Google Analytics – Compare Your Etsy Shop (Part 2)

Petronella Luiting, from Etsy and DaWanda shop Kraplap, is back with the second part of her Google Analytics Survey.  In a previous article about Etsy analytics, Petronella shared the results of an experiment she conducted for helping Etsy sellers compare their Etsy shop traffic data data to our sellers.  Petronella asked her Etsy Team, the European Street Team or “EST”, to offer their Etsy shop analytics to help her compare traffic and spot trends.

Here is the second part of the small Google Analytics Survey of 21 EST members Petronella conducted in January and February:

In Petronella’s Google Analytics – Compare Your Etsy Shop (Part 1) article, she showed us graphs for three characteristics – the number of daily visits to the Etsy shop, the percentage of visits that are from new visitors, and the duration of each visit in minutes.  “Because I suspected that Etsy shops with more items will likely have more and longer visits than shops with only a few items, ” Petronella told us, “I decided to look into that question first.”

As we saw with Petronella’s first article explaining her Google Analytics Survey, the thick orange/pink lines in the graphs are the average performances of our 21 participants.  Our team thinks readers should use Petronella’s survey data to apply to their Etsy shop by focusing on the average line data in each graph.

“The first graph shows a plot of the number of daily visits per shop.  These daily visits are averaged over the period we had the Google Analytics running, against the shop size expressed as the number of listed items,” Petronella said.  “The dashed orange/pink line is the trend line, which indicates an increase of 9 shop visits per day for every 10 items listed.”

Using this information, Petronella points out that we can see the three Etsy shops with the highest number of daily visits are in their own league and don’t follow a trend.

“Therefore, I also made a trend line for all the shops without those three shops, which is the solid orange/pink line,” she said.  “This trend line is weaker, but still shows an increase of three shop visits per day for every 10 shop items listed .”

Petronella found there is a positive relationship between the number of visits and the Etsy shop size.  In other words, the more shop items in your Etsy shop, the higher the number of visits from potential buyers.  Our team thinks this makes sense on an elementary level.  The more items a seller has available, the higher the chances your Etsy shop has to draw potential buyers in – particularily by Etsy searches.  This is where clever tagging could come into play.

Next, Petronella explains her second set of data.  “The second graph shows a plot of the duration of the visits per Etsy shop, averaged over the more or less stable period starting from January 26, against the shop size expressed as the number of listed items.”

The results are similar to Petronella’s first graph (shown here).  The trend lines show a slight positive relation between potential buyer’s time at the shop and Etsy shop size.  In fact, her findings may surprise you.  Petronella found “an increase of 2 to 4 seconds per shop visit for every 10 items listed.”

With this new information, the survey changed a bit.  “Because of these positive relations of the number of visits and the visit duration with the Etsy shop size,” Petronella said, “I decided to adjust the graphs in the previous article for the number of items listed in the shops.”

“This means that the following graphs represent the number of daily visits and the duration of a visit in seconds, per item and not per shop.”  Petronella smoothed the trendlines the same way she did in part one of her survey.  “I don’t show the graph with the percentage of visits that are from new visitors again because a percentage is a relative number and, therefore, remains the same per shop and per item.”

Petronella takes us through her third set of data.  “The third graph shows the number of daily visits that an average item in a shop,” she explains.  “The average number of daily visits per item lies around 3 and 4.”

Petronella found one of her EST participants had analytics results that fell above the daily visits range (12 to 16 per item).  You can see this shop in the graph has the light blue line far above the other Etsy shops.  “There was also a group moving around and above the average (daily visits ranging from 1 to 8 per item).  In addition, I found a group that lies under the average (with daily visits ranging from 0 to 2 per item),” she said.

She came to the conclusion that the shop represented in light blue only a has a high visitor level in the shop, but per item.  “This shows this shop a clear winner when you talk about visiting frequency!” Petronella said.  “A similar conclusion can be made for the shop represented by the blue line, only a less striking.”

Petronella thinks these two Etsy shops must have some potential buyer attraction of their own.  Factors such as product type, use of advertizing, product quality, Etsy item photo quality, etc. may plan a role.

“As a contrast, one of the three superior shops in the first graph in part one has a very high shop visit frequency because of the very high number of listed items. But also the Etsy shops moving around and above the average are doing well.  These are relatively small Etsy shops with a bit higher than averaged visit frequency.”

Petronella also found there are relatively large Etsy shops in the survey that fall under the group’s average.  This leaves those shops with a lower than average visit rate from potential buyers.

The  fourth graph in the second part of the Google Analytics Survey shows the time potential buyers spent per Etsy item.

“The trend remains decreasing in January and pretty stable in February,” Petronella points out.   “Visitors stay for an average of 10 seconds per item at the start of January, falling rapidly to an average of about 4 seconds per item in February.”

Her findings show three Etsy shops are above the average, with visit durations of up to over 18 seconds per visit.  Petronella also noticed a group of six shops which are above the average duration of 4 seconds/item most of the time, with values up to 9 seconds per visit.

“The rest of the shops are most of the time under the average duration of 4 seconds per item, with values coming from 1 second per visit,” she said.

“In conclusion, the three shops lying in the top of the graph, which are  relatively small shops, do not only have a high visit frequency,” Petronella said.  “However, their visitors do stay longer than average!  As a contrast, there are some relatively large shops in the lowest part of the graph, hence not capturing their visitors long.  A higher visiting frequency and/or duration tells of course nothing about the height of the selling frequency in these shops.“

What is next for Petronella’s Google Analytics Survey?  “The relation with selling will be dealt with in part three of the small Google Analytics Survey,” Petronella says.  We can’t wait to hear more about her experiment!

Thank you for sharing your hard work Petronella!

If you want to read more of Petronella tips, check out her blog.  Petronella is also a member of Etsy’s European Street Team (EST) and postcard collection.