Etsy is marketing itself as go-to shopping destination for unique gifts. The marketplace said gifts continue to grow its share of overall gross merchandise sales.
For the 2024 holiday season, Etsy is positioning itself as a place for shoppers to purchase unique gifts that give the sentiment, “I see you.”
The handmade marketplace debuted a “Where’s Waldo” ad campaign that highlights how Waldo “feels seen” when he receives a personalized gift from his friend.
This ad, among other new holiday ads, will appear on TV, billboards and social media, aimed at helping shoppers think of Etsy first for all their gifting needs, said an Esty spokesperson. Across these channels, the marketplaces expects Etsy will generate 5.7 billion impressions from U.S. consumers.
The Where’s Waldo holiday campaign fits into two larger initiatives for Etsy:
- For consumers to think of Etsy as a place to purchase gifts.
- A marketing push featuring human connection.
Etsy as a gift retailer
In January, Etsy initiated a campaign to become a merchant that consumers think of for purchasing gifts. This strategy included adding gifting features to its site, such as creating gift ideas, building gift lists, sending a gift preview to recipients and these gift-focused marketing campaigns.
Etsy said shoppers have created 1 million gift lists and Etsy received 1.3 million site visits from consumers who have received a gift teaser. A gift teaser is when a purchaser sends a recipient a gift and elects to send them a “teaser” which shows a message from the sender and the product they can expect in the mail.
Etsy had room to grow on the gifting front, as only 8% of U.S. shoppers name Etsy as the place to shop for gifts, according to its own survey data. Although, the Etsy spokesperson said that in Q3 2024 Etsy’s association with gifting “hit a record high,” but declined to give exact figures.
Etsy declined to share what percent of its sales are related to the Q4 holidays or gifting in general. Etsy did say that gross merchandise sales of gifts was a higher share of its overall gross merchandise sales now than it was during the same period last year. And gifting gross merchandise sales outpaces its site-wide performance (which was 4.1% year-over-year decrease in Q3 2024).
New gifting initiatives for the 2024 holiday season
Also this quarter, Etsy launched physical gift cards that consumers can buy in U.S. pharmacies, grocery stores and other retail stores.
To kick off the holiday season, before Halloween Etsy hosted a pop-up shop for three days Oct. 25-27 in New York City. Thousands of shoppers visited the store to browse products from 200 sellers, the spokesperson said.
Etsy has six million sellers on its marketplace.
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