Profiles sharpen with each purchase as Etsy maps remaining shoppers
Etsy has used artificial intelligence to build detailed buyer profiles on more than 70% of its shoppers, with plans to map the remainder, the company’s chief financial officer told The Wall Street Journal. The profiles record the occasions that drive purchases — back-to-school, moving, collecting rare books, and gift-hunting — and grow more precise the more a customer shops, CFO Lanny Baker said.
The effort is part of a broader push by the e-commerce platform to deepen its understanding of shoppers and improve product recommendations. Etsy wants to know whether a customer is buying a vase for their own living room or as a housewarming gift. The same question applies to a onesie: is it for a baby shower, or for the buyer’s own nursery?
“We’ve been kind of, somewhat clumsy about it in the past,” Baker said. “But we’re really dedicating ourselves to getting more effective on it.”
The CEO’s own profile illustrates the granularity the company is targeting. Kruti Patel Goyal’s Etsy buyer profile shows her preference for personalized items, especially stationery, jewelry, and accessories. It also records her role as a gift-giver, a strong interest in children’s do-it-yourself crafts and items tied to Brooklyn and New York City, and her shopping for pets and home decorating.
Goyal’s profile is one of millions Etsy has assembled. The company’s modeling becomes sharper the more someone shops, with new data feeding back into the system after each transaction.
Baker’s remarks were published in The Wall Street Journal’s Morning Ledger newsletter, which covers corporate finance for chief financial officers and pointed readers to a fuller WSJ story on what is changing at Etsy.