Etsy is kicking off “experiments” in which it will test changes to the design and organization of its site navigation. The news comes on the heels of another announcement in which Etsy said it would begin testing personalization features on its home page.
Etsy said it had three clear goals as it spends the coming months testing and improving navigation. First, it wants visitors to find what they need faster and more efficiently. Second, it wants to make the experience of browsing Etsy on desktop and mobile more aligned, explaining that many visitors switch between them on a regular basis. Third, Etsy said it wants to provide more information through navigation links about what can be found on the site.
Etsy explained this would also benefit individual sellers by improving SEO (search engine optimization), “since more traffic will ultimately be driven to Etsy from sites like Google.”
As with other tests, or “experiments” as Etsy calls them, the marketplace will expose a small number of Etsy users to each version of the test, and it will not be able to reveal much during the testing in order to preserve the results of each experiment.
One user who encountered such a test explained what she was seeing on the Etsy forums. She noted that links that usually appeared on the top left-hand side of every page were missing, including links to Sell, Wholesale, Registry, Community, Blogs, Mobile and Gift Cards, and said “Your Account” and “Help” were also missing. Apparently “All the stuff is tucked away under those links on the top right,” she said.
