Etsy Launches Search Visibility Reports For Sellers; Warns Shipping Costs Will Soon Have Greater Ranking Impact
Etsy is launching a new SEO tool for sellers, providing personalized search insights and recommendations through the Search Visibility Page, while also announcing a new ranking algorithm that will prioritize products with low shipping costs is coming soon.
The New Etsy Search Visibility Page
When shoppers are searching on Etsy, it’s important that they can easily find high-quality listings from shops that have a track record of good customer service. Making these listings easier to find helps build trust with shoppers so they come back to shops like yours again and again.
That's why Etsy search currently takes into account your shop, listing, and customer service quality. We’ve heard from sellers consistently over the years that you need more transparency into what goes into Etsy search to help optimize your listings. We’re excited to announce the new Etsy search visibility page in Shop Manager—giving you more insights and recommendations into how you appear in search than ever before!
The announcement goes on to explain the metrics that will be tracked on the Search Visibility Page and how Etsy uses those metrics to determine search placement.
Sellers are encouraged to upload an icon for the shop to build trust in their brand, provide excellent customer service with fast response times to messages and easy to understand return policies, show high quality images and ship on time.
But the most important aspect may be that Etsy is now placing a higher emphasis on keeping shipping costs low, instituting a new ranking algorithm in October that will prioritize items with shipping less than $6 for US listings with domestic shipping, with some exceptions.
When determining how listings show up in search, we also consider shipping price as an overall factor for US sellers. Soon we’ll be updating how shipping price is factored into search ranking for US domestic listings to help make sure that high shipping prices don’t discourage buyers from making a purchase.
Our data tells us that once shipping prices are $6 or above, buyers are less likely to make a purchase. We want to make it easier for buyers to find shipping prices that meet their expectations, so starting October 1, US listings with domestic shipping prices lower than $6 will be prioritized in search.
We know that shipping needs vary based on the type of item or where it's shipping from, so we'll exclude certain categories and items shipped from outside the US from this new search criteria. We're also giving you better tools to adjust prices if you choose.
Etsy then pointed to a separate handbook article to provide more details about the new search ranking policy.
What’s new
Your items should be priced so that you can be both profitable and competitive, but high shipping prices can often discourage shoppers from completing a purchase. In fact, buyers have told us that expensive shipping is a top 10 barrier to purchase on Etsy.To help make sure that buyers see shipping prices that better meet their expectations when shopping on Etsy, and help encourage them to make purchases, starting October 1 we’ll be updating how shipping price is factored into search for US domestic listings. This means that listings with shipping prices lower than $6 will be prioritized in search.
Why under $6? Our data tells us that once shipping prices are $6 or above, buyers are less likely to make a purchase.
Our data also shows that shifting some of your shipping costs into your item price while keeping the total price the same can be an effective way to improve your sales.
To support you, we’ve launched a new tool that lets you lower your US domestic shipping prices in bulk, and optionally adjust your item price. This helps you recover your shipping costs while keeping your prices competitive.
Because shipping needs vary based on the type of item and where it’s shipping from, we’ll exclude certain categories and items shipped from outside the US from this new search criteria at this time. See the full list of excluded listings in the “Search visibility exceptions” section below.
If you have US domestic listings with shipping prices of $6 or above that are not in the exceptions list, you’ll see the option to update your shipping prices along with this tool in the Etsy search visibility page.
Etsy also provided a video showing the new bulk editing tool sellers can use to lower their shipping prices and add additional amounts to the product price to offset if needed.
The following types of listings will initially be excluded from the new ranking requirements:
- Digital listings
- Listings shipped from US sellers to non-US destinations
- Listings shipped by sellers from outside the US
- Listings priced over $35 from shops that offer a free shipping guarantee
- Listings that use calculated shipping
That last point is particularly interested as it appears Etsy is specifically aiming this change at sellers who set their own flat rate shipping amounts while exempting those who use calculated shipping.
Of course, Etsy is not the only marketplace that is concerned about high shipping costs possibly deterring buyers - eBay has also recently been pressuring sellers to pass discounted shipping rates on to buyers, even go so far as to cold call some with high pressure tactics trying to convince them to make the change.
Liz Morton
eBay sellers rightfully pushed back on the tactics, saying if eBay is concerned that items on the site are not price competitive, they should consider lowering fees (which are applied to the total sale including shipping) instead of pressing sellers to accept more cuts to their already tight margins - and of course because Etsy also applies their fees on the total including shipping, the same could also be said here.
Sellers also pointed out that they have to price in not only the fees on shipping, but ever increasing eBay Promoted Listings advertising rates as well - and no matter how you slice it, costs for ads and shipping must be baked in somewhere and ultimately passed on to the consumer.
Again, the same is absolutely true on Etsy, where sellers may be paying for onsite and/or offsite ads, with those and other costs baked into the price as the new bulk editing tool suggests and even encourages.
At the end of the day, is this just a shell game moving dollars and cents from one area (shipping) to another (product price) while wasting everyone's time in the process?
If so, Etsy (like eBay) may be severely underestimating the intelligence of their buyer base who will most likely continue to make purchasing decisions based on total price, regardless of where and how it is presented.
What do you think of Etsy's new Search Visibility Page and shipping cost based search ranking update? Let us know in the comments below!
