Etsy redesigned "shop stats," which is designed to help sellers understand their performance and see where their traffic is coming from. It also introduced new features, such as providing conversion rate (a basic metric every seller needs to analyze and improve their stores and listings).
Etsy is rolling out the new shop stats to sellers now, and it said that over the next few weeks, it would add features such as year-over-year data points for each metric on the overall shop performance graph. But some sellers were irate that the new shop stats didn't already provide a way to compare current performance with last year's data.
Etsy published a guide to the new shop stats feature in the
Seller Handbook. In it, Etsy discussed the new conversion rate metric as follows:
"One important metric relationship to track is your conversion rate, calculated by the ratio between visits and completed orders. Your conversion rate is best measured over longer periods of time, and can be informed by a variety of factors, including your product photography, pricing, and other factors like your number of customer reviews and average review rating."
We heard from a reader who was "thrilled" to see the new stats page, which they called sensible. "Whoever is in charge of this has a good handle on it. Soon, the demise of the "dashboard."" The seller said the new stats page was cleaner, less confusing, and showed important information, and required less clicking.
"Yes, after the (not) improved dashboard, the (not) improved forum, the (not) improved promoted listings we now have (not) improved stats which in reality means they removed the last tool which was working well and telling us something. The color bars were great. They gave me a simple visual overview of how my store was doing day by day and with the lighter colors next to it, compared to the same day last year. Now I get a few dots and a line, telling me exactly nothing and no way of seeing last year. Thank you Etsy for yet another great "improvement.""
Another seller wrote, "One tiny detail for example that bothers me is the new stats only displays three categories to sort listings by; Views, Orders, and Revenue. The Old Stats had FOUR including the ability to sort by Favorited which was a handy tool to see which items received the most favorites within your shop each month."
And
another seller said, "Before I could see if clicks came from Etsy or google to see where they use my ads money can't seem to find that now."
One seller changed their mind somewhat after spending some time with it,
writing: "I was on record above as saying this sucks. After looking through it more, I can't say I hate it. Maybe it needs some tweaks but it might not be bad. I might grow to like it even but at the very least it isn't too horrible. I have seen worse. I'll give it some time... and in reality it isn't going to change anyway."
Some others said they were not pleased to see Etsy putting resources into something that worked adequately instead of improving search. "Stats were fine, no need to fix them," wrote one seller. "Search on the other hand needs a major overhaul (i.e., eliminate clumping and return results that match what the customer is searching for, not irrelevant results) and then some."
The AuctionBytes Blog has been giving a voice to online merchants since its launch in 2005. Named one of the world's top 30 blogs in 2008 by "Blogging Heroes." Weigh in with your thoughts on the joys and pitfalls of selling online.
Etsy Redesigns Shop Stats and Adds Conversion Rate
by: Life During Wartime 
by: The End