Etsy Sellers Discovery
For 2021 strategy, our Online Stores team launched a discovery month, that focused on Etsy sellers, understanding their needs and defining the features that will eventually bring them to sell on Squarespace.
ROLE
Product Designer
Strategy, Design, Prototyping, Visual Design, Research
DURATION
January 2021 - March 2021
THE DREAM TEAM
Product Manager - Lukas Thomas
Researcher - Sudy Majd
CoDesigner - Scott Brookshire
Overview
Goal.
25,000 Monthly active Etsy sellers by the end of 2021.
Process.
Launching a discovery phase that include initial interviews to identify needs and pain points, team workshops to identify user-flow, themes and ideas, and designing a prototype to test user value.
Status.
Out of the two key results we defined, one was achieved fully and is ready to move to the next phase of scoping the work, dividing it between the teams and start final design and build.
2021 Strategy
Aligning the Online Stores team around a united goal.
Shifting to a new exciting direction, to focus on DIY entrepreneurs that sell on the Etsy marketplace. Identifying an opportunity of 3.6 Million Sellers, with specific and generalized needs, that are highly networked and own an existing customer base.
Validate Product-Market Fit
Conducting early interviews to understand the Etsy sellers better, identify key pain points and validate user value.
“It’s really the first thing you should be doing [launching a website], when you first establish yourself on Etsy, is getting off of there and branching out. I’d never leave that traffic but, yes, I would have liked to have done it years ago.”
— CAT, SELLING VINTAGE PRINTS
Explore Problem Space
From our early research we were able to identify key user pain points.
The high fees and maintain costs, the saturated market, brand unawareness and the dependency on the Etsy’s platform are only part of their current pain points.
Identify Key Personas
Our researchers did an amazing job in identifying the key persona we are going to focus on.
Experience Journey
Cross-Team Collaboration
After listening to the calls and taking notes, we dedicated a daily workshop to identify common themes, opportunities and conduct a “crazy-8” session to sketch and brainstorm possible solutions.
For example, Some of the themes we identified for Activation were “Guidance”, “Time poor” and “Better starting points” so we asked the question “How might we help time-poor Etsy sellers set up their inventory and store in a way that’s more streamlined and efficient?”, divided into groups and sketched 8 potential solutions in 8 minutes for this problem.
Listening and taking notes
Grouping notes and creating key themes
Sketching session to brainstorm quick solutions
When working cross-teams, it’s important to keep a clear timeline and divide responsibility to set clear expectations.
User Flow
After identifying key values and brainstorming ideas, we mapped a potential user flow for our test prototype.
Wireframes
Getting stakeholders alignment before moving forward to a higher fidelity prototype.
Pausing at key features to highlight our hypothesis and learning objectives.
Competitive Analysis
See what our competitors are doing.
Prototype Testing
We had a defined key result we were tracking against.
We sticked to our script and interviewed 6 Etsy sellers, trying to understand if the values offered in our prototype cover their basic needs, and can be a good enough solution for them to subscribe.
Designing the prototype
After making sure all key values exist in our prototype wires, we mocked a high fidelity flow to test with users that fit our key persona.
Onboarding and Guidance
Starting points and growing your audience
Credibility and customer communication
We met our first Key Result-
5/6 Etsy sellers has agreed to subscribe to Squarespace!
As a next step the team will synthesize research learnings, prioritize the work and divide the work between the Commerce teams.
Dashboard Rollout
4 months later, we’ve rolled out the Commerce Setup Dashboard to 100% of our English-locale customers’ sites.
The Commerce Setup Dashboard centralizes the Commerce landing experience on store setup. The dashboard enables customers to quickly complete the necessary tasks to launch their stores and introduces them to the tools we offer across Squarespace.
First results are in!
Etsy merchants were +17% more likely to subscribe when presented with the dashboard.
Merchants who encountered the dashboard were +8% more likely to connect a payment processor - a critical step in store setup.
Click-through engagement with the “Unlock the Power of Squarespace” section was 5%.
What’s next?
Continuing full speed, Integrating other pieces of the merchant’s journey into the dashboard experience