Google Analytics  – Compare Your Etsy Shop (Part 3)

Over the past few weeks, Petronella Luiting, from the Etsy shop Kraplap and blog, has shared an experiment she conducted to take a close look at the Google Analytics numbers from 21 Etsy shops to find trends.  Petronella asked her Etsy Team, the European Street Team (“EST”) to help her find the answers.

HandmadeMarketing.org is happy to present the third part of Petronella’s Google Analytics Survey of 21 EST members done in January and February.

In Petronella’s first article, she outlined the method she would use to compare Etsy shops and gave graphs for three characteristics: the number of daily visits to the shop, the percentage of visits that are from new visitors, and the duration of each visit in minutes.

In part two of the Etsy Google Analytics survey, Petronella looked to the relation of these traits with the shop size.  She showed us graphs for the number of daily visits per shop item and the duration of each visit per shop item.

Next, part three of her survey will show more information about how to increase traffic of potential buyers to an Etsy shop.  “A higher visiting frequency and/or duration tells of course nothing about the height of the selling frequency in these shops, therefore I will give here the relation of visit frequency and duration with selling frequency,” she told us.

“The first graph shows the selling performance, expressed as the number of sold items over the period we had the Google Analytics running, against the shop size expressed as the number of items listed per shop,” Petronella explains. “The dashed pink line is the trend line, which indicates an increase in the tested period of the number of sold items with the shop size.”

Petronella found the two Etsy shops with the highest number of sold handmade items lay far away from the rest of the shops.  This influences the trendline enormously.  To help show readers the true trend without these outliers, Petronella also made a trend line for all the Etsy shops without those two shops included.  This is represented as the solid pink line.

“The result is almost a disappearance of the positive trend between the number of sold items and the shop size,” Petronella said.  The solid line shows us 1 sold item more for every 33 extra listed items.

“The second graph shows the selling performance against the number of daily visits per shop, averaged over  the same period we had the Google Analytics running. The dashed pink line is the trend line, indicating an increase in the tested period of 10 sold items per every 100 extra daily shop visits,” Petronella explains to us.

Again, Petronella makes sure outlier data doesn’t skew the entire survey.  However, we can see by the solid pink line that leaving out the three Etsy shops with the highest number of daily visits does not make a big difference in the trend.  When looking at this solid pink line, the data shows an increase of 12 sold items for every 100 extra daily shop visits.  “There is a strong positive relation between the selling performance and the shop visit frequency,” Petronella concludes.  This would make sense – the more potential buyers that visit your handmade shop, the more chances you have for a sale.

“The third graph shows the number of sold items against the duration of the visits per shop in seconds,” Petronella explains to HandmadeMarketing.org.

We can see that this graph is similar to the first graph.  The trend lines show a positive relation between selling performance and visit duration.

The dashed pink line shows an increase of 8 sold items for every 100 extra seconds of shop visits.  Petronella explains further, “But this number is halved when the two Etsy shops with the highest number of sold items, laying far away from the other shops, are removed from the trendline.”  This solid pink line shows an increase of 4 sold items for every 100 extra seconds of shop visits.

Because of the positive relations of the number of visits and the visit duration with the Etsy shop size, which we saw in part two of the Etsy sales comparison, Petronella is also giving the last 2 graphs adjusted for shop size.  This means Petronella will use the average number of daily visits and the average visit duration, per item and not per shop.

This change brings us to Petronella’s fourth graph.  This graph “shows the selling performance against the number of daily visits per item, averaged over the same period we had the Google Analytics running,” she explains.

The dashed pink line is once again the trend line and indicates an increase of 36 sold items in the tested period per every 10 extra daily item visits.

Petronella again left the two Etsy shops with the highest number of sold items out to determine the solid pink line. This solid pink line shows an increase of 14 sold items in the tested period (circa 2 months) for every 10 extra daily item visits.

“In conclusion, the positive relation between the selling performance and the shop visit frequency remains positive after adjustment for shop size,” Petronella tells us.  “In contrast, the positive relation between the selling performance and the visit duration seen in the third graph disappears after adjustment for shop size (no graph given because no trend visible anymore). Hence, that relation was fully explained by shop size.”

Petronella adds she didn’t include graphs with the percentage of visits that are from new visitors because no or only very weak relations were found.

What is Petronella’s overall conclusion after conducting the survey to find trends in the average Etsians analytics?

Visiting frequency, or number of daily visits per item, and Etsy shop size, or number of items listed, both lead to more sales!  On the other hand, visit duration and the proportion of new visits do not seem to be important for handmade sales.

Thank you for your hard work on this survey Petronella!  We appreciate you allowing HandmadeMarketing.org to share this information with our community.  Be sure to check out Petronella’s DaWanda Shop and postcard collection!

What do you think of Petronella’s findings?  Do you think your shop falls in line with the trends?  What do you think are the average sales on Etsy.com and other handmade selling platforms online?

Share your thoughts with HandmadeMarketing.org! Submit your thoughts on this article and selling on Etsy in general. If we like your tips, we will post them (along with a link to your shop!) for others in the community to see.