Etsy said Wednesday it will begin testing its first-ever loyalty program in September, a move designed to boost the e-commerce site’s sluggish sales and draw in occasional shoppers.

The New York-based company said select buyers will receive an invitation for the program, which will offer free shipping across the U.S. and access to discounts.

“We want people to start their shopping journey on Etsy rather than come to Etsy when they’re just looking for something very specific,” Raina Moskowitz, the company’s chief operating and marketing officer, said in an interview.

Etsy is launching the program—called Etsy Insider—with the aim of reversing a decline in its gross merchandise sales, a measure of the amount of goods sold over a certain period.

Etsy did not disclose how much customers must pay for the new loyalty program. But Moskowitz said the monthly fee will be close to the cost of a latte. She also said the company will decide on whether or not to do a nationwide rollout of the program after seeing what resonates with consumers.

The company with roots as an online crafts marketplace experienced a boom in its business during the COVID-19 pandemic, when homebound consumers turned to it for items such as artistic face masks. But it’s been facing more challenges since the worst of the pandemic eased and consumers, who typically go on its site to buy discretionary items, began to feel more pressure from inflation. Like Amazon, it is also facing more competition from Temu, the online retailer owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings.

During the first three months of this year, Etsy reported merchandise sales on its marketplace were down 5.3% compared to the same period last year. Consolidated sales, which include purchases made by consumers on two other online sites it owns, had declined by 3.7%, following a slight dip last year.

The company’s stock price has lost nearly 78% of its value since late 2021. In December, it said it would lay off 225 employees, which represented nearly 11% of its workforce.

Though Etsy’s business has softened due the wider economic environment and the loss of pandemic-era sales, some of the challenges can also be tied to the fact that the platform has become more challenging for shoppers to navigate, said Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail.

Saunders said he calls the evolution the “junkification” of Etsy.

“Etsy used to be a very focused site that really was about makers, crafting, authentic and unique products,” he said. “That’s still true to some extent, but there’s a lot more junk on the site and a lot of random things being sold.”

Furthermore, Saunders said Etsy’s search functions have gotten worse, which has the potential to turn customers off.

More recently, the company has put more focus on returning to its artisan roots as it seeks to differentiate itself in a competitive e-commerce landscape.

© 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Online fashion retailers clinging to the received wisdom that photos of thin models are the most effective way of selling clothes may want to think again, according to a new study examining the impact of size-inclusive model photos.

New research from the University of Bath, University of Groningen and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam shows a three-fold benefit to online retailers using size-inclusive model photos to showcase their ranges, which would allow customers to better assess the fit and style of the garments for their particular body types.

The study—”One size does not fit all: Optimizing size-inclusive model photography mitigates fit risk in online fashion retailing” was published in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

The researchers found retailers’ sales and costs would improve, customers would feel greater satisfaction and inclusivity, and the environment—as well as companies’ bottom lines—would benefit as expensive and wasteful clothing returns could diminish. And they challenged the long-held notion that thin models drive sales.

“We have seen some progress in portraying diverse body types—but that is largely restricted to advertising, rather than what the customer sees online when ordering clothes. There are a few honorable exceptions but models online are still very, very thin, as a rule,” said Dr. Iina Ikonen, of the University of Bath School of Management and University of Groningen.

“The sector has this misguided notion that aspiration is key, and that any other approach than thin-size photos could damage their business. In fact, not one of our studies shows that own-size model photography negatively affects purchase decisions in comparison with thin-size photos, despite this being a key concern of the fashion companies we interviewed,” Dr. Ikonen said.

The researchers found that thin-size models actually hindered online purchase decisions, through increasing the difficulty of assessing a product’s fit for customers with different clothing sizes. Thin-size models caused them to disengage as the retailer was not serving their needs.

“Our research showed that retailers employing greater body-size diversity fostered more inclusive and welcoming environments, and especially employing own-size models promotes equal treatment for diverse customers—all of which creates higher consumer well-being. Whereas the current online marketplace stigmatizes consumers who feel their bodies are not represented by thin models,” said co-researcher Yerong Zhang of the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

The research suggested the ideal approach for online retailers would be to show every item of clothing on models of various sizes, but the researchers recognized this could be costly, particularly for high-volume, fast-fashion outlets.

“A middle ground might be to use differently-sized models presenting different clothing items. This mixed strategy might help consumers of various sizes feel like their own size is being represented in online shopping environments,” Zhang said.

The costs incurred by using size-inclusive model photos could be offset by improved customer satisfaction and reduced product returns, which international regulators are scrutinizing with a view to cutting environmental harm.

“We know that poor fit is the most important reason for product returns—targeting customers with model photography featuring models of their own size would be key to addressing this issue,” she added.

Dr. Ikonen welcomed retailers’ moves towards diversity in some areas but warned they should be wary of inadvertently creating the potentially alienating ‘plus-sizing effect’ and should ideally offer, and display, all of their clothes in all sizes, from extra small to extra large.

