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Etsy Makes Return Policies More Prominent in New Test

Etsy

Etsy logoEtsy has begun making seller return policies more prominent as part of a test it initiated this month. Management has been focused on improving conversion rates, and according to Etsy, it describes the goal of this latest test as follows:

“By surfacing a sellers’ policies for returns and exchanges next to a listing, shoppers will be able to easily find this information to help inform their purchase decision.”

Etsy explained that the test displays (“surfaces”) returns and exchanges information higher up on the listing page – next to where shipping information appears. It draws from the policies sellers have provided in their shop policies templates.

The company is running the new test on “a percentage of all buyers on Etsy.” This means sellers will be unable to see what the test looks like for their listings unless they are part of the buyers selected as participants of the test.

In August, Etsy revealed it doubled the number of tests it was running and has since said it runs tests three times faster than previously.

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Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

2 thoughts on “Etsy Makes Return Policies More Prominent in New Test”

  1. Etsy: “By surfacing a sellers’ policies for returns and exchanges next to a listing, shoppers will be able to easily find this information to help inform their purchase decision.”

    Must have been another meeting. This time in the basement due to the storm, ’cause these guys are either passed out on CO, or the plants just aren’t absorbing all the CO2 & CH4 that management is spewing out.

    This will of course require testing of different places to put the moved stuff.

    When will it ever end….. Can no one make a decision without a study to protect their job?

  2. Returns (especially of international orders) are a pain in the ass for small sellers.
    We don’t have a shed load of staff or a returns department to deal with this nuisance. Many “buyers remorse” become necessary because lazy buyers DO NOT READ. So we should not be making them easier!

    Not only has the seller been cheated of their legitimate profit but they have also no way to pay themselves for the additional staff time wasted in servicing the transaction. And there is also the matter of a stock item being unavailable to genuine buyers while its on its way out and back to one of these feckless “buyers remorse” folk.

    For those of us based in the EU there is an additional complication of low import duty rates. This means that if the buyer ignores instructions to mark the package “RETURNED GOODS NO TAX TO PAY” then the seller will have to pay import VAT plus a handling charge to get their own goods back!

    Anyone who says this is a “cost of doing” business clearly has no conception of the cost of their own time as a commodity.

    I for one will be altering my international returns policies to make returns from outside the EU concessionary and imposing a hefty restocking fee.

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