some Etsy sellers are getting worried about a survey the corporation sent out to some shop owners, asking them what they would be willing to pay for different tiers of service (like Etsy Plus, but with many more options). The key point that was most publicized was a potential listing fee increase to 40 cents USD from the current 20 cents, unless the shop purchased a higher tier of service per month. That was far from all that was covered, however. 

I did not take the survey - which apparently had the usual non-disclosure agreement (NDA) attached - but a few sellers have sent me more information on it. I am not going to publish the screenshots I received, or the written descriptions, as I have too few examples to be sure that Etsy did not send out more than one version. Thank you to my anonymous sources, who will remain protected. 

I will, however, reveal a bit more about some of the options Etsy proposed. Let me clear up a few key points, and provide some thoughts on where Etsy is going.

Not everything Etsy surveys us on gets enacted

I am not saying that Etsy won’t raise any fees - they have to find some more money to keep shareholders happy, after all - but we can’t be certain that a listing fee increase will happen, or that it will be 40 cents. Remember when people were concerned that free shipping would become mandatory? What about free returns? There have been lots of scares like this in the past. In fact, Etsy apparently sent out surveys before this particular one, asking what we’d pay extra for, and some of the options do not seem to be included in this week's survey. (And yes, those other surveys reportedly had an NDA attached as well.)

This survey largely seemed to be designed to determine how much they could squeeze us without losing too many sellers. 

Not every set of service tiers included a listing fee increase 

There were options where no one - not even the free tiers - would see a listing fee increase. 

Listing fee increases are not necessarily the worst option Etsy floated

One of the scarier possibilities that came up more than once was limiting the number of listings (presumably including renew sold and renew expired) to a very small number a month unless the shop pays monthly for a higher tier of service. The lowest number of listings mentioned per month was 5. To list more, a shop would need to subscribe to a higher tier, and pay a monthly fee. If you only listed 6 items a month, you’d be bumped to the next tier, and getting ripped off much worse than an extra 20 cents per listing (and in some versions in the survey, they included the listing fee increase in this option as well.)

This would bleed a lot of small shops dry before they could even get going. It also wouldn’t limit AI shops from uploading 1000 items because there were no listing limits mentioned on the highest tiers, which were relatively cheap when spread across a huge shop. 

Another possibility would take away the discounting tools, Share & Save, and the ability to be an Etsy Pick/featured seller/promoted shop from the free tier. This would limit some small shops’ development while tricking shops with no chance of ever being featured into paying monthly shop fees they probably did not need. 

Laughably, Etsy also floated the idea of including the pricing tool in the paid tiers. Why would anyone pay for that? It was garbage. 

UPDATE (Feb. 25, 2024): Ina Steiner published some more details from the survey on the EcommerceBytes website.

Should we be worried? 

Some shops should be worried, but not all of them. If you run an Etsy shop with less than a sale a day, it’s clear to me that Etsy doesn’t really want you any more, unless you have very high-priced items. You apparently aren’t paying enough to cover the cloud fees and the Support costs of keeping you open. The corporation wants to charge you more for things you already get for free, without improving your service, even though Etsy is currently turning a profit. New shops are also soon going to be saddled with a start up fee and longer reserve times, making it more difficult to start an Etsy shop if you aren’t already an established business. Additional fees for small shops after they start would just make that decision even worse. As I have mentioned many times, Etsy has too many items, and this certainly seems like one way to reduce the crowding.

If, on the other hand, you sell upwards of 100 items a month and have decent margins, the imposed tier rates could actually work out to far less than an extra 20 cents per listing, as the relatively low set charge per month would be spread across a lot of renew solds/renew expireds. For example, shops selling 1000 items a month would pay less than than 2.5 cents per listing extra compared to now. You’d also have access to additional opportunities and tools which may or may not be worth it, all included in that set charge. Some of these options would also potentially reduce your competition on Etsy, including the competition for being featured. If some of the tools work - and I admit that is a big “if” - you could actually come out ahead. If any of these changes happen, you might end up pleased with Etsy's decision.

Considering all the other changes Etsy is discussing right now, everyone currently selling there should review their business plans and make sure their income is well-diversified. 2024 will be a bumpy ride for many. 

