The Big List of Etsy KPIs and Stats

As a shop owner on Etsy, you face a wide range of decisions. Some decisions are related to the day to day work with your shop, and others are more long-term and have to do with how to grow your shop, how to work more efficiently, and how to provide better customer service. Let's call the second type of decision for strategic decisions.

When it comes to strategic decisions, we have found it to be crucial to find actionable stats to use in the decision-making process. Finding actionable stats is easier said than done, many times looking at stats is overwhelming, and it's hard to separate what is useful from noise.

A useful first step is to figure out which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) could add value to your decision-making. A KPI is a measurable value that indicates how well your business is performing. Be sure to connect your KPIs with business objectives, and track them over time.

A friendly heads-up! When deciding on goals and which KPI to improve, focus on a few, and try to figure out how it will impact the rest of your business. Watch out for vanity metrics, these kinds of KPIs can cost you a lot of time and energy without moving the needle for your business.

To get more out of your Etsy stats, we recommend that you integrate your Etsy account with Google Analytics.

Metrics related to your shop's performance

Conversion rate

Conversion rate measures the share of visitors that make a purchase. There are many ways to improve your conversion rate, but you have to experiment to find out what works for you. Things to be considered are, for example, your product images, your descriptions, and your pricing. You may also think about if you are attracting the right type of visitors.

Number of orders / Number of visitors

Track your conversion rate:

• Etsy Stats

Visitors

Visitors measure how many people have visited your shop. No visitors, no sales, it is as simple as that. There are many ways to increase the number of visitors, for example, SEO, and online marketing.

Track your shop's visitors:

• Etsy Stats (visits)
• Google Analytics (users)

Pageviews

Pageviews measure the total number of pages visitors have viewed on your shop. If every visitor views two pages on your shop in average, this number will be twice your number of visitors.

Track your shop's pageviews:

• Google Analytics

Session duration

Session duration measures how long your visitors on average view products or other pages on your shop, before either navigating somewhere else or making a purchase.

The interpretation of session duration is not always straight-forward, but in general, you want to extend it because it indicates that your visitors are interested in what you are offering.

Track how much time your visitors spend on your shop:

• Google Analytics

Traffic sources

By looking at your shop's traffic sources, you will get an understanding of how your visitors find you. For most shops on Etsy, the majority of the traffic comes from people who browse and search Etsy. Only relying on traffic from Etsy can be risky, so it is often a good idea to keep track of how other traffic sources are performing, for example, social media and other search engines like Google.

Common groupings for traffic sources:

• Direct traffic - Visitors that arrive directly at your shop by either typing the URL into the browser, clicking on a link in a text message or email, or clicking on a bookmark. Indicates how your email or text message marketing is going, and it may also mean that you have a strong brand.
• Referring traffic - Visitors that arrive at your shop from a link on another site. Traffic from social media belongs to this group.
• Search engine traffic - Visitors that arrive at your shop from links on a search result page for search engines, for example, Google, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo, and Bing.

Track where your visitors are coming from:

• Etsy Stats
• Google Analytics

Bounce rate

Measures how many of your visitors exit your shop after just viewing a single product or page. This KPI can be hard to analyze, but you want your bounce rate to be as low as possible, which indicates that your visitors are exploring your shop. In general terms, you decrease your bounce rate by making your shop more appealing.

Number of visitors that leave after the first pageview / Number of visitors

Keep track of your bounce rate:

• Google Analytics

Metrics related to customers

Repeat customer rate

Measures how many of your customers come back after buying from you once. This KPI indicates how good you are at building customer relationships and the overall customer experience. Your returning customers may also be more eager to give you constructive feedback and participate in surveys.

Number of returning customers / Number of customers

Customer lifetime value (CLV or CLTV)

Measures the long-term value of an average customer. Customer lifetime value (CLV) guides you on how much you can spend on customer acquisition. When you pay more for acquiring new customers (CAC) than your customer lifetime value (CLV), your business is sure to fail in the long run if nothing changes.

Figuring out which of your customers have the highest CLV can be valuable. According to RJMetrics, the top 1% of eCommerce customers are worth up to 18 times more than the average customer. Some customers are worth extra attention.

Metrics related to orders

Average revenue per order

Measure how much income each order on average contributes. To increase your average revenue per order, you can raise your prices or figure out additional products and services to your customers. For example, if you are selling posters on Etsy, one way to increase your average revenue per order would be to offer your customers additional products like frames and hangers.

Total revenue / Total number of orders

Average number of items per order

Measures how many products on average each order contains. You can raise this KPI by offering additional products that your customers may also like.

Total number of items / Total number of orders

Average discount rate

Measure the average percentage of discount that your customers receive. It is pretty common on Etsy to offer customers different types of discounts, which is sometimes a successful tactic to attract new customers. We recommend that you keep track of how much discount you are offering because it will affect your profitability substantially. Your pricing also indicates how valuable your products are.

Metrics related to profitability

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Measures how much you have to spend on average for acquiring a new customer.

Amount spent on marketing / Number of customers

Cost of goods sold (COGS)

The cost of sold goods (COGS) includes the cost of the materials and labor directly used to create your product. COGS does not include shipping and costs related to distributions, for example, fees to Etsy and taxes.

Gross margin

Measures your shop's financial efficiency, and it is a powerful KPI because of its simplicity. When your gross margin is low, it will be tough covering other expenses that are not directly associated with production. We highly recommend you to calculate your gross margin when you are developing new products for your shop.

Revenue / Cost of goods sold (COGS)