If you are a shopper or a shop owner on Etsy there may come a time when you want to find another person on Etsy, but what’s the easiest way to do that?
At this time Etsy does not make it easy to find people on Etsy unless they are a shop owner and you know the name of the shop.
To find a shop, you can generally type the name into the search bar on Etsy, and you may or may not be taken directly to the shop. If you are not taken directly to the shop you may be given the option to search for a shop of that name, and then go to the shop that way. From there, you can see the shop owner’s profile.
There are a couple of ways that Etsy has given us in the past to find people on Etsy, and some of those work sometimes, but not all the time.
Table of Contents
- How to find someone on Etsy.
- How to find someone’s wishlist on Etsy.
- How to find a shop on Etsy.
- Is there an easier way to find people on Etsy?
- How to follow people and shops on Etsy.
- Why does Etsy make this so difficult?
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How to find someone on Etsy.
At the time that I’m writing this, Etsy doesn’t have a direct “Etsy people search page” on the platform that’s reliable.
Searching for someone using the search bar and their real name won’t bring up results unless their name is part of the shop name. Sometimes it can bring up listings from their shop even if their name isn’t part of the shop name, but not every time.
Unless you know their Etsy username, you won’t 100% be able to find an Etsy user.
There is also a “People Finder” page, but it isn’t very reliable either.
I searched for myself and it came up with a blank profile which is definitely not the profile that I currently use.
I then searched for a few Artisan Shopping Directory members, and after a few tries I did find one person, but other people came up with the same blank profile that my result had.
So this Etsy user search link may or may not work for you, but it’s worth a try. And if it doesn’t work, you can always try searching for the shop name if the person you’re looking for is a shop owner.
Here’s the link to try it out: Etsy People Search
For an article about finding your Etsy shop URL to share with people, click here.
How to find someone’s wishlist on Etsy.
There’s no general wishlist feature on Etsy, but you can put things into collections and registries. Even though Etsy lets people do this, you should be careful assuming that those are actually things that they want to buy!
Sometimes people save things in their favorites for different reasons and they’re not actually things they would put on a wishlist.
To find someone’s favorites or their gift registry, find the person using the instructions in the section above, then click on their name to go to their personal profile.
The profile page includes the name of their Etsy shop if they have one, and their favorites if they’re not set to private.
You’ll be able to see the items that they’ve favorited or added to a gift registry, and if you know the person fairly well, you should be able to see the products that you know they like on Etsy.
Clicking on the products will take you to the listings, and you’ll be able to shop for them.
If their favorites are set to private, it will say that on their profile page, and you won’t be able to see anything they’ve favorited.
Again, don’t assume that people actually want the things in their favorites. People save things for a variety of reasons, including shopping for other people and saving things that they think are weird and want to show someone else!
I save all kinds of things that I will never buy because I deal with a lot of Etsy shop owners, and I favorite their items for different reasons. For me it’s not a wishlist, it’s a way to organize things when I do shop reviews and that kind of thing.
How to find a shop on Etsy.
To find a shop on Etsy using a desktop computer, type the shop’s name into the search bar with no spaces between the words in the shop name, and see if you are taken there directly. Because Etsy doesn’t put spaces between the words in our shop names, the search function works differently when you type them in with or without spaces.
After typing the shop name, you may be given the option to search for shops by that name if you click on the search bar again.
Or you might see “did you mean the shop” and then the name of the shop directly under the search bar, or right below the first row of ads.
If that shows up, clicking on it will take you directly to the shop that you’re looking for.
In addition, you might see listings from that shop come up in search, but that’s not always guaranteed to happen.
Another way to find shops on Etsy is to use the Etsy shop search page which I’ve included here: Etsy shop search
If you type the shop name into the search shops page, it will bring back shops that have that name or similar names and you’ll probably be able to find what you’re looking for.
For another article with more details about finding shops on Etsy, click here: How To Search For A Shop Name On Etsy
To find a shop name on the Etsy app, tap the icon on the left of the search bar and select “Search by shop.”
Then type in the name of the shop with no spaces between the words.
Is there an easier way to find people on Etsy?
The easiest way to find your friends on Etsy is to ask them what their username is, or ask them for a link to the page where their personal profile is.
If you use the direct link you can go straight to their personal profile and follow them from there.
Following a person on Etsy will let you see their favorites and any collections they’ve put together with items that they find on Etsy.
There isn’t any way to have conversations on Etsy, so it’s not that kind of a social media type “following.”
But you will be able to see the things that they have favorited, and if you’re working together on something that requires you to plan purchases on Etsy, you’ll be able to cooperate that way by seeing what the other person has chosen to put in their favorites.
How to follow people and shops on Etsy.
To follow people and shops on Etsy click the heart next to the shop name on the shop’s homepage, and click on the “follow” on the person’s personal profile page. When you follow a shop, you’ll see activity from that shop in your notifications, including new items and items that are on sale.
When you follow a person, you might be shown things that they have favorited, and you’ll be able to find them in your personal profile under “following.”
Until recently, Etsy referred to following a shop as “favoriting” that shop. As of June 2022 they seem to have changed to “following” the shop, probably in order to get in line with the language of social media.
It amounts to the same thing though, so when you follow a shop your notifications will show items that you may be interested in from that shop.
You may also see those items on your home page, and you’ll basically be updated when they have sales if you watch your notifications.
Why does Etsy make this so difficult?
I don’t know why there isn’t a better way to find people on Etsy, and there’s always the possibility that they’ll put a better system in place in the future. They used to have a “find your friends” feature but that seems to have disappeared quite some time ago.
Until then, the easiest way to find people on Etsy is to get them to give you the link directly to their personal profile so that you don’t have to try to search in a system that doesn’t seem to want to give you any answers!
Finding shops is a little easier, and if you remember the trick of not putting spaces between the words in the name of the shop, that can work a little faster to take you directly there.
For more tips about making shopping on Etsy easier, click here.