Etsy is one of the best places to sell your digital and printable products. It’s the top destination for online shoppers in search of unique products for themselves or to give as gifts.
Like many other websites, Etsy has embraced the use of AI to enhance the user experience, and that includes introducing a new, AI-powered search engine to help shoppers find exactly what they’re looking for.
As a seller, that means you’ve got to understand how AI is enhancing shoppers’ buying experience and how you can take advantage of it to make sure people can find your products.
How Is Etsy Using AI in Search?
As an Etsy shopper, you’re accustomed to typing in keywords that describe what you’re looking for and getting pages and pages of results that you then need to scroll through to find the right product for you, your family, or a friend. Most of us probably buy something that’s in the first three or so pages or, barring that, we refine our search.
Etsy’s status as the place to find handmade and unique products online might seem at odds with the use of artificial intelligence, but they’ve found a way to keep the human touch while using machine learning and large language models (LLMs) to enhance shoppers’ experience.
Here’s a brief overview of how it works:
- Etsy experts review products and compile them into collections of about 50 items. These collections may be trends, themes, or styles: for example, Cottage Core, Minimalist, or Literary Girl.
- Using machine learning, AI expands these human-curated collections into large collections containing 1,000 items or more, all organized around the same theme or style.
- LLMs then review the collection to make sure that it’s coherent, aesthetically pleasing, and contains enough variety to be interesting to shoppers.
Etsy is calling this type of curation algotorial, meaning that it combines human editorial expertise with algorithms.
The algorithm part means what you probably have already realized: your search history and purchases are taken into account, with the result (hopefully) being pages of search results that speak to your personal taste and provide you with the best possible chance of finding the perfect product.
Sounds pretty great… but what does it mean for you as an Etsy seller?
The Impact on Etsy Sellers
Now, let’s talk about how the new AI-powered search feature may impact you as a seller.
Improved Visibility
The first impact you’re likely to notice is that Etsy’s new curated collections may improve the visibility of your Etsy shop and the individual products you sell. Because Etsy will be curating collections based on personal preferences, your products may find a whole new audience.
For example, if AI curates a set of math flashcards you created, it will be viewable within a small collection of about 1,000 items. That may seem like a lot but remember that the old search algorithm would have returned thousands of results.
Better Targeting
On a related note, Etsy has touted the fact that its new, personalized search results have received double the engagement when compared to its pre-AI search results. The announcement was part of an earnings call where companies report financial metrics to investors.
Etsy has also reported a year-over-year increase in their buyer conversion rate, an upward trend in monthly active users, and even an increase in app downloads by first-time users. That’s all good news for sellers!
More Sales
You might already have assumed this based on Etsy’s conversion results, but the best part about AI-powered search on Etsy is that sellers with products that get chosen by the new search method are highly likely to see an increase in their sales as a result.
Why? Because the shoppers who are targeted in the results are already in the market for products like yours, meaning that they’re in purchasing mode before they even visit your shop.
Tips to Maximize Your Traffic from Etsy’s Algotorial Curation
What do you need to do to increase the chances of Etsy’s algotorial curation process selecting your products to feature? If you’ve already spent time creating optimized listings, you may not need to do much. That said, it’s a good idea to review your listings to make sure they’re working for you.
- Use all available keywords and every applicable product tag and category. Your title should include relevant keywords. Remember, AI can only evaluate what’s there. You can’t expect it to read between the lines, so be as specific and descriptive as you can.
- At the same time, make sure to feature your most important keywords in your title. For example, if you’re selling recipes that are vegan, include vegan in your title and in your tags. This will minimize the risk of mistakes.
- Review all product images to ensure they are professional-looking and reflect your brand. If you haven’t already created a standardized product mock-up (or several) for your store, now is the time to do it.
- Communicate with shoppers. One of the things that Etsy is doing since introducing its new collections is to encourage shoppers to add items to their cart and purchase them directly from a collection. You’ll need to be aware that AI may rewrite your product listings. You may find that you have more than the usual number of messages from shoppers as a result, so make sure to reply promptly.
These things will all help you improve your chances of being featured in one of Etsy’s new collections and making more sales.
The bottom line is that if you have stellar product listings that accurately reflect your products you’ll have the best possible chance to have your product added to a collection, and that can help you attract new visitors and followers to your shop, as well as increasing your sales and profits.
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