The Etsy shop announcement is a way to get information to your customers if they come to your shop’s homepage, but a lot of Etsy sellers don’t use it as well as they could, or they think that it works a lot better than it does!
What is the Etsy Shop Announcement Section?
The Etsy shop announcement section was originally intended for sellers to use as a place to let customers know about upcoming sales, new items, changes in delivery times, etc.
Recently, though, Etsy has been moving the announcement around, and it’s not as useful as it was for getting information across to customers.
I’ll get into the details in a bit, but you basically can’t rely on the announcement to get information across to customers anymore. You should think of it as a section to MAYBE tell people something they should know, but you shouldn’t rely on it 100% to do that.
How do you fill it out?
To edit your shop’s announcement, you’ll need to use a computer, not a phone. (At this point, you can’t edit your shop on the app.)
Click the “edit shop” pencil icon at the top of the homepage, then scroll down under the listings and click the pencil icon next to the shop announcement.
You’ll be able to add your announcement there, but remember that people will generally only be able to see the first two lines of it unless they click the “read more” button.
Where is the Etsy shop announcement located?
Etsy puts the shop announcement at the top of your shop’s homepage on desktop, but on the app it’s in the About section. The customer might not even see your shop announcement unless they go searching for it if they’re using the app, so you can’t assume that people will see important announcements that you put in it anymore.
It’s important to keep an eye on where Etsy is putting the announcement, because they do move it around.
For a while a couple of years ago, they moved it to the bottom of the shop’s homepage on desktop, but it’s been moved back to the top since then.
Knowing where it’s currently located can help you know whether putting info there is the best option, or whether you should put things in the listings themselves.
What should I add to my Etsy shop announcement?
Since the shop announcement isn’t what it used to be as far as visibility goes, a lot of the information out there about it is outdated. It can be used however you want to, but it’s easiest to leave it so that it doesn’t need to be edited too often.
Don’t make it too long, and keep it evergreen.
Because of the uncertainty about whether customers will see it, you don’t need to put a ton of information into the announcement unless you just want to use it as a backup in case people do decide to read it!
On desktop, the announcement is at the top of the page, but it only displays two full lines of the whole thing. The customer has to click on the “read more” button to see more than those two lines in most cases.
Because of that, and also because of how it’s not obvious on the app, the shop announcement has turned into more of a spot that should be used as an evergreen piece of content instead of something that changes over time.
Putting something there that doesn’t change will mean that you don’t have to worry about updating the announcement.
I’d suggest putting an email list signup link that customers can copy and paste, or adding something about your shop and products that validates why they should shop with you.
Do a quick summary of any media mentions, shipping schedules, etc. that customers should know, but don’t assume that they’ll see it!
Having said that, if you do want to make it longer that’s fine, it won’t hurt anything. But don’t expect people to read it, and don’t use it as a guarantee that you’ve communicated anything other than the first two lines to people!
How often should I change the shop announcement?
The question of how often to change the announcement is going to be different depending on how you use it.
I never change my shop announcement because it’s basically my email signup link and that’s it. Most people don’t even read the announcement past the first two lines, and I don’t feel like having to remember to update things, so I don’t change it.
If you want to use it for actually announcing current events like sales, you’ll need to change it more often.
It’s totally up to you, and you don’t even have to fill it out at all! If you don’t, it won’t show up on your homepage or on the app.
If there’s something seasonal that you really do need people to know, like shipping cutoff dates around the holidays, it wouldn’t hurt to put that in there.
But again, it might not ever be seen by customers, so don’t get too comfortable and think that you’ve got everything covered if you do use it that way.
If something is really important, put it at the top of your product descriptions, too. People do see the very first part of your descriptions because Etsy displays that, so put things that are really important there by using the Etsy bulk edit tool in the listings manager.
For an article about how to bulk edit Etsy listings, click here.
What not to do in your Etsy shop announcement.
There are a few things to watch out for with your shop announcement, too.
Don’t assume that all of your customers will see the announcement!
I mentioned this before, but Etsy does a pretty good job of making the shop announcement hidden on the app. That means that it isn’t going to be front and center when customers are shopping in your shop.
And if they’re on desktop, they might not even go to your shop homepage at all, they might go to a listing and not even see the shop homepage.
Don’t assume that people will read it even if they do see it.
If your announcement is longer than two lines, people probably won’t see the rest, since Etsy only shows the first two lines.
People probably won’t click on the “read more” button, so if you put information in there it might not ever see the light of day.
If they do click the “Read more” and it opens up and is really long, it’s highly unlikely that people will actually read the whole thing! Try to keep it on the shorter side.
Make sure to keep it up-to-date.
If you’re the kind of person who uses the shop announcement for seasonal things, or sale announcements, make sure to edit it when the thing you’re announcing is over.
I’ve seen a lot of shop announcements that have things like “The cutoff date for Christmas shipping is December 15th,” but the date at the time is March of the following year.
If you don’t keep the announcement current it just looks bad for you.
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Examples of Etsy shop announcements.
These are some examples of shop announcements from Artisan Shopping Directory members’ shops. I’ll divide them into general examples of different lengths. If you want to see the full shop announcements on the longest ones, you can use the links under each picture to click on “read more” in the individual shops.
A short description that you have to click “Read more” to see.
These are some shops that have a short announcement, but that you still have to click on the “read more” button to see the full thing.
I would suggest that this is something that you could pare down and get it all in two lines just to make sure that people read it!
If it’s short enough, you can put some of the information in your About section and use the announcement to put your email signup in, or something along those lines.
on EtsyTwo-line shop announcements.
These shops have shop announcements that fit the two-line rule so that people don’t even see a “read more” button.
Some of them have email signups and others have a sale announcement, so you’re not locked in to one format if you limit the length.
Paula has icons and three lines in her announcement, so I’ve sent her a message to ask how she did that! Sometimes you can upload code to Etsy to enter text that looks different from the basics that they offer, but this isn’t what you normally see.
Longer announcements.
These shops have long announcements that are multiple paragraphs when you open them. This won’t hurt, but it might not help too much either, because people tend to skip reading anything that’s too long!
But it’s one way to add information that people MIGHT see, so it’s okay if you want to do that. Just make sure that the most important info is in the top two lines.
There really is no one “right” way to do an Etsy shop announcement, but it’s worth remembering that Etsy doesn’t always make it easy to find or to read.
Use the first two lines for the most important thing that you want the customer to see, and after that the rest is extra.
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