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Organizing an eretail site based on best practices—like with categories and search features—gives you a solid foundation to work from. But it’s not a particularly interesting discussion topic.

I’m polishing off an article featuring Beth Ferreira, VP of Operations, Etsy, a handmade crafts marketplace for buyers and sellers. All of Etsy’s products are handmade. Many are one of a kind. The products can defy categorization and would not easily be found via search.

“Most people that come to the site don’t really know what they’re looking for, which poses a challenge when you’re thinking about merchandising,” Ferreira says.

Etsy organizes products in really cool and fun ways. You can select by their colors, for instance. You can view collections of items other users have grouped from various sellers and comment on them. If you’re in any way involved in ecommerce, you should check them out.

Viral referrals are a large part of Etsy’s success, Ferreira says, and their interesting organization puts fuel on the fire. They’re a lot more interesting to talk about than a search box.

About Adam T. Sutton

Adam T. Sutton, Senior Reporter, MarketingSherpa
Adam generates content for MarketingSherpa's Email and Inbound Marketing newsletters. His years of experience in interviewing marketers and conveying their insights has spanned topics such as search marketing, social media marketing, ecommerce, email and more. Adam previously powered the content behind MarketingSherpa's Search and Consumer-marketing newsletters and carries that experience into his new role. Today, in addition to writing articles, he contributes content to the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa blogs, as well as MECLABS webinars, workshops and summits.

Prior to joining MarketingSherpa, Adam was the Managing Editor at the Mequoda group. There he created content and promotions for the company's daily email newsletter and managed its schedule.

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Categories: Consumer Marketing, Ecommerce Eretail, Viral Marketing Tags: eretail, merchandizing, Viral Marketing