The Different Ways to Shop on Etsy
Not everyone wants to shop in the same way. Knowing how your potential customers will be shopping on Etsy can help you target them. Etsy offers several tools in the Ways to Shop area of the site's home page to enhance the user shopping experience:
Colors: If you're looking to find the perfect bejeweled complement for your chartreuse smoking jacket, check out Etsy's Color tool. With this tool, you simply click a color on the palette to view random items for sale in that color.
When you list an item in your Etsy shop, you can apply a "color" tag to it. That is, if the product is predominantly puce, you can add a "puce" tag.
Treasury: Etsy's vast community of members is a great resource for finding amazing items for sale on the site. To tap into this community, visit the Etsy Treasury. There, you'll find what Etsy describes as an "ever-changing, member-curated shopping gallery" comprising lists of items. These Treasury lists, which contain 16 items each, may focus on a particular color or theme — think pink! Or Africa! Or Battlestar Galactica! — or they may simply contain that member's favorite Etsy finds. The Treasury, which is searchable, isn't meant for self-promotion. Instead, its purpose, according to Etsy's help information, is to enable members to "acknowledge and share the many cool things for sale on Etsy."
Pounce: Want to find the newest, freshest shops? Then Pounce is the tool for you. Using Pounce in Undiscovered mode, you can view random listings from undiscovered sellers. You can also use Pounce in Just Sold mode to view shops that just enjoyed a sale. Click the Pounce Again button to display additional items.
Shop Local: Shopping local keeps money and jobs in your community. In addition, because the seller ships your item only across town instead of across the country, buying local blunts your impact on the planet.
It likely comes as no surprise that an organization like Etsy is hip to the whole "shop local" thing. Its Shop Local feature displays the most recently updated shops in your area. With Shop Local, you can find — and buy from — Etsy sellers right in your hometown. Just enter your town and state in the search field (if it's not pulled automatically from the info you supplied to Etsy when you signed up for an account). Easy!
To ensure that your shop appears in Shop Local, you must enter your hometown in your user profile.
Time Machine: You don't need a DeLorean to go back in time; you just need to visit Etsy's Time Machine page. There you can scroll through items using three viewing modes: Just Listed, Expiring Soon, and Just Sold. Click the Back in Time button to scroll backward through the displayed listings.
Technically, clicking the Time Machine link in the Ways to Shop box on Etsy's main page directs you to the Time Machine2 page. This page represents an iteration from the original Time Machine page, which displayed listings in a sort of Hitchcock-y spiral format.
Gift Ideas: Etsy's Gift Ideas for Facebook Friends is a perfect fusion of Etsy and Facebook. When you use this tool, Etsy trolls your Facebook friends' profiles and suggests gift ideas based on the information it finds.
If having your Etsy world collide with your Facebook universe bothers you, you can disconnect the two accounts. To do so, sign in to your Facebook account, open the Account menu in the top-right corner of the screen, choose Privacy Settings, click the Edit Your Settings link under Apps and Websites, click the Etsy link under Applications You Use, and click the X button to the right of the Etsy entry that appears.