“We observed an issue with retailers showing off some of their clothes on thin models and simultaneously proudly pointing to their plus-sized ranges as part of their commitment to diversity and inclusion. The problem was that, often, the clothes showed on thin-size models were not available for plus-sizes. Essentially, these were two different ranges and that is unhelpful for customer inclusivity and positive sentiment—and that will ultimately harm their business,” she said.

Dr. Ikonen’s co-researchers are Zhang, Jiska Eelen and Francesca Sotgiu, all from the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Dr. Ikonen represents both the University of Bath School of Management and the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Passenger traffic at European airports returned to pre-COVID levels in the first half of the year as the sector finally “turned the corner” on the pandemic crisis, the main industry association said on Wednesday.

But the trade body warned that the recovery was uneven, with almost half of Europe’s airports still below pre-pandemic levels.

Overall, passenger traffic rose nine percent in the first six months of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to Airports Council International Europe.

Volume was nine percent higher than in the same period last year, lifting it to 0.4 percent above the first half of 2019, the year before the coronavirus outbreak that paralyzed economies and the aviation industry.

“As overall passenger traffic finally made it above 2019 levels over a full six-month period, our industry has now turned the corner on the pandemic,” said ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec said.

International traffic has been the main growth driver this year, rising 10.3 percent in the first half compared to the same period last year. Domestic traffic was up 4.2 percent.

The figures “finally” confirm “a full recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic for the airport industry”, ACI Europe said in a statement.

The European airport market, however, has become “extremely fragmented”, with only 53 percent of airports having fully recovered their pre-pandemic passenger volumes by June, Jankovec said.

Since the pandemic, leisure travel and family visits have been the driving force behind travel, benefitting low-cost airlines and holiday sites over traditional airlines and destinations serving business travelers.

Albania has seen the greatest increase, with its volume of air passengers rising 243 percent from the same period in 2019. Greece, Malta and Portugal also logged strong growth.

Air travel in German airports is still down 17 percent from before the pandemic, while France was down four percent and Britain 1.1 percent, hit by a growing preference for video conferences over business trips, and with domestic travel facing greater competition from train routes.

London Heathrow remains the largest airport in Europe with 39.8 million passengers in the first half, followed by Istanbul’s international airport and Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle.

© 2024 AFP

Most charities aren’t tailoring their online fundraising strategies to the electronic device donors may use when deciding whether to click a “donate” button. That’s what our marketing research team determined when we reviewed the donation pages of every nonprofit on the Forbes Top 100 Charities list.

Instead, people typically see identical appeals whether they’re using smartphones or personal computers. But in a series of studies we conducted regarding this issue, our team determined that this approach may undercut fundraising efforts.

Stefan J. Hock, Kelly B. Herdand I are marketing scholars who teamed up for this research project. We published our findings in the March 2024 issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

In one study, we showed 247 people a real appeal for donations from the Salvation Army on either their smartphone or PC. People who completed the study on smartphones indicated feeling less focused on other people and were thus less likely to give money to the Salvation Army. We donated all designated funds to the Salvation Army after the study was complete.

We also controlled for whether participants had ever donated to a charity, how often they donate, how much they donate annually, how often they donate online, their gender, their age and their income.

In another experiment, we teamed up with a German charity, Aktion Deutschland Hilft—”Campaign Germany Helps,” in English. Using images from its website, we created Google ads that either focused on helping others or not. The former stated, “The people suffering in Ukraine need help.” The latter asserted, “We provide emergency help for Ukraine.”

We again found that smartphone users were less likely than PC users to click on the call for donations when it wasn’t focused on others. When the ad was focused on helping others, however, smartphone and PC users were equally likely to donate.

Our findings demonstrate that by explicitly highlighting the needs of others, charities can overcome what we call the “mobile giving gap” and help raise more money from smartphone users.

Persuading someone to make a charitable donation often requires getting them to feel empathy for others. But recent research has identified what’s known as a “mobile mindset“: People are more likely to think about their own needs, and less likely to think of others, when they’re looking at their smartphones.

Because smartphones often feel like an extension of ourselves, they can induce people to focus intently on their own needs and interests.

Online giving accounted for about 12% of the money that charities raised in 2023, according to Blackbaud, a software company many charities rely on for this purpose. The share of donors making at least some of their gifts online is rising and reached 40% in 2023, a consulting firm found.

Based on our findings, we suggest that charities aim to tailor their appeals according to the kind of device a donor is using. That’s easily accomplished through programs such as Google Ads, which lets advertisers target ads to people based on the device they’re using.

More research is needed to investigate whether the kind of device used may also influence the likelihood that someone may participate in other activities that benefit society.

For example, researchers could examine whether the device type makes a difference in a user’s willingness to volunteer in hospitals, at homeless shelters and other settings. Or they could explore how receiving messages on a smartphone or a PC can affect openness to recycling or buying environmentally friendly products.

It may also be worth exploring whether mobile website design features, such as the prominence or absence of “donate” buttons, can affect fundraising outcomes.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.