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Welcome to my first commerce news update of 2024!

Now that we are through the intensity of the holiday rush, I plan on getting a few of these out each month. Please follow me on Bluesky or on LinkedIn if you want more timely updates. (New ways to get updates coming soon!)

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Some Etsy listings now have a link which displays some shop owners' names and home addresses under the seller contact info, which says “Meet your seller”. This may be legally required in some jurisdictions, including within the US if you don’t have a proper location on your shop, but here is how to remove it if you don’t need it. Here’s some of the info on the US INFORM Act which could require disclosure of your information; the EU and UK are other jurisdictions which sometimes may require this info if you sell to them. 

Reminder that UK small sellers may end up having their taxable income reported by the platforms they sell on starting for 2024. “The first deadline for firms to report details of transactions is the end of January 2025 – a year after the rules come into force. Bank account details and the cost of transactions made by sellers with sizable trading activity must be reported.” Etsy reminded shop owners that there is no change in taxes owed in the UK; the changes force platforms to report income so that people can’t evade taxes as easily. 

In case you missed it, many USPS rates, as well as forever stamps, went up again on January 21. Some label services such as eBay may actually offer decreases in certain categories, however.

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy announced 2 (very different) “privacy” changes at the beginning of January: limiting some third-party apps from receiving buyer email addresses, and making the Etsy forum a seller-only site in the near future. Shops will have to log in to read anything other than Announcements and the Technical Issues sections. We are not yet sure if this applies to shops in long-term vacation mode. 

Etsy teased a promotional announcement on Jan. 16, which is likely that the site will be launching Gift Mode [post by me with a link to another post with screenshots]. I’ll write more on that once it is officially released, but here is one of my screenshots from today, with lots of infringement. Also, the site is apparently buying a Super Bowl ad. This year’s ads are expected to cost at least $7 million USD. Etsy forum thread discussing both topics here. 

Etsy chose not to respond to this article about AI art sold as indigenous creations. “Etsy has a policy that prohibits users from selling items falsely listed as being produced by Indigenous peoples — but only in Northern America, and allows “Indigenous-style” products by non-Indigenous people.”

Some shop owners from Turkey claim their shops are being shut down at a high rate, with no explanation. At least some had issues with items that cannot be sold on Etsy, and there appeared to be some with ID or financial anomalies. I am still interested in hearing more, if anyone knows anything. 

EcommerceBytes covered the Etsy problems with the domestic pricing tool charging some international buyers domestic prices, which have been going on since May 2023. While some sellers have managed to get refunds from the company, others report no such luck. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

General

The Indie Sellers Guild is running a virtual convention in April; read the panel ideas here. 

Amazon

Amazon product pages now have a link to get AI-answers to your questions. Expect to see a lot more of this on many types of sites. 

There are several keyword tools that can help you optimize your Amazon products; 5 are discussed here, but note that some may be pricy.

The latest layoffs at Amazon include people working for the “Buy with Prime” department. 

Amazon’s difficult-to-navigate system for suspensions and other punishments has led to entire law firms dedicated to supporting shops that have been closed or have had listings removed. 

BigCommerce

BigCommerce sites can now have a marketplace component, meaning that a single business site can now have other sellers on it. 

eBay

eBay had to pay $3 million over its behaviour in the cyberstalking case against Ina and David Steiner, owners of EcommerceBytes. The Steiners issued a victim impact statement; the civil lawsuit in this matter goes to trial in March 2025. 

eBay’s discounted Tracked Packet rate from Canada Post has been extended to March 31, 2024. 

Buyers and sellers are getting annoyed with long delays in product authentication. 

eBay called a few sellers and pushed them to offer cheaper shipping rates, based on the discounted rates for eBay’s labels. (They seem to have forgotten that they charge fees on those shipping rates.)

Poshmark

Poshmark’s recent policy changes included a class action waiver. Changes are effective February 5. 

All Other Marketplaces

Depop released its first Trends Report, similar to those put out by its parent company, Etsy. 

Bonanza is introducing a combo website builder/inventory integration and accounting platform called Vercado. Price will be $99 a month, so I strongly suggest investigating what - if any - advantages it provides over its competitors. 

