Etsy Works on Improving Search, Checkout, Personalization

Founder Rob Kalin told users that Etsy is working on final testing of its new checkout, and said the company is evaluating ways to allow buyers to pay multiple sellers at once. In a progress report published on the company's blog on Friday, Kalin said Etsy had recently surpassed 100 employees, with half working in engineering and product. "In other words, 50 people are working directly on building the website," he wrote.

Etsy has more than doubled the size of the support team, which now numbers twenty-six. The company plans to hire another eighteen people in support this year in its Brooklyn headquarters and in its Berlin, Germany office.

Kalin said Etsy's goal is to offer phone, live chat and email support around the clock, and, "while we've made good progress, we still have a ways to go."

He then outlined specific areas the company is working on, including search and "creating custom experiences for different categories"; infrastructure; improvements to the selling experience; plans to enable management of multiple shops from a single account; and more.

Etsy users responded with comments in a discussion thread. Many users had questions about whether Etsy had in fact completed a feature that required buyers to pay for an item before marking it as sold on Etsy.

Others were intrigued with what Kalin meant when he said Etsy was working on "gifting" in his section about "Social and Personalization."

You can read Rob Kalin's full blog post on this page.