Etsy Active Sellers Reach 7.5M, Active Buyers Hit 96.3M

Etsy

Etsy’s numbers were up across the board for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, with sales through the crafts-focused marketplace up 16.5% year over year to $4.2 billion, active sellers up 72% to 7.5 million and active buyers up 17.6% to 96.3 million, the company announced Thursday (Feb. 24).

The company beat the high end of its own revenue guidance by almost 4%, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Etsy thrived during the holiday shopping season where other eCommerce failed, with more than 5 million sellers delivering goods to customers during the most recent three months. The company delivered about 90% of its hand-crafted gifts on time during the quarter, and CEO Josh Silverman is optimistic Etsy can continue its upward trajectory into 2022 and beyond.

The company sees its total addressable market at about $2 trillion, almost eight times Amazon’s expected revenue for 2022.

“While 2021 was not the return to normalcy that many of us had hoped for, it did indeed offer greatly expanded options for consumers’ time and money compared with 2020, and many more places, online and off, where you could shop,” Silverman said in the quarterly earnings call with investors. Yet, Etsy continued to gain market share.

“In 2019, we laid out a long-term goal to outgrow e-commerce. And you can see that we have done that very substantially. And evidence is mounting through our cohort and brand data that these gains were not transitory,” he said. “We believe that Etsy offers the world a true alternative to commoditize shopping, that buyers and sellers value this alternative, and we are in the early days of expanding our share of wallet.”

Almost half of Etsy’s active buyers made two or more purchases on the platform in 2021, up from 48% in 2020 and 41% in 2019, so Etsy is building loyalty to its brand, even if not to individual sellers.

“We believe there are several factors — inspiration, efficiency and reliability — that will contribute to making Etsy the go-to e-commerce destination for many more consumers,” said Silverman.

Related: Etsy Positions Itself as Antidote to ‘Commoditized’ eCommerce

In November, Silverman told analysts on a conference call that he sees consumers consolidating their shopping behavior around fewer and fewer places.

“The more people consolidate their purchases, the more they’re going to crave an alternative,” he added. “And Etsy is the leading alternative to commoditized commerce.”