Using ux practices to optimise an exisitng ecommerce store on etsy

Achievements

LEVEL UP!

Sold more than 63% of sellers within 3 months on Etsy according to Erank.

QUALITY PRODUCTS + designs!

Since its inception, I've had a streak of 100% 5 star reviews.

excellent customer service!

Building rapport with customers w/ a 100% message response rate within 24hrs.

Context

MY WHY.

Wanting to apply my knowledge in design to create fun products for others and earn extra income, I learned most importantly, about the the holistic nature of brand building. After learning about business in prior programmes and internships, I decided to grow the brand with purpose.

Gap years are synonymous with not conforming to the status quo, and so, I wanted to present a brand which embraces the radical- showing graphics which empowers people to go after what they want.

tools

There are Japanese and anime motifs as well as creating renditions of classical art as satire in the modern world.

I mix this in with my readings and learnings that I do throughout my life.

role

From design to business I handled everything using customer insights; learning not to be led by my own ego but taking a user-centred approach.

For Business

Research

aim

Doing evaluatory research to optimise my existing Etsy shop. I want to find out where I can improve SEO as well as to find and evaluate my key demographics. The good thing is that I already have primary data from the Etsy dashboard as well as linking the shop to Google Analytics which I just need to correlate and track.

Primary Data

Qualitative

After some tweaking on Google Analytics, I am able to know what a user searched for and where they came from before clicking on the listing. This is good to know for finding new keywords and interests from user who like my products. As these are from individuals, it's best to compile the data to find trends before making any changes.

INSIGHTS:

My customers seem to be quite young or are into trending topics within the artsy and academia niche.
Alot of visits seem to come from similar listings outside my shop so some of my keywords seem to be quite relevant but need to be drilled down further.

Within Etsy, sellers also have their own dashboards and data to collect. On Figma, I gathered the top keywords from customers who have favourited my shop. This is to get ideas for new designs and to swap keywords from current listings.

INSIGHTS:

Main niches of my current audience are art, Y2K, classical etc.

QUantitative

With these data being updated in real time and I can see over selected periods of time, I can be flexible to the demands of the consumer and design for them as well as forecast trends. These are all from Google Analytics...

INSIGHTS:

About 50/50 split between desktop and mobile so I should do a mix of long-tail and short-tail keywords for both platforms.
My average demographic is young so transparency, social issues and marketing w/ social media could be important.
I would like to increase the no. of female customers as most of the shoppers on Etsy are female.

Synthesis

user personas

From the current primary data, I've analysed the information and split them into 2 distinct personas which will influence our category niches.

Problem

goals:

Whilst items are being sold, we want to be retaining old customers as well as get new ones by increasing our engagement to take a more holistic approach to brand building as well as optimise our current practices.

Optimise the current practice.
Get more repeat customers.
Expand demographic reach.
Have an active 'social voice.'

Optimisation + User Testing

ONE.

I began by changing the designs to be more thoughtful and meaningful. As our current audience is quite young they're more interested in voicing their opinions and relate to things similar to their values.

This was the BEFORE showing items that I designed just because they looked cool.

These are the AFTER showing more meaningful and social designs.

Whilst this decreased my views as I took down most of my listings, more people have purchased from my shop.

TWO.

Advertising using Pinterest and Instagram as organic channels as well as using SEO techniques. I have tried paid advertising with Etsy but I feel better having control and building on the brand's image with more unique marketing.

Whilst listing photos have white backgrounds as there's data showing they sell better, Pinterest is a visual platform so posts on there should be eye-catching.

Within Pinterest Business, I am able to see how well posts do and see upcoming and current trends.

For Instagram, I used gifs as users find them more engaging than the innumerable photos. Though, I do plan to add more educational + inspiring content.

After implementing these marketing tactics, I saw a rise in visits from 3rd party sites. However, I found this works best when done consistently, which I have not, rather than sporadically.

THREe

I added coupons for multiple purchases to encourage customers to buy more in one session, in this way, shipping fees decrease for both parties and less package wasting :)

MISC CHANGES.

Free shipping to increase viewings and Etsy filters + promotes them up.
Adding links on listings for "similar items to this..." so users have to think less.
Using PlaceIt w/ diverse people so customers can visualise themselves wearing the items and much cheaper than buying and taking pictures of each product myself.

Reflections + Future Thoughts

For autonomy and better control over how the brand is viewed, I'd like to upgrade to my own website. With Etsy, I am within a marketplace so it is common for someone to say they bought something from Etsy rather than remembering the actual shop name. Before this, I'd like to make more designs and build a stronger user base.

For SEO and my own interest in wanting others to be informed as well as my own growth, I'd like to write articles, relating to a design, once I have my own website up. I have already prepared some articles and pending other topics in Notion.

What I've learned

I've thoroughly enjoyed building this. Beforehand, I did some freelancing painting on clothes and designing things for people I mostly knew - this project was bigger and felt more legitimate. In this way, problems were also bigger but I was able to handle them well like shipping errors etc.

I gained invaluable skills in business as well as designing for others but my most important learning is that if you follow your interests and your values, not necessarily chasing monetary goals, that things generally fall into place.