Etsy sales up 13.2% year on year in Q3

Craft and vintage marketplace Etsy has delivered its latest set of quarterly results and Etsy sales are up 13.2% on the same period last year.

Josh Silverman is the CEO of Etsy and says of the results: “In the third quarter, we executed on our strategic initiatives, accelerated GMS and revenue growth and achieved our highest ever Adjusted EBITDA margin since becoming a publicly-traded company? We will continue to make progress on our strategy to own ‘special’ shopping occasions by delivering a more engaging experience for our buyers, and providing our sellers with the tools they need to compete. Looking ahead, we believe our sharpened focus will enable us to build on our momentum, support our sellers throughout the holiday season, and advance our new mission to keep commerce human.”

You can read the full release from Etsy here.

The results are pretty good and perhaps suggest that the company is motoring back to previous success by virtue of recent changes and reform. But what is the the catalyst behind this increase in Etsy sales?

In part they say it’s about improving the search and find ability of the goods they sell: “Helping our nearly 32 million buyers around the world to find the right special product at the right time, remains one of our most important priorities and we launched several new tools and enhancements this quarter focused on this goal. For example, we launched Context Specific Ranking and guided search, which create a more relevant, personalized experience and help buyers find the exact items they are looking for among the more than 45 million listings in the marketplace. Other notable enhancements this quarter included scarcity badges to indicate when items are available in limited quantities, which create a sense of urgency and nudge buyers along the shopping journey. We believe this type of tool is particularly powerful for Etsy, given the large percentage of our inventory that is unique or special and, therefore, inherently scarce.”

Are you an Etsy seller and have you had a good quarter? And how is Christmas looking in terms of sales?