Latest Activity Date is a gross misrepresentation of "Latest Activity"

[halfturndesigns]

I'm putting this under "technical issues" because it has to be a glitch, right?

For the first time I saw this "Latest Activity Date" on the mobile web version of my shop (not on desktop and not on the app) and it said that the latest activity was June 6th but I had updated two listings last night.

I contacted Etsy support and "...please note that the "Latest Activity Date" on your shop is updated when you make or edit your shop announcement".  Umm.... Activity <> Updating Shop Announcement.

If that is the criteria then the label should be "Last time shop announcement was updated."   Please mark this as a bug and have this date actually reflect "latest activity" which should be the last time the shop owner add/updated a listing, an announcement, a policy, fulfilled an order, etc. It's incredibly misleading and falsely could lead a customer to believe the shop owner is not active in the shop when in fact they just haven't updated their announcement - which is ridiculous.  

Etsy - please correct - thank you so much!

—-

quick update on this. I actually updated my shop announcement and it in fact did NOT update my latest activity date. so, I reached out to another agent on Etsy who confirmed this is a defect and also shared that there is no documentation on what triggers this change.  They asked me to check back in 24 hours on the status of this defect.

[CryzalisMasksUK]

Agree with this, it is very misleading for customers and could turn customers away

[Duckwells]

Agree, I rarely update my announcement but work my shop daily

[sharonjenkins1]

I agree with you all.  How is this helpful?

[halfturndesigns]

I just spoke to an agent because I did change my shop announcement and it did not in fact change my latest activity date. Two things he said were interesting 1) he shared that he had no documentation on what triggered a date change in latest activity date and 2) agreed with me that it was a defect and then I should check back in 24 hours for status

[OneEyeCatStudio]

So now, not only are you penalized for not answering customer's communications in a timely manner when you haven't gotten any communications to answer, you are now penalized for not updating your shop announcement when you haven't got a shop announcement?

[TickleYourWitch]

Seems like it is not in the interests of one's mental health to obsess over every little change Etsy makes to the interface. They are constantly tinkering, sometimes on a daily basis. It will probably be gone in a day or two. Do customers even notice or care?

Is it weird? Yes. But so is 90% of the things Etsy tinkers with. You really do have to wonder who decides to keep mucking about with the look when there are such bigger problems that could be addressed, like making variations work better with accurate weights and such. So many things that would actually make the shopping experience better or prices more accurate. But hey, why do that, when you can add useless date stamps, play with the color of buttons and move things to new places? Lol

[SarahMillsPrints]

My latest activity it seems, was based on the day I added two new listings. I have edited things in my shop since then but the 'latest activity' hasn't updated.

[cindylouwho2]

They've been testing this in various forms for months. I wrote a piece on LinkedIn when it started, and detailed all the ways it was failing, and all the true activity it was missing, such as buying a shipping label, updating quantities etc. 

One version of this gave the criteria:

"This shows when the seller last completed one of these activities

• Made a shop announcement

• Updated their shop policies

• Added an item to their shop"

but I found that this was not true. E.g., my date was the day a listing auto-renewed; it was not a new listing. 

"I actually updated my shop announcement and it in fact did NOT update my latest activity date." - it took several hours for me, possibly close to 24. That was a few months ago, though, so it may have changed. 

Since this is a test, I expect that Support has no info on how it works. 

[UppNorthEh]

I thought it was pretty much counting anything you did.  I just made a new listing in this shop and it's showing today.  Last Friday I sold an item in my other shop, it auto renewed and I bought it postage.  That shop is showing Friday's date.  I'm going to buy postage later.  It will be intersting to see if that will change the date again.

I agree "support" won't have a clue how this works.  

[cindylouwho2]

@UppNorthEh a few months back, labels, updating FAQs, editing listings and answering messages did not count. They may have changed things now.

[UppNorthEh]

Yes, just buying postage, and nothing else, updates the Latest Activity 

[cindylouwho2]

@UppNorthEh good to know! I did tag them on LinkedIn about how the things that worked were very limited, so maybe they listened? 

[ButterflyFeetDigital]

I thought they had done away with that little "latest activity" button on the shop front page because I don't see it anymore. Really disappointing if they are still considering keeping it. 

[WitticismsRus]

Where is this latest activity info located exactly?

[UppNorthEh]

On your store front on the ap.

[WitticismsRus]

I'm not seeing it anywhere on the app. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?