learnings from helping to build etsy's global marketplace
TRANSCRIPT
Learnings from Building Etsy’s Global Marketplace
@TimHolley | Etsy | H3 Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico | November 21 2014
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Hi there!
I’m Tim Holley, a Senior Product Manager at Etsy where I focus on international and growth.
@TimHolley | H3 Conference | November 21 2014 |
Etsy is a marketplace where people around the world connect
to buy and sell unique goods.
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What is Etsy?
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Think handmade furniture, vintage dresses, custom party invitations and much much more.
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40M members1M sellers
26M active listings$1.35B in sales in 2013
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To give you some sense of scale...
@TimHolley | H3 Conference | November 21 2014 | 6officesnapshots.com/2010/10/11/etsy-offices/
Share some things we’ve learned over the last three years while helping to build Etsy’s global marketplace.
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2005.Cross-border transactions
in Etsy's first week.
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The international story starts in the early days, in the first week. Within the first week of Etsy launching in 2005 there were orders that were crossing borders.
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Is that a global business?
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This was something that happened to us.
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2010.English-only.
US-centric.
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In 2010 Etsy was being used by people around the world but the site was only available in English, US dollars were the only currency.
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Why international?It’s hard enough building a product
for one group of users...
Why would you even be interested in international in the first place?
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Puerto Rico population
California population
US population
Global online population
3.6M 38M320M
3B
internetlivestats.com/internet-users
One thing to think about is the size of the opportunity.
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Puerto Rico population
California population
US population
Global online population
3.6M 38M320M
3B
1000x
internetlivestats.com/internet-users
The global online population is 1000x bigger than Puerto Rico.
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So, how are you going to take over the world?
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International strategy is up to you, you know your business best. There is no one size fits all solution.
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Which markets to focus on?Where do you have an advantage?Where does infrastructure exist?
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Which markets are you going to focus on? Ones where you think you’ll have some advantage, language? culture? What infrastructure needs to be in place for you to succeed?
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How to focus on those markets?Local versions?
Global platform?
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How will you focus on them? Go deep in a few markets? Build a global platform with no barriers?
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Our approach.Global marketplace, single platform.
16cloudsfactory.etsy.com
We’re a global marketplace, built on a single platform.
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Lots of products available everywhere.
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+
Lots of products available to everyone, everywhere.
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Complying with different local laws.
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Complying with lots of different local regulations on one platform is hard, e.g. sales tax vs VAT.
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2011. German, French, Dutch (a little bit).
AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP.
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In 2011 we really started investing in international.
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Build it and they will come.
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Build it and they won’t come.Yet.
21flickr.com/photos/littleroots/1141690164/
International might be more difficult than we thought...
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Some things we’ve learned.
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CartWarenkorbPanierWinkelwagenCarroCarrello
Long words will break your product. That short four letter word “Cart” translates to “Winkelwagen” in Dutch which broke our page designs.
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Products are seasonal. When it’s winter in the US it’s summer in Australia. People going to the Australian homepage probably don’t want to see winter jackets in December.
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Help advocates to spread the word.Sellers, bloggers, tastemakers.
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Give people that are already spreading the word about you tools to make it easier: Sellers to invite their creative friends to open shops. Bloggers and tastemakers curating content to share with their followers.
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Don’t stop localizing.Integrate local payment methods.
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When you think you’re done localizing, you’re almost certainly not. Rethink the basics.
Not everyone wants to pay with a credit card online. Build local payment methods to reduce friction, increase trust.
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We’ve tried a lot of different things. Some have worked, many haven’t. International is hard and takes time.
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2014.25% of orders cross a border.Members in 200 countries.
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Where are we today? 25% of orders cross a border and we have members in around 200 countries.
Gracias. Danke. Thanks.
@TimHolley