Etsy Studio - a revolution?

When etsy announced they were going to open a new platform for selling craft supplies, I tought: great! now my buttons will be visible in two places! Then, this whole process began with adding attributes and so on. It is a bit complicated if you have over 1000 listings overall (I can't image having  over 10 000 listings and facing this change...). Anyway, I decided to do it little by little, and starting with the listings which were most affected, as their category changed so much that it no longer represented what they were. I am sure some listings are still not updated.

Now that Etsy Studio has been launched, I must say I am a bit disappointed.



First of all, its design is not very attractive. My etsy shop has a colourful background picture and lots of other features, like presentation, extra photos, etsy updates (that was such a great idea!), my customers' reviews and more. Etsy Studio version is sober, scrapped of any extra pictures or content. But I guess it was meant to be like this to help buyers focus on what they are really looking for.

And slowly, but steadily, my Etsy Studio visits are increasing. I guess it takes time, like any website, no mattter how big.

There are some good features, though, like zooming in the pictures, available on the item page. At last the quality pictures will be fully appreciated.

The items are divided automatically into categories, and to be able to find an item we are interested in, we need to open lots of subcategories, in order to narrow down the choice. Another good feature is selection by colour, which did not worked well on etsy as it depended on how a picture was read by a robot. So if you photographed an item against, say, a green background, then etsy would understand that you are selling a green item. Etsy Studio makes the selection according to the the attributes set by the shop owner, which makes so much more sense.

However, if you want a buckle in a certain colour, not a button, you still have to narrow down the results using all the categories and sub categories. Sometimes it is easier to use the search.

Another good feature is the possibility of selectng several colours at the same time, but there is a drawback: if you are looking for, say, something in white, the robot will show you all the items which are white OR have white as the secondary colour. I think at this point I will stop indicating the scondary colour, unless it makes at least 50% of the total. Alternatively, I would choose it if the main colour is not clearly categorised, as is the case of these buckles:

Yellow or beige? I would, of course, use 'cream' but, unfortunatley, there is no such option.

My biggest complaint is about the common materials missing from the attributes. Well, I can accept that celluloid, casein and bakelite are all kinds of plastic. But what about mother of pearl? Or glass? These are not available to select for buttons (or buckles - I do have some glass buckles!). It would not be so scandalous if there weren't so many kinds of metal to choose from. Etsy offered me a way of suggesting new categories, though which I submittted several requests. Now I am waiting for new materials to appear (I hope not in vain).

All in all, I am really happy that my buttons are now visible in two different spaces - this is always an advantage. Nevertheless, I have yet to get my first Etsy Studio order. For now, users still prefer to shop for my items via etsy.com. I can't blame them - I use Etsy and not Etsy Studio when looking for and buying stuff myself.