Etsy rolled out a new listing page design that abbreviates long descriptions in order to display reviews and policies more prominently (right below item descriptions).
You can find sellers discussing the change on this thread on the Etsy discussion boards – some were not happy to learn they would have to edit many (or all) of their listings to ensure their descriptions contained all of the information necessary to convey to shoppers within the more limited real estate.
The post included a tip from a seller who wrote: “If you don’t want your description truncated keep it to 1100 characters or less (including spaces) If you go over that it will be cut off at 550 characters.” We’ve asked Etsy to confirm this would continue to be the case going forward, and we’ll issue an update if we learn more.
Announcement follows:
New detailed listing page design
by Devon O’Rourke
You work hard to build your shop’s reputation and offer a great customer experience. We’ve been testing out ways to highlight your efforts and make shoppers feel confident buying from you. For instance, we tested out a new layout for listing pages that displays your reviews and policies more prominently, right below your item descriptions. The goal of this experiment was to make it easier for shoppers to get answers to their questions and see reviews from other shoppers, which we believed would make them more comfortable purchasing from that shop.
We’ve seen positive results from the test. Not only were shoppers who viewed the redesigned page more likely to purchase an item, they were also more than twice as likely to see your shipping information, shop policies, and reviews – all important details that help build trust. Plus, putting this information on the listing page instead of behind tabs makes it easier for search engines like Google to look at the words in your reviews, so your listings have the opportunity to rank for more search terms. Added bonus: making your policies more prominent could help cut down on questions from shoppers, freeing up more of your time.
Beginning today, we’ll be showing the new listing page design to all shoppers who are browsing Etsy from a desktop computer. You don’t have to make any updates to your shop based on this change, but if you’re concerned about your listing descriptions being cut short in the new design, consider adjusting them so the most important information for shoppers appears in the first few sentences. If you use the shop policies template, you can also add a “Frequently Asked Questions” section to your shop policies to address questions you receive from shoppers.
We’re continuing to work on listing page improvements that make it easier for shoppers to find information, including exploring new ways to show shipping and processing times, item sizes and dimensions, and return and exchange information. Stay tuned for more details in the weeks ahead.
