While cleaning up my Etsy shop this morning, I bumped into a cool new tab in my shop stats. How did that get there? Did you know you can now look at a map to see where your views are coming from? It’s true. I kinda geeked out about it a little. My enthusiasm for the map was largely the thrill of realizing that someone in Croatia had been in my shop; just this morning I had a visitor from Luxembourg. Luxembourg! I already ship to everywhere—and I have had several international sales—but if you have not chosen to, this map could give you useful data on where you might want to open up the shipping option to. You might even be able to do some market research on those countries. I’d be curious about ideas on how to do that.
But there’s more. Yes, it’s true. Your shop listings and conversations can now be translated by international users into their own language, as described here. I am tentatively excited about that. In my experience, digital translators often come up with nonsensical sentences, and I’m a little nervous about miscommunication on international custom orders. However, I’m sure that Etsy would only institute a top-notch translator.
They must be doing something right, because my shop has been found through search terms in French, Italian, Spanish, German, Norwegian, and…Zulu? Ok, I question Google’s language detector on that one, but who knows? Now I know the German for “sleep mask”—schlafmaske; “washable wipes” in French– lingettes lavables ; and, my personal favorite, Italian for “cloth diaper”–pannolini lavabili. That should help to up my Trivial Pursuit game.
I’d like to think I’m on the cutting edge of Etsy news, but apparently this announcement posted in November. It’s been a busy couple of months. Still, it’s a cool tool and a lot of fun. Try it out. Who has been looking around your shop?