Payment Processing

PayPal and Venmo are teasing some big ecommerce plans for this year, to be announced on Jan. 25. It involves use of AI, and the possibility of improving engagement rates. 

Shipping 

Screenshot of my shop home page in July; these photos will change to squares in "early August".

Although Etsy hasn't sent out warning emails or posted notifications on shop manager dashboards yet, the forum Announcements section let us know that Etsy would be changing the ratio of images on shop home pages in early August. (Yes, they are only giving us a few weeks notice. Perfectly reasonable, right? 🙄) The decision was based on the much-maligned tests run in June and July, where many shops saw their product photographs bizarrely zoomed and cropped, with no explanation from Etsy.

Turns out that those tests showed a higher conversion rate for squares, so that is where Etsy is headed. Problem is, we don't know if they are going to properly adjust the crops or not, which they did not do when testing. During that experiment, many of my square photos were zoomed then cropped off on one side, in part because Etsy hadn't removed my previous use of the cropping tool for rectangular shapes. The issues were just as bad or even worse for sellers who mostly used rectangular photos to match the shape of Etsy's gallery displays.

Many sellers are panicking, worrying that they will have to redo thousands of photos in just a few weeks time. Etsy states that "No immediate action is required, however, you may want to start taking and uploading images with this format in mind." Since search pages will still have rectangular product images, squares will not always work (unless set up to look decent in both shapes).

What should sellers do?

I suggest waiting to see what your items look like in this new format before making changes to older images. We don't know whether or not Etsy is going to fix the problems displayed during the experiments. Shooting new listings with both shapes in mind is definitely a good idea, but it is possible your older photographs will look good enough to avoid getting out your camera again.

My best guess is that they will not make the same weird cropping errors with already square photos like mine, as they are not currently doing that on Market pages, where square photos are the norm. See an example below, and compare to the screenshot of my shop home page rectangles above:

Note that my earrings show up fine as a square on the Market page. This listing photo was shown cropped off on each side during the shop home page square test. However, my original photo was taken to look okay as both a square and an Etsy gallery rectangle: a square shape with extra space above and below the earrings. The listing photo in the top right corner above was apparently taken to fill the rectangle shape on each side, so the earrings on the right and left are cut off in square view. This is a problem that many shops may face, depending on how Etsy formats the new home pages.

If you want to check how your current photos look as squares, use this trick to see them on a Market page. (You may need to narrow results by price to find your listing easily.) However, remember that we cannot be certain this is how Etsy will display pics on home pages come August. If we learn more about it, I will update this post.

UPDATE (August 2, 2023): Unfortunately, Etsy went live with the changes today and didn't fix any of the shop home coding, so my photos are weirdly cropped again, and I cannot fix them with Etsy's cropping tool. This shouldn't happen, as my photos are already square!

This is what Etsy has chosen to do with my square photos. Why not just, you know, display the squares I uploaded? Sigh...

If you are taking new photos and want them to work in both formats, you will need to leave space around the outer rim of the image, so you don't lose vital parts of your product when Etsy changes the photo shape. I've been using squares with empty space on the top and bottom of each shot, which is so far working fine on the Market page squares. This may not work for all types of products, however.

As you know, I usually post my summary of Etsy's quarterly earnings reports here on Tumblr, but this one ran a lot longer than usual and had some important content, so I published on my website blog instead: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2022/2/28/etsy-fourth-quarter-2021-earnings-report-big-gains-and-a-bigger-fee-increase-for-sellers

Happy 2022, and welcome to my latest summary of the top news, studies and helpful resources for ecommerce, social media, SEO and content marketing (with a special focus on Etsy), compiled since my last update in November (although a few articles are older than that). I didn't get completely caught up from the holiday season, but will cover those missing topics in the next few updates.

