EP 12. Etsy Just Changed Personalization: Here's What You Need to Know | Bonus Episode

Etsy just rolled out one of the biggest personalization updates in years and if you sell anything personalized or you've been thinking about adding personalization to your products, this one is worth knowing about right now.

In this bonus episode I'm breaking down exactly what changed, what it means for your shop, and what to do with your existing listings. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey there, and welcome to the Modern Etsy Seller, the podcast where busy women build, grow, and profit on Etsy. I'm your host, Melissa Carroll, a full-time teacher, a busy mom, and an Etsy seller who's built two successful Etsy shops in the small moments of everyday life. Here you'll find simple strategies, real behind-the-scenes insight, and the clarity you need to stop second guessing and start moving forward one intentional step at a time. Let's get to it. Hey there and welcome to the Modern Etsy seller. Today, instead of doing a what you're wondering episode, I want to talk about a big change that Etsy rolled out on Monday. This is a really big update if you already sell anything personalized or you are considering adding personalized products to your shop. It is going to create such an opportunity in the personalized print-on-demand space, and I'm here for it. Because Etsy just expanded personalization in a way sellers have been asking for for years. So I want to talk about what has changed, why it matters, and what sellers should do with this information. I'm already a huge fan of personalized products, and I encourage all sellers to add personalization to their products whenever possible. I probably offer some sort of personalization on 80% of the items in my shop. So this is super exciting for me. For years on Etsy, personalization was handled inside of one box. One single text box where you had to ask for everything that you needed from the buyers, which sometimes is fine. Like if you just need a name, then one box works. But when you need multiple pieces of information, that's when things can get a little messy. So, like for example, if you wanted to create a personalized Zodiac mug and you need a name and a birth date and a zodiac sign and a font choice, that's four separate pieces of information, and you had to request that information inside of this box that only allows you 256 characters. And while as sellers we've been making it work, it also left too much room for things to go wrong. Well, we no longer have to cram it all in one box and hope our instructions are clear because with this update, instead of one box, we now have five separate fields for personalization. And even better is that they're not all just text boxes. Now for each personalization field, we can choose between three options a text field, a drop-down option list, or an image upload. So let me explain each one. The text field option works similarly to the current personalization box, except now you can give each field its own title in addition to the instructions. The biggest difference here is the number of characters. Before we had 256 characters for the instructions, and now it's down to 120. But that should be more than enough space since now you're only asking for one thing. The second type of personalization field that you can choose is a list of options. So it's like a drop-down box where all the possibilities are there for them, and then they have to click the one they want. So this works really good for things like colors or scents or font choices. And then the last personalization field, and I think this is the most exciting of all of them, is the file upload. Here your customers can upload up to 10 files. And this is huge for anyone who offers personalized products that involve photos. Previously, there was not a way to collect this at the point of sale. Instead, sellers had to rely on buyers uploading through Etsy messages after the sale. And clearly things could go wrong that way. So let's go back to that example. And for that product, for the Zodiac mug example, I would recommend having two text fields. So one for the name and one for the birth date, and then two option lists, one with the 12 Zodiac signs already there for them to choose from, and the other with their font choices. Honestly, this update is going to create a cleaner and simpler buyer and seller experience. Now, let's talk about listings you already have up having had used the old personalization box. Those listings are still gonna show up the way they did before. So you do not have to go in and rush to make a bunch of changes. But if you do go in to edit a listing and you look at the personalization, if the characters are over 120, then you're gonna see a warning message saying that you've gone over the new character limit and should shorten your text. But like I said, for now, Etsy is still displaying all of the characters, even if you're over the new limit. So what should you do with your current listings? Here's the thing. Some people believe that any edits to a listing can affect the algorithm, so it's often recommended to never touch a listing that's doing well. And I agree when it comes to edits that affect SEO, like titles and tags, but I'm not convinced personalization changes work the same way. I'm gonna test it out though. So if you're nervous about editing the personalization on listings that are already performing well, then don't do it. Wait and hear back from me in a few weeks. In the meantime, focus on your less successful products first. And honestly, if a listing only was asking for one piece of information, you probably don't need to do much at all. You're likely already under the new character limit. You could go in and change the title, which is going to say personalization right now, and you can change it to something more specific like name. But personally, I don't think that's the best use of time, especially if you have hundreds of listings. My plan is to start with the listings that require the most information from the buyer, the ones that I think might be the least clear, and work down from there. Now, one final thing worth mentioning. If you use a third-party tool for personalization or a POD platform like Printify, it's still unclear how this new multi-field structure integrates. The old single text box and the new five-field system are different, and not every tool will have updated immediately. I'd recommend checking in with whatever tools you use to see what they're saying. I personally use and love Anywhere POD, and I know they put out a video showing how this update integrates with their platform, and I think they have it even up and running, but I haven't yet had the chance to watch that video or test it just yet. I do plan to do both over the upcoming weeks, and as I alluded to earlier, I have a personalization episode coming up in June. So I'll give you an update on all things related to this new personalization update then. Okay, that's it for this bonus episode. I'll see you in the next one.