Gift Step

 
 

ROle

impact

 

Product design lead

Engineering support

Research support

Stakeholder management

 

$29M Total gifting GMS

10k New buyers acquired

20M Orders marked as a gift

2.3x the share of orders with a Gift Teaser

 

Overview

Etsy has long been a destination for unique, thoughtful gifts, but many buyers weren’t marking their purchases as gifts. This meant they were missing out on special features like gift messages and wrapping, and Etsy was missing a valuable opportunity to strengthen its position as the go-to gifting platform.

Our challenge was to increase the number of items explicitly marked as a gift while ensuring a seamless user experience in checkout. We needed to encourage buyers to engage with gifting options without disrupting their purchase flow.

 

A solution in two parts

Improve UX of the gifting step in checkout

  • We enhanced the gifting inputs in the cart and checkout process to make them more visible, intuitive, and interactive.

Incentivize users to complete gifting inputs

  • We introduced the Gift Teaser™️, allowing buyers to send a digital preview of their gift before it arrived. To see more about this work click here.

 

Understanding the user problems

Drop-off in checkout flow

The biggest abandonment point in checkout was between the shipping and payment steps. Adding more friction, through additional users tasks, could worsen this.

Low visibility of gifting options

The “mark as gift” checkbox was easy to miss, and buyers didn’t realize that marking an item as a gift unlocked special features like a personalized message.

 

Challenges & Solutions

Complex Checkout flow

  • The biggest abandonment point in checkout was between the shipping and payment steps. Adding more friction, through additional users tasks, could worsen this.

  • The “mark as gift” checkbox was easy to miss, and buyers didn’t realize that marking an item as a gift unlocked special features like a personalized message.

  • Some users checked out with PayPal or Apple Pay, which bypasses parts of the standard flow.

Naming Conventions & Copy Clarity

  • The new feature that allowed buyers to send a digital “sneak peek” of their gift was largely unknown. Many buyers found it confusing or didn’t notice it at all so we paid careful attention to how we framed it.

  • Copy was refined through A/B testing and a sandbox environment for writers to test in real-time.

 

time sensitive buyers

  • Many users were in a rush and didn’t want to spend extra time filling out additional fields.

  • We carefully tested different placements for gifting options to balance visibility with ease of use.

  • Ensured users could skip the step if they weren’t interested, while still surfacing it later in the purchase journey (e.g., post-purchase page).

  • We worked with engineering to ensure gifting options were still surfaced post-purchase.

time frame

  • Since our product will be featured in a Super Bowl commercial, the team has collaborated closely with marketing to develop a comprehensive launch strategy.

  • Given limited engineering resources, we prioritized light, high-impact solutions first and iterated toward heavier changes over time.