Dive Brief:
- Etsy is now offering more precise delivery dates to shoppers after its fulfillment team launched a new machine learning model, CEO Josh Silverman said on a May 1 earnings call.
- The initiative reduced the e-commerce marketplace operator's estimates for U.S. Postal Service transit times by more than one day. As a result, Etsy nearly tripled the percentage of eligible orders for which it could show an estimated delivery date of seven days or less.
- Displaying tighter delivery date estimates will help Etsy "improve buyer perceptions of our reliability" while growing gross merchandise sales, Silverman said.
Dive Insight:
Etsy's progress with transit time estimates adds to the company's recent push to shake off its reputation as a laggard when it comes to delivery reliability.
Etsy increased the percentage of listings with an expected delivery date from 69% in Q3 of 2020 to 99% in Q3 of 2023, according to an earnings presentation last year. It also grew the percentage of U.S. domestic orders over $10 that include tracking information, up to 99%.
But Silverman noted in a November earnings call that it needs to "disrupt buyer perceptions even further" to drive more purchases.
"We now need buyers to understand all the progress we've made, and we can continue to do better, make delivery windows shorter without losing the special nature of Etsy," Silverman said.
This year, Etsy believes it can slash shipping times by at least two days, Silverman said at Canaccord Genuity's eCommerce Sustainable Advantage Forum in March. That could help drive more purchases on the platform after a Q1 slump saw gross merchandise sales fall 3.7% year over year, despite the company's active seller and buyer base growing.
"If you think about the brand barriers that stop people from shopping on Etsy more often, they're often the counter to the things people love most about Etsy," Silverman said at the conference. "It's handmade. It's made just for me. That's really exciting. But is it going to take too long to arrive?"