Note the new format - I've grouped topics a bit differently, and added a few new ones. I like it a lot better than the previous one, but will probably make at least a few changes, so please let me know if you have any complaints or suggestions. Post your thoughts here on Tumblr, email me through my website, or connect on Twitter.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

Etsy is now refunding buyers out of seller funds almost immediately in some opened cases, including when the order’s tracking shows the package as delivered. Recent examples include:

a case (with full tracking via Royal Mail) in the UK; seller is escalating with Support

a US case with full tracking; Etsy did refund the seller eventually after they escalated their complaint “The solution is to request a call back from Etsy. Do not go through chat or email. I waited about 5 minutes to get a call back.” - what do those without access to call backs do?

a digital download case that may have been a scam; no word yet on a refund from Etsy

All payments had cleared. Some sellers have claimed that Etsy refused to refund them, even after the seller demonstrated compliance with Seller Protection rules. Most seem to involve “unauthorized use” but in some cases the buyer wants to pay the seller back. Speculation is that this is due to a new bot from Etsy, which wouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention. This could also be related to the weird glut of order cancellations both buyers and sellers are complaining about: see here, here, and here.

US Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday were not quite as big as last year for online retail, possibly because some buyers heeded warnings and purchased holiday gifts earlier than usual. Amazon was up over the same period, however. Overall, US ecommerce sales were up over 2021, due to bigger totals before and after Cyber Week. While up from 2020, December sales did slow compared to November, possibly due to omicron. In the US, the areas with the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates had the highest amount of in-person shopping.

Amazon expects to become the largest delivery service in the United States by early 2022, leaving UPS and FedEx behind. “The retail giant now oversees thousands of last-mile delivery companies that deliver packages exclusively for Amazon, as well as a budding in-house network of planes, trucks and ships. It has also dotted the country with warehouses and air hubs that can speed along packages…By last August, Amazon was estimated to be delivering 66% of its own packages.”

ETSY NEWS

When Etsy made some minor upgrades to the payment account page on January 1, some sellers were confused by the changed terminology, and mistakenly thought that there had been a fee increase. In particular, Etsy previously hid the payment processing fee on the line with the total sale’s credit to your account, while it now places that charge on a separate line. Etsy is also finally breaking out the taxes that it collects on sellers behalf, which should have been the way it was done from the beginning. This should make things easier for at least some of us.

Some sellers with payment reserves have been unable to get their money released when they ship with tracking, as Etsy’s system isn’t recognizing the tracking. While the UK issue has been partially resolved, it went on for close to one month, and other countries such as Germany are still experiencing the same issue. This could also affect sellers elsewhere if shipping companies missed scans during the holiday season and the likely upcoming pandemic-related labour shortages.

Note that this lack of tracking is now happening with Etsy’s Pitney Bowes integration for letters in the US. See here and here.

Quite a few shop owners were surprised to find themselves with Star Seller badges in mid-December, even though they didn’t qualify. See here, here, here and here. Note that the badges all disappeared again in January, and no one who didn’t have at least 95% on shipping seemed to get one.

Klarna is now available for purchases from Spain and Australia.

Etsy was one of many large sites that went down due to the Google Cloud outage on November 16th.

The company continued to get good media mileage from Josh Silverman’s assertions that Etsy sellers mostly aren't affected by supply chain issues, including an invite to a conference with President Biden. Here are stories from Fox, the New York Times, and CNBC.

There is also more attention to the problem of false intellectual property claims and counterfeit takedowns. From the first article: “The takedowns spike around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and “it’s typically competitors trying to slow down someone else,” according to Brent Sausser, a partner at law firm Sausser Summers PC, which represents sellers in such disputes.” The second article: “List a secondhand product from fashion companies like Michael Kors, Dior, or YSL, and you could soon be facing down an IP notice trying to block or restrict the sale, say online sellers. These takedowns can destabilize independent merchants and jeopardize their livelihoods. And now, sellers say overzealous takedowns are getting more and more intense across different e-commerce platforms, just as consumers are beginning to embrace secondhand fashion over buying directly from manufacturers and big-box retailers...The INFORM Consumers Act, supported by Amazon, Etsy, and eBay, would require online marketplaces to take additional steps to verify the identities of high-volume third-party sellers. Meanwhile, the SHOP SAFE Act — which has received pushback from online selling platforms — would open platforms up to lawsuits unless they take certain steps to prevent counterfeit products. But Liebesman and critics of the bill say the legislation as-is could end individuals’ and small businesses’ ability to sell products online.”

At least a few Etsy sellers are in trouble with the IRS because the tax agency doesn’t believe that some of their PayPal sales in 2018 and ‘19 were actually made on Etsy. This Etsy forum thread tells one such story. If you know anyone affected, please have them contact me, as I can connect them with the others to share tactics on getting this fixed.

