On the scale of technically inclined crafty folk, I consider myself pretty well up there. I like to think I’m not too change adverse. As a result, when Etsy springs giant changes on the sellers I am usually at least a little optimistic because change is good. If you don’t update and adapt, particularly online, you sink and I really don’t want Etsy to sink. I love Etsy.
In the coming weeks, Etsy is releasing their biggest layout update for individual shop pages yet. Part of that is visual – they are going to join the mobile, one page site trend. That’s odd to me but I understand the logic and the metrics certainly bear it out. Plus there’s lots of excellent new space for adding your own touch in the form of a huge banner. It’s a plus if you actually use that space for anything normally. And it’s a kick in the butt for those of us who keep meaning to but rarely do.
In addition to the visual changes, they’re adding additional categories (yay!!!), making policies required (yay!!!), adding boilerplate for the policies (um, maybe yay?), and a variety of other still mystical shifts.
The changes are available to preview by shop owners now at http://www.etsy.com/shop/yourshopname/neu and will be released into the wild on April 5th. There are updates and bug fixes being released continuously on the Bugs section of the Etsy Forums and questions being answered continuously, as well, in the same forums.