While traffic and conversion rate receive the bulk of marketing attention and efforts, it's time to discuss the third crucial KPI that impacts the revenue of your Etsy store - Average Order Value (AOV). In the past months Etsy development team has been looking for ways to increase cart and order values as a key to maximizing revenue per customer. They've already started testing new platform features that directed specifically at increasing the order value and one of these features that's already rolling out is called:
The Etsy “Buy more & save” badge
Etsy is reviewing listings to find ones that may be eligible for this badge and you might have received a notification in your dashboard. If this is the first time you are seeing this, you can follow the steps below to increase your chance.
These features mark the start of early holiday season preparations - this already gives us hints about Etsy's approach for Q4. Which makes the next 2-3 months the perfect time for you to test out new strategies. Your big goal here is to take advantage of Etsy's newest features and to find the best ways to market in sync with Etsy's overarching direction.
1. What is the "Buy more & save" badge?
This is essentially another call-out similar to free shipping badges, sale count-downs and similar listing features that aim to impact customer behavior. Most of these features have been directed towards boosting conversion rates or speeding up the time to purchase. Now we are seeing dedicated efforts to boost AOV and encourage buyers to spend more with your store.
If your listings have a variation related to quantity, you can activate the badge, and it will look like this when someone visits your listing:
At first glance, this is a simple improvement but it's actually a direct call-to-action very close to the purchase decision. On top of the immediate effect of considering a bigger purchase, this is also a way to engage buyers with your pricing model. This helps them move one step closer to a purchase decision and it can be perfect for items in impulse-buy categories.
This is also a better way to drive savings for everyone opposed to flat discounts as processing and shipping multiple items to the same customer is usually cost-effective. Etsy already has a "Buy 2 or more" feature in their sales meny but it's communicated poorly on the buyer end of the platform - it's very hard to notice. This new badge is positioned directly above the buy button which is a noticable improvement.
Finally, we are yet to see how this badge will show up in the search results. Free shipping and discounts are visible as early as the search results page and since this is a similar feature we can expect to see development in this direction, as well as whether it will be part of the search filters.
2. How to check if your listings are already eligible?
The new badge is still not available in all stores. If your listings are eligible, you've received a notification in your store. You can find the notification in two places:
- in your Etsy Dashboard:
- and in your Etsy Listings Manager:
If you don't have the notification, we are adding some tips below how to increase your chances.
3. How to activate the "Buy more" badge?
After you click on the “Review your listings” button in your Dashboard or Listings Manager, you will receive a pop-up, telling you how many listings have qualified for the new badge.
To activate it, once again click on the Review Listings button and the following step will allow you to select for which listings you would like to activate the badge.
As you already saw, this is just a communication tool that adds call-to-action text to your variations area. Activating the badge will make no changes to your prices, it will just highlight your existing variation-based pricing. So if your listings are eligible, there is only an upside to test this out.
4. How to increase the chance of your listings receiving the badge?
To determine listings eligibility, Etsy has most likely used AI to scan your listing variations. While they haven't disclosed all factors that went into this, there are certain criteria that are clearly playing a role:
- name one of your variations "Quantity", "Bundle" or related;
- use related variation options - "1, 2, 3, ..."; "1 (one), 2 (two), 3 (three)"; etc.
- use variation-based pricing, e.g. each of these options should be priced differently.
Technically, we've seen this work even if you are offering no discount - for example if 1 item costs $20, and 2 items cost $40. But in practice under the "Buy more & save" call-to-action this would confuse buyers and should be ineffective.
Keep in mind that you can be creative with your listing variations according to the nature of your product and the AI should detect broader interpretations. For example -
But this goes both ways as we've seen sellers complain that Etsy's system hasn't selected listings that should be theoretically eligible.
This feature will certainly evolve over the next weeks and months and down the road we may be able to manually select eligible listings. But for now it's a good idea to engage and play around with your variations to meet the eligibility criteria if this makes sense for your product.
5. What effective strategies can you use with the new badge?
First consider which listings from your store match the context of the new call-to-action. Do you have products that are frequently bought in bulk? Or can you think of a product that can be bought in a higher quantity and shared with friends?
This strategy can be applied to a wide range of categories - from small items like stickers, containers, utensils, etc. to linen dresses and kaftans that are frequently ordered in higher quantities. Even furniture items like light fixtures are often ordered in bulk when buyers renovate multiple spaces at once.
Also specifically consider "Buy more and save" for items you may have in stock and want to move faster. This is a good approach if shipping multiple items together will save you time and money. And vice-versa - if bulking up the order, will make it signifcantly more expensive to ship, such products may not be good candidates.
To leverage this fully, you may also want to run an attractive sale offer. This is an example price structure you can go with:
- 1 item - 20$
- 2 items - 36$ - 10% off
- 3 Items - 51$ - 15% off
- 4 items - 64$ - 20% off
For some listings where buying in bulk makes a lot of sense, you can even increase the base price for 1 item in order to open up space for an attractive discount on bigger orders.
Just keep in mind that any discount promos you run shouldn't eat into your margins and good pricing strategy plays a big role for your financial success. Especially, when it comes to low-priced items under $40-50, we may sometimes recommend increasing the base price to maintain a healthy margin. Of course, when it comes to pricing, you always want to keep track of other stores in your niche and make sure to stay competitive.
The "Buy more & save" badge marks an important milestone this year. It opens up space for creative marketing strategies to encourage larger purchases, ultimately leading to greater profitability and inventory turnover. Clear communication and regular performance analysis are key to maximize the benefits of this feature.
This is another step Etsy takes to allow you to customize the buyer experience inside the store. For some sellers, the release of new tools means a push out of the "comfort zone". But if you are looking to win your niche, this can be a very good opportunity. Make sure to keep an eye at how the Average Order Value features will develop in the lead up to the holiday season over the next few months.
