Increasing listing video coverage on Etsy

Chunky Planter from shop PepperPalm

With over 100 million items on Etsy shoppers have a lot to choose from; a product video can be a quick differentiator. We know it can boost a buyer’s confidence and drive engagement with a shop, but few sellers actually include a video.

Our goals were to engage sellers to upload more listing videos and build a longer term strategy for this body of work.

My role

I was the lead designer on this track that drove at least $1.1M+ in GMS and continues to increase video coverage. I worked in close collaboration with my design partner (Stephanie Casper), researcher (Sanjana Rajagopalan), product manager (Bre Foley), copywriter (Beth Griffenhagen), analyst (Mikdat Yildirim), engineering manager (John Workman), and engineering team.

I ran several paths of work in parallel, coordinated efforts across three seller teams, and managed expectations from multiple stakeholders including cross-team partners and leads.

Sellers have to provide lots of information to post a listing; uploading a video is optional

The challenge

Etsy sellers aren’t aware of the value a video can have on their listing performance, and find creating and posting videos too cumbersome. In short, they don’t think videos are worth their time.

My team was working on listing optimization guidance for sellers. When our analyst was able to quantify the impact of video it unlocked a clear opportunity to communicate this to our sellers and drive value for their businesses.

“There are already so many steps required to list an item. And I don't believe videos really make buyers purchase items.”

– Top seller

Key insights

We believed compelling data would be vital in getting sellers attention and motivating them. We dug into analysis and past research for valuable insights:

  • Listings with videos get twice as many orders as listings with just photos

  • A listing video increases GMS valued at $4.75 per listing or $3.8M annualized

  • Less than 28% of sellers include video in their listings

  • Less than 15% of active listings on Etsy have a video

To move swiftly we established dual paths focused on quick learnings through experiments, in parallel with research and strategy development.

Progressive experimentation

I planned a phased experiment approach allowing us to incorporate learnings along the way. The three multivariate experiments I designed targeted different placements and tested increasingly dynamic and personalized messaging which I guided my copywriter in crafting.

Each placement was outside of my team’s purview. I actively involved our three partner teams through design-led discussions, identifying constraints early on and unlocking iterations together. My efforts kept everyone aligned and unblocked.

Phased approach to experimentation

Experiment 1

Experiment 1 had the simplest experience—a static insight on the listing form, where sellers create or edit listings—and the tightest deadline. In three days I finalized designs for the two versions of the listing form, aligned on legal-approved content with my copywriter, and advocated for an A/B test to help us get early signal on our range of datapoints.

Results: $603k GMS and rolling out version B.

Experiment 1: User flow with dismiss logic, and A/B banners (modified copy highlighted in red)

Experiment 1: I discovered an older version of the listing form (shown here in mobile) was still used in some instances

Experiment 2

Experiment 2 targeted the Shop Manager dashboard, the main hub for sellers. I chose to use a banner in the Shop Insights section to give us high visibility without derailing sellers from business-critical tasks.

This placement let us personalize the insight in multiple ways: I explored a range of ideas for thumbnail content (within the module’s constraints) ultimately choosing to highlight several of the seller’s high performing listings with no video. I also worked with my analyst and copywriter to tailor insight stats to reflect the sellers top category and got even more granular with competitive data for our A/B test.

Results: $800k GMS and rolling out version A.

Experiment 2: User flow

Experiment 2: A/B insight cards in context (modified copy highlighted in red)

Experiment 3

Experiment 3 was my steepest learning curve, designing for a native experience in the Etsy Seller App (ESA). The app also had a Shop Insights module I wanted to leverage, and I led multiple discussions with ESA partners for my engineers and I to understand its capabilities and constraints.

I worked with my copywriter on shortened versions of the category-specific insight. Instead of a static thumbnail I wanted to capture seller’s attention with an auto-playing listing video. I also explored multiple flows to make it as easy as possible for a seller to add a listing video directly from the CTA.

Experiment 3: Due diligence to understand app card behavior and constraints

Experiment 3: Exploration of multiple in-app flows

Experiment 3: Capture seller attention with auto-playing listing video

Developing a longer-term strategy

While running our experiments I also facilitated a 24-person, two-part Discovery to build out future tracks of work. To make sure the resulting strategy was well-informed I involved leadership from my initiative as well as cross-functional participants from other teams including Machine Learning (ML), Seller Success, and ESA.

I designed the workshop to be high-engagement and low-effort, covered in one-hour sessions split over two days.

Agenda setting expectations for each day of the Discovery including the primary objective

Discovery Part 1: Foundational learnings

For Part 1 my research partner and I wanted to:

  1. Establish shared understanding within the group

  2. Collect key insights to ideate against in Day 2

We prepared a foundational presentation covering what we know about the listing video landscape on and off Etsy, including past research and a competitive audit. To capture insights I created a FigJam with individual noteboards for participants to write stickies (Insights, Questions, and Assumptions) during the walkthrough.

Sample of competitive audit slides on ecommerce video practices and video creation tools

Collection of noteboards (click on image to see a single noteboard)

After the first session my researcher and I affinity mapped the stickies into seven themes: Guidance, Tooling & specs, Incentives, Type of video, Barriers, Sellers relationship with video, and Metrics.

Affinity mapping stickies into seven themes after Day 1

Discovery Part 2: Idea generation

Day 2 was all about ideation. I built a board for each theme and assigned participants to one. For those that couldn’t attend in-person I made sure it was clear and easy for people to contribute async.

The boards contained a unique ‘How might we’ prompt, relevant insight stickies, and idea cards. Participants used one card per idea and were guided to provide a short written overview, supplemented by supporting insights and recommended KPIs, with an optional sketch space.

FigJam board for one theme with idea cards, and input from a variety of stakeholders

Outcome

We came away from the workshop with ~40 feature ideas. My research partner and I brought these to our team leads for prioritization and sizing, ultimately focusing in on five themes and eight features.

In just three weeks I enabled my team to have a clearer perspective on opportunities in this body of work, and powered the majority of our upcoming roadmap.

Prioritized list of feature work

Project details

Role: Lead designer

Core team: 2 designers, 1 researcher, 1 product manager, 1 engineering manager, 7 engineers, 1 analyst

Partners: Cross-functional leads from 3 other seller teams (Seller Growth Suite, Listing Performance, ESA), Leads and members of other groups in the Ads initiative (Ads Cross-platform, Ads Machine Learning, CRM, Product Marketing)

Timeframe: Q4 2023