Seller Onboarding Fee

Summary: Our data told us that only 1 in 10 new shops drive value for Etsy in their first year, while costs to onboard and support new sellers are high. We ran an experiment in which new sellers in the treatment group had to pay a one-time $15 fee to onboard. Our goal for the fee was to deter fraudulent and low-intent sellers from joining Etsy, and provide a way to help cover the cost of onboarding new sellers. After the experiment showed the fee resulted in larger-than-expected reduction in fraud and lower-than-expected reduction in new seller sales, we ramped the fee to 100% of eligible new sellers.

Hypothesis: We believe that implementing a fee at onboarding will add healthy friction that results in fewer fraudulent and low-intent sellers onboarding to Etsy’s marketplace.

Results:

• 62% reduction in fraudulent onboarding in treatment group

• Sellers who paid fee were more likely to make a sale than those who did not pay the fee

• Loss from deflecting sellers is offset by the fee revenue & reduction in fraud—estimated annualized impact is $15M (including a $1.6M - $3.1M Cost of Recoupment opportunity)

Product Designer: Male Reguero • Product Manager: Michelle Florin

Onboarding and post-onboarding touchpoints

What I did: Owned UX copy for in-product experience and transactional emails