Etsy Sellers Spot Yet Another Test They Worry Will Drive Shoppers Away

Some sellers are worried that Etsy is testing yet another feature that could drive shoppers away from their listings. A seller published the following post about the issue on the Etsy discussion boards on Monday, titled, “First line of title now linked to other products”:

“I’ve seen the gazzillion posts about descriptions now at bottom (mine mysteriously moved back.) But here’s a new one that happened last night. In the app under the picture of your item the first thing is the price and second thing is your title but NOW the first part of the title is hot-linked and when you click on it it takes you to a page with the same type of products from numerous sellers. Here we go again. Etsy is using our hard work to do the SEO to get people to our listing and first thing they do is try to lure someone away. Unbelievable. I can’t be the only one. I only hope this is another test that miserably fails.”

The seller was referring to another test we recently reported that puts reviews front and center on the item page and moves the seller’s item description down the page.

Sellers also recently spotted a test in which Etsy added “photos” to their listings that included hyperlinks that, if clicked, took visitors to search results pages. And in February, sellers spotted a test in which Etsy displayed a prominent “Find similar items” button overlaid on sellers’ product photos – both examples of enticing buyers away from sellers’ listing pages.

On Friday, Etsy confirmed another controversial test sellers had spotted in which it displayed to buyers a message about the environmental impact of shopping from sellers nearby them.

Sellers are greatly concerned about features that take shoppers away from their listings as Etsy explores numerous ways to do so – possibly part of a testing culture at the company.