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Finding the right gift for someone can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t know their likes and dislikes. You want to surprise them with something thoughtful and unique, but you also don’t want to waste time and money on something they won’t appreciate.
That’s why Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods, has launched a new feature called Etsy Gift Mode. The Etsy Gift Mode is an AI-powered tool that helps you discover tailored gift ideas based on your specific preferences.
How does Gift Mode work?
Gift Mode is like an online quiz that asks you a few questions about who you’re shopping for, what the occasion is, and what their interests are. You can choose from 15 different interests, such as crafting, fashion, sports, video games, pets, and more. Based on your answers, Gift Mode generates a series of gift guides that are inspired by your choices. The gift guides are organized around more than 200 different personas, such as “The Music Lover,” “The Video Gamer,” “The Adventurer,” and “The Pet Parent.”
You can browse through the gift guides and see the options from the over 100 million items listed on Etsy. You can also filter the results by price, color, and shipping options. If you find something you like, you can add it to your cart or save it for later.
What are the benefits of Gift Mode?
Etsy Gift Mode is designed to make your gifting experience easier and more enjoyable. According to Etsy’s latest survey, 71% of respondents felt anxious when shopping for gifts within the past year. Etsy Gift Mode aims to relieve that stress by providing you with personalized and relevant suggestions that match your gifting needs.
Etsy Gift Mode also helps you support independent sellers who create unique and meaningful products. Etsy’s VP of Product, Tim Holley, told TechCrunch that “while plenty of brands sell items that make nice gifts, there isn’t a dedicated and scaled shopping experience designed for the gifter that addresses these pain points while helping shoppers find truly thoughtful, meaningful gifts.
Now, Etsy is building for the gifting experience year-round, to become the destination for gifting. And we believe these products will help people discover and more easily purchase gifts from independent sellers.”
How does Etsy Gift Mode use AI?
Etsy Gift Mode is powered by a combination of machine learning, human curation, and OpenAI’s GPT-4, a large language model that can generate natural language texts. Holley explained that “OpenAI’s GPT-4 enabled us to expand to such a wide range of gifting missions.
We then built and scaled the product on Etsy’s existing advanced machine learning training and inference stack – which powers search, recommendations, and more on Etsy. For this use case, we included specific adjustments to make sure listings included are ‘gifty’ and add preference to listings that are predicted to be high quality and sold by sellers who offer excellent customer service.”
AI has been a key component of Etsy’s search features for years, and the company has recently increased its focus on generative AI, which can create new content from existing data.
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said during an earnings call in May 2023 “We’ve been at the cutting edge of search technology for the past several years, and while we use large language models today, we couldn’t be more excited about the potential of new or large language models and generative AI to further accelerate the transformation of Etsy’s user experience.”
What else does Etsy offer for gifting?
Etsy Gift Mode is not the only gift-related feature that Etsy offers. The platform has also introduced a “gift teaser” option, where you can send the recipient a sneak peek of the item via email in case the gift won’t arrive in time for the event. You can also include a gift note and tracking information.
Etsy has also released other gifting options in the past, such as wedding and baby registries. The company says it will continue to invest in the gifting space and enhance Gift Mode’s capabilities over time.
Etsy also recently announced a new optional program, “Share & Save,” where sellers can share links to their Etsy store, and after making a sale, the platform only takes a 4% transaction fee instead of the usual 6.5%. This program was launched in response to the backlash from sellers in 2022 when Etsy increased the fee to 6.5% – up from 5% – which resulted in a strike.
Etsy is one of the largest online marketplaces for handmade and vintage goods, with more than 90 million customers and over 6 million sellers. With Etsy Gift Mode, Etsy hopes to attract more shoppers and sellers who are looking for unique and personalized gifts for any occasion.
