Monthly Archives: April 2015

Etsy’s IPO Success is an Important Milestone for Business

A few days ago Etsy, the online craft marketplace, made its debut on the Nasdaq. The stock hasonline business story already doubled since its’ initial IPO and has been trading for over $34 dollars a share which values the company at roughly $4 billion dollars. Etsy may have some trouble keeping its small craft community identity by going public though. Etsy is seen as an alternative to ecommence giants like eBay and Amazon. However even at the $4 billion mark Etsy is still considered niche if compared to eBay’s valuation of $69 billion and Amazon’s at $178 billion.

Some background on Etsy: Etsy connects sellers with buyers looking for handmade and handcrafted items. There are a wide variety of items including clothing, jewelry, food, beauty products, toys, craft supplies and so much more. Etsy is one of the new growing companies called B Corps that pledge to abide by social and environmental accountability guidelines.

Unlike other companies, Etsy’s core goals are not to maximize profits

Etsy’s mission is to do business differently. As one of the many growing certified B corporations, they view their social, environmental and business goals as inseparable. That means they put social and environmental goals at par with being profitable. In fact, even having US revenue at $195.6 million in 2014 it still generated a net loss of $15.2 million dollars. In its’ public offering Etsy warned that in the near future as a public company it may not be profitable. This has caused some concern on Wall Street as generally the main mission for a company that goes public is to be profit driven. Even with Wall Street’s concern Etsy has still managed to have a successful public offering most likely due to its year-over-year growth in revenue and community of 1.4 million active sellers and almost 20 million active buyers. This makes the Etsy IPO success an important milestone for tech businesses this year as tech IPOs have had a slow start in 2015.

How does Etsy make money?

Etsy is an ecommerce website platform that allows sellers to have personal storefronts where they list their goods for a small fee. Etsy generates revenue through three revenue streams.

  1. Etsy charges sellers 3.5% for each completed sale item and a listing price of 20 cents per item.
  2. “Seller Services” which includes fees generated from Etsy’s Promoted Listings, payment processing and purchase of shipping labels.
  3. Other revenue is generated from fees received from third party payment processors.

Mobile sales continue to rise on ecommerce platforms

It is also interesting to note that 36.1% of gross merchandise sales on Etsy came from purchases made on mobile devices which is another clear indicator of how much the mobile commerce market has been growing the last few years. This also shows how important it is for all companies that do business online to have a website that is optimized for mobile viewing.

Major Google Algorithm Update. Will your Website drop in rankings?

Starting Tuesday, April 21, 2015 Google will make a major change to the way it ranks websites on it’s search engine. The major change will be that if your website is not fully optimized for mobile devices, then your website will likely see a decline in its’ search engine rankings. So basically, if you do not have a mobile website or a responsive design for your website then you will be at a huge disadvantage against competitors that have this design implementation on their website.

google website optimization

Here is what Google said on their Webmaster Central blog back in February:

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

Test your Website to see if it is Mobile Friendly

Google has a great tool to test if your website is mobile friendly. Just click on the following link and type in your web page link.  Click Here to use the free Google Mobile-Friendly Test. The Google tool will analyze your website and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.

Fixed width is out and responsive design is in

Just having your website show up on a mobile phone does not make it mobile friendly anymore. A fixed width site across all devices is not going to give you an edge over competitors. Google wants to display the best quality search results for its’ user. And since a large volume of consumers use their mobile device to access Google they want to deliver the highest quality websites to these users. A responsive design allows your website to adjust based on any screen that a user views your website on. Google likes this because it makes it easier for users to read and navigate your website. And if Google likes your website then your website will also have a better ranking.

Some prominent SEO bloggers have started calling April 21st, 2015 as “Mobilegeddon”. Is your website ready to face the Google apocalypse?