A new Etsy test aims to highlight items of interest to consumers which are in their shopping cart or on sale but for which they haven’t yet completed the purchase. The aim is to inspire buyers to add items to their cart and complete purchases.
Items which are likely to be promoted to consumers are listings that are in their cart and are on sale, have free shipping, or are selling quickly. In the test, Etsy will be showing a banner to buyers on the Etsy.com to encourage shoppers to check out and secure the items.
The Etsy test will be running in October to a percentage of buyers on Etsy.
Etsy regularly runs tests on their marketplace, as do eBay, Amazon and all other marketplaces. Etsy generally publish details of their main tests in advance although doubtless there are other less prominent tweaks and tests going on behind the scenes. It’s tempting to try and adjust your selling strategies to potentially maximise exposure during the test period but we would advise against this. The tests are only ever targeted at a percentage of buyers so tweaking your listings will only ever impact those exposed to the test. Plus of course, if every seller altered their behaviour Etsy wouldn’t be able to measure the impact rendering the test useless.
Best advice is to follow Etsy’s published best practice guidelines in their Ultimate Guide to Etsy Search.