Speaking of the IRS, most US sellers will need to provide their tax information to Etsy under a new law that took effect January 1, 2022. See more here. As usual, a bunch of shops were put into vacation mode after following Etsy’s instructions. Making sure that your name is the exact same as on your SSN or EIN paperwork seems to help. If you are a non-US seller who received the messages, here is how to make sure Etsy doesn’t shut you down.

Etsy published their trends for 2022 in December with a look back at 2021 as well. You will discover that emerald green searches are already up 60% in the last 3 months, 70’s lighting is hot, and colourful weddings will be back (searches up 223%). They then followed up with “early 2022 trends”, focussing on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Some recent search trends: “2,627% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for pastel room decor…177% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for squiggles…54% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for prisms or suncatchers…368% YoY increase in searches for ‘70s lighting.”

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Google’s search algorithm spam update finished rolling out November 8th; you probably won’t see much impact if you don’t do spammy things. But then they started a core update on November 17th, which took 1-2 weeks to roll out completely. Google says they will reconsider timing for next year’s holiday shopping season after many SEOs complained. The last update seemed to hit some sites very hard, but Amazon, Walmart and Etsy were among the ecommerce winners, according to this study.

Google does recognize bold text on a page as a way of emphasizing the page’s real meaning. That doesn’t mean you should bold everything, though.

Moving a site or even just some pages? Google says to make sure you keep the redirect in place for at least a year [video], for SEO purposes.

Here is Google’s search news update for December. [video]

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

Shopping on social media is expected to grow much faster than website-based ecommerce in the next few years, making close to 20% of overall online sales, driven primarily by Gen Z and millennials.

Here’s a primer on social media advertising.

Facebook

Facebook ad targeting will no longer allow many types of controversial categories as of January 19 2022. “In other words, you won’t be able to target your ads based on topics like ‘World Diabetes Day’ or other health causes, nor will you be able to hone in on elements related to sexual orientation, political beliefs, etc….[however] Facebook says that brands will still be able to use Engagement Custom Audiences in order to reach people who’ve liked their Page, or Facebook users who’ve watched their videos, while you’ll also be able to use the same as the basis for Lookalike targeting, along with your own email lists.”

If you are using Facebook Ads to get signups/registrations, you probably should be using Lead Ads, which keep the registrant on Facebook & produced more signups for less spend in this A/B test.

Instagram

It looks like Instagram is going to push videos more than still images in the future, which could change traffic and engagement for some businesses.

They are also testing a reverse-chronological feed, but it can’t be set as the default, so users will have to select it each time they open Instagram.

Instagram hashtags are a crucial way to get noticed; learn how to use them and which ones are the most popular.

TikTok

TikTok is projected to have more than 1.5 billion users some time in 2022.

Twitter

Walmart was the first company to try out Twitter’s livestream shopping, on November 28.

YouTube

After some tests, YouTube made “dislikes” on videos private (only seen by the publisher).

How to get more followers on YouTube.

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies)

If you aren’t having much success with your email list, here are 17 tips that can improve your effectiveness.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (ALL EXCEPT SOCIAL MEDIA)

There was a Google Shopping ad bug on November 12-13 that hugely increased the cost-per-click. While it has long been fixed, check your reporting to see if you were affected, as you are likely eligible for refunds.

Google Ads’ “Performance Max” campaigns are now available to all advertisers. Here’s how to start using them. “Machine learning models then optimize bids for advertisers’ goals.”

Catch up on the most recent changes to Microsoft Ads here, including new countries where it is available. “Microsoft has removed the minimum spend requirement to use Customer Match targeting with email match. Microsoft said the removal of this requirement “makes it possible for more of you to use this feature that plays an important role in moving into the cookieless world…The Microsoft Audience Ads is now available to all customers in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Venezuela. Previously is was available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Germany.”

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Google Analytics 4 will no longer track bounce rates; instead, it looks at engagement rates.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon’s UK site will no longer accept UK-issued Visa cards as of January 19, 2022; they say it is due to the high Visa processing fees. Critics note that Amazon’s fees for its third party sellers can be as much as 20%.

