Shopping Etsy Using the Etsy Iphone App

Hello, all!  Today's post is a quick tutorial of sorts. In a recent post on the Etsy News Blog, Etsy unveiled that they've reached 30 million members strong and that mobile traffic is now accounting for 45% (and rising!) of Etsy site visits.  If those figures blow your mind, you're not alone. One of the challenges of running a successful shop on Etsy is being able to meet the needs of both the standard PC customer and the mobile user. (Etsy has even published a more recent post to help sellers cater to their mobile customer.) My shop, Risky Beads, and many, many others have an even bigger challenge - catering to the customer who's buying personalized gifts on their iPhone. Last year, I had several customers contact me asking for help while shopping on their phones, and some of their questions, I didn't know the answer to. This year, I asked and asked until I got the answers I needed.  Today's tutorial is just a quick run through about how to delete something from your cart on the Etsy iPhone app and how/where to leave a note to seller about personalization, etc.

Please note that I can't use my own shop as an example because I can't 'buy' from myself (lol), so I'm using a shop called Caribbean Scents.  Ana, the owner, is wonderful and always takes care of my frenetic handmade lotion needs!  {See end of post for coupon at her shop!} So, in this example, we're going to assume that I've shopped within the Etsy iPhone app and put 4 of her products in my cart:

Notice the 'X' in the gray bar?  You can use that to delete the entire order from your cart. But we don't want to do that!  So, after careful consideration, I've decided to remove the first item.  All I have to do is swipe my finger across the blue bottle listing and a red delete button pops up:

Once I tap 'delete,' I get a different screen asking if I want to delete this item or move it to my favorites on Etsy:

For this example, I'm going to tap 'yes' and then next we see my cart without that item in it:

Now, the second item in the cart is a linen spray where I need to select the fragrance. Since it wasn't an option in a drop down menu prior to carting the item, I'm going to leave my request in the notes to seller area. You have to scroll down to see this box:

See right above the green bar?  That's where I write my scent preference. The same goes for any shop you're buying from that needs information from you to process your order such as color, size, length, scent, flavor, etc. Etsy only supports 2 drop down choices within a listing, so when a seller needs more info, you use that blank white box to fill it.

Hope this tutorial has been instructive and helps some of you this holiday season! I know it will help me for sure!!  And as a bonus, Ana from Caribbean Scents is offering a 10% off coupon at her Etsy shop. Use code TROPICAL13 for 10% off. Enter it in the white coupon code box in your cart!

Take care, Lori