Etsy Funds $5 CYBER5 Discount For Cyber Monday
Etsy is funding another sitewide discount coupon, offering $5 off $30 or more for US, Canada, UK and the Euro zone.
Great news! The next Etsy funded offer is here. For 24 hours only, shoppers can save $5 off qualifying orders of $30 (excl. taxes & shipping) or more with code CYBER5. Shops will need to accept Etsy Payments to qualify.
More details:
- Etsy is funding $5 off qualifying orders of $30 (excl. taxes & shipping) or more for buyers in the United States, United Kingdom, Eurozone, and Canada with code CYBER5.
- Already running a Cyber sale? This Etsy funded promotion will be applied on top of your discount as an extra incentive to encourage shoppers!
- The promotion starts Monday, November 27 at 12am local time and ends 11:59pm local time.
- There’s no limit to the number of times a buyer can use this promo. That means there'll be plenty of opportunities for you to make sales!
- For shoppers to receive the Etsy funded discount CYBER5, they’ll need to input the code into the Apply Etsy Coupon area and not the Apply Shop Coupon Codes area. This is because the coupon is funded by Etsy at no cost to sellers. The shop coupon area is where buyers plug in codes that have been shared specifically by sellers. Learn more about how to redeem coupon codes here.
There’s nothing you need to do to benefit from this promotion—we’re covering the cost! But there are a few things you can do to make the most of it. Learn more in the Seller Handbook.
Etsy has been strategically using these sitewide discounts over the last few months to test buyer response, starting with a $5 off of $25 promotion in September and a $10 off $40 or more in October.
Liz Morton
Interestingly, CEO Josh Silverman revealed on the Q3 2023 earnings call that the $10 discount did not perform as well as the $5 discount in terms of Return On Investment (ROI).
SA Transcripts
So the Q3 promotion was just $5 off of spend $25 or more and you get $5 off were great. We saw a nice little bump in GMS and buyers really like that sellers loved it and it was ROI-positive. It was a relatively small investment, and it worked terrific.
Then in October, we ran $10 off 40 didn't work as well. It was not ROI positive. It pulled forward sales as much as it increased sales, didn't drive as much incremental lift. I could go a lot deeper into how did it work in one market versus another in one category versus another with new buyers for laps buyers. But the point is we're learning. And this is a tool we'll have in our toolkit.
I would expect we'll do more in the fourth quarter as we continue to test and learn with an eye towards testing and learning. The investments are something we put an ROI threshold on like anything else we do.
Silverman previously headed up eBay's classified unit in Europe as well as Shopping.com and Skype when they were both owned by eBay and during his tenure at Etsy, many seller have remarked that Silverman copies a lot of eBay's ideas - is an over-reliance on discounting one of them?
While making the media rounds recently conveniently touting sustainability initiatives in the wake of an EPA lawsuit, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone told Fortune that "buying traffic" was unhealthy for the business.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
You became CEO at a time when eBay was running low on steam. What did you see initially as problems to solve?
Our first vector shift was to become more focused on not-in-season items. The company had been focused on new, in-season merchandise and was doing unhealthy things like buying traffic.
So one of the first pillars I focused on was to support our core, meaning we should not be so hung up on newness and the latest in-season fashion. Small specialized competitors were coming up, wanting to steal market share from eBay.
Back in 2018, then-CEO Devin Wenig's leaned heavily on sitewide eBay-funded discounts, with many "flash sales" of 15-20% off through the year.
Those promotions proved to be a double edged sword - once buyers get used to receiving discounts, they'll often wait for a sale before making a purchase, creating "one and done" or only occasional buying patterns.
Wenig's strategy was considered such a failure that Iannone felt the need to explicitly distance himself from it when speaking to investors in Q2 2021.
We've discontinued legacy tactics that led to low value, infrequent or one and done buyers. Our buyer base is starting to evolve based on this strategy. These high-volume buyers are growing compared to a year-ago and their spend on eBay is growing even faster. This higher-quality mix of buyers increases value for sellers and will lead to improved health of our ecosystem over the long-term...
..This is something that I laid out last July when we talked about the tech-led reimagination as being focused on turning buyers into lifelong enthusiasts on the platform and moving away from the tactics that we had in 2019 what was really just about the number of active buyers even low value buyers or one and done buyers.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
It's ironic that Etsy is one of those "small specialized competitors" nipping at eBay's heels, and that Etsy appears to be adopting some of the same "unhealthy" legacy tactics that both past and current eBay leadership just can't seem to shake.
If Silverman isn't careful, he may find himself exactly where eBay has been - caught in a vicious cycle of having to provide more and more discounts as buyers learn to simply wait for the next one to roll around before making a purchase.