US users will be able to pay with Venmo starting in 2022.

eBay

eBay had a disturbing “bug” in early December, where some buyer and seller accounts were closed for no reason.

Shopify

Shopify is testing a product search app that would include all websites built with Shopify. Businesses would have to opt in.

In the meantime, outside search engine traffic is still a way to get more eyes on your Shopify site; here is a somewhat-advanced set of tips for technical SEO on Shopify.

Linktree now offers the ability to feature Shopify items on your page. “Once users link their Shopify accounts with Linktree, they’ll be able to choose which products or collections to promote. There’s also an option to live sync Shopify collections onto Linktree, so that any changes made on Shopify are reflected on Linktree automatically. Users can display up to six products at a time and host multiple links for different collections or stores.”

All Other Marketplaces

ArtFire closed, but didn't bother to notify its sellers directly. It just posted a notice on the website instead of sending an email. It’s not clear if sellers can get their data now that the site has shut.

All Other Website Builders

GoDaddy experienced a large data breach, which may have exposed the information of 1.2 million customers. “...the company detected unauthorized access to its systems where it hosts and manages its customers’ WordPress servers...the unauthorized person used a compromised password to get access to GoDaddy’s systems around September 6. GoDaddy said it discovered the breach last week on November 17. It’s not clear if the compromised password was protected with two-factor authentication.”

Wix now offers a buy now, pay later option, through PayPal’s Pay Later.

Payment Processing

Klarna, a leader in “buy now, pay later” (BNPL), is introducing “pay now” options, and will soon have a physical card available to US users. “Though behind in market share versus competitors like PayPal, Klarna’s approach as a way to pay online and its share of checkout is providing some competition. Merchants are telling Klarna that its share of checkout is steadily growing after being in the U.S. market for just two years.”

Afterpay says its own BNPL services were up 34% during Cyber Week.

Not wanting to be beaten at the name game by Meta/Facebook, Square is now called Block, although the merchant services will still be known as Square.

Shipping

Stamps has rebranded as Auctane, which is the name of one of Stamps’ subsidiaries. The new corp also owns Endicia, MetaPack, ShipStation and several other shipping applications.

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

Resale continues to increase in popularity, with some seeing it as a way to locate rare items, while others are all about sustainability. “Carolyn Thomas, president and CEO of Aravenda, a consignment software company, noted that the resale industry is growing 11 times faster than traditional retail, citing ThredUp data. This trend is likely linked to two factors: supply chain logistics and the consumer’s shift to a sustainable mindset.” However, the popularity means there is a glut in some types of items, and people may struggle to find someone to take their items on consignment or even as donations. “There’s not much demand for that perfect pencil skirt, or other things that seem so ‘yesterday.' Why invest in cashmere sweaters to wear around the house?" Corlett said. "They’re only going to accept what their client base is going to take.” Instead, timeless pieces — including handbags, totes and accessories — are selling well, as are items with sentimental value.”

Shipping prices have gone up everywhere, and the frequent push for low or even no shipping fees in ecommerce means some sellers might be seeing more complaints about those fees. While not everyone can find cheaper shipping methods, many will benefit from tips on reducing and dealing with shipping cost complaints.

No matter how good you are at running your business, sometimes you will need to apologize to a customer. Here are some really good tips, and 5 example letters. My favourite is “Explain what you’ll do differently” - as a customer, I want to know how you are going to prevent this from happening to others (or to me in the future).

IMAGES, VIDEO, GRAPHIC DESIGN, & FREE ONLINE TOOLS

Part of an ongoing series on product photography, here are articles on basic photo composition and then advanced photo composition.

To pull your social media posts and ads together, check out these simple design tips to remember. [infographic and text]

Creative Cloud Express is a new app from Adobe that has a free version as well as paid options. Adobe claims it is easier to learn than Photoshop, and it comes with templates as well as the ability to edit videos and images. “The app seems to be designed for social media managers, small business owners, and anyone else who has something to promote but isn’t a pro at graphic design.”

Here is a good collection of pdf, video, image and other tools with a simple interface, for free. I used a few of the pdf tools with great success.

Looking for new fonts? Check out 20 new ones that are free for commercial use.

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour)