If you’ve spent any time selling on Etsy, you’ve noticed the place has its own language. Between the acronyms, the Etsy-specific lingo, and the SEO jargon everyone throws around in seller forums, it gets confusing fast.
I’ve been deep in the Etsy world for a while now (I make Listadum, a shop management and SEO tool), so I figured a plain-English glossary might be useful. Here’s one, A to Z, with short definitions for the obvious stuff and a bit more context for the tricky ones.
A
Abandoned Cart: When a shopper adds items but doesn’t check out. Etsy now sends automatic reminder emails, so there’s nothing to set up on your end.
ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales): Ad spend divided by ad-attributed revenue, as a percentage. Spend $20 on Etsy Ads to generate $100 in ad sales, your ACoS is 20%. Lower is better.
AOV (Average Order Value): Total revenue divided by number of orders. Useful for checking whether your bundle strategy or a price bump is paying off.
Attributes: The structured options you pick when creating a listing (color, size, occasion, material, and so on). Etsy uses them for filtering and they feed into search. Fill all of them in. Seriously.
B
Bestseller Badge: A label Etsy puts on listings with strong recent sales relative to others in their category. Not something you apply for, it just shows up.
Buyer: The person buying your stuff.
C
Category: The bucket your listing lives in (like “Home & Living > Wall Hangings > Tapestries”). Pick the most specific match. It affects where you show up.
Conversion Rate: Percentage of visits that turn into orders. If 100 people see your listing and 3 buy, that’s a 3% conversion rate. Etsy’s algorithm pays attention to this.
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): What it costs you in ads to land one sale. Ad spend divided by the number of orders attributed to those ads.
CPC (Cost Per Click): What you pay each time someone clicks one of your Etsy Ads. Etsy Ads runs on a bidding system, so CPC swings based on how competitive your keywords are.
CTR (Click-Through Rate): Percentage of searchers who click your listing after seeing it in results. Heavily influenced by your first photo.
D
Deactivated Listing: A listing that’s offline, either because you deactivated it or because Etsy did (for a policy issue). It stops appearing in search, and you can reactivate it if you took it down voluntarily.
Description: The long-form text explaining your product. The first ~160 characters matter most, for SEO and for the preview shoppers see.
Digital Download: A file buyers download after purchasing (printables, SVGs, patterns). No shipping, no production costs once it’s made.
E
Etsy Ads: The on-Etsy paid advertising system. You set a daily budget and Etsy promotes your listings inside search results and category pages. You’re charged per click.
Etsy Pattern: Etsy’s optional website builder that spins up a standalone site using your listings. Separate monthly subscription.
Etsy Payments: Etsy’s built-in payment processor. Required for most sellers.
Etsy’s Pick: A badge Etsy’s style editors hand out to listings they feature in marketing emails, collections, and homepage modules. Three things matter: a well-rated shop, reliable fulfillment, and strong photography. You can’t pay or apply for it, it’s curated by humans and reviewed daily. Nice traffic bump when it lands.
Etsy Plus: A $10/month seller subscription bundle with listing credits, ad credits, and some shop customization options. The math only works if you actually use the credits.
F
Favorite: When a shopper hearts your listing or shop. A soft signal, not a purchase.
G
GMS (Gross Merchandise Sales): Total dollar value of orders before fees and expenses. The headline number, but not what actually lands in your bank.
H
Handmade: The core Etsy category requirement for most items. Either you physically make it, or you design it and work with a production partner you disclose in your shop.
I
Impression: One time your listing was shown to someone (in search, on the homepage, anywhere). Not the same as a visit.
IP Claim (Intellectual Property): When a brand or creator reports your listing for using their trademark, copyright, or design. Repeat strikes can get your shop suspended, so this is one to take seriously.
K
Keyword: A word or phrase a shopper might type when searching. The entire SEO game is about matching what you sell to what people actually type.
L
Listing: A single product page. One listing equals one item overall, though it can have multiple variations (sizes, colors) inside.
Listing Fee: $0.20 per listing, charged when you publish or renew. Listings auto-renew every 4 months until the item sells or you deactivate it.
Long-Tail Keyword: A longer, more specific search phrase like “personalized wooden dog tag name collar” instead of just “dog tag.” Less volume, less competition, usually higher buying intent.
LTV (Customer Lifetime Value): The total revenue you can expect from a single customer over time. Etsy doesn’t give you this directly, but if repeat buyers matter to your shop, it’s worth tracking.
M
Made to Order (MTO): Items you make after the order comes in, not from existing stock. Your processing time reflects that.
N
Niche: The specific corner of Etsy your shop plays in. Narrow niches are easier to rank in than broad ones.
O
Offsite Ads: Etsy’s program that advertises your listings on Google, Meta, Pinterest, and other external platforms. Here’s the catch: if a sale comes from one of those ads, you pay 15% on that order (12% if you’ve done over $10,000 in the last 12 months, and once you cross that threshold you can’t opt out).
OOAK (One of a Kind): An item with a single unit, no duplicates. Common for art and vintage.
P
Personalization: A listing option that lets the buyer type custom info (a name, date, or message) into the order.
POD (Print on Demand): A production model where a third-party partner prints and ships your designs on products (shirts, mugs, posters) after each order. No inventory for you.
Policies (Shop Policies): Your stated rules on shipping, returns, exchanges, and custom orders. Buyers see them. Clear policies mean fewer disputes.
Processing Time: How long it takes you to ship after an order comes in. You set this per listing. Miss it and your on-time shipping stat takes a hit, which affects Star Seller eligibility.
Q
Quality Score: Not an official Etsy term, but sellers use it to describe the algorithm’s gut feeling about a listing. Views, favorites, clicks, and conversion rates all feed into how well a listing performs in search over time.
R
Ranking: Where your listing shows up in Etsy search for a given keyword. Page 1 is great, page 37 is invisible.
Recency: The short boost Etsy gives newly published or newly renewed listings. Small, temporary, and not a reason to delete and relist.
Renewal: When a listing’s 4-month clock resets and the $0.20 listing fee is charged again. Automatic by default, or you can do it manually.
Review: Buyer feedback with a 1-to-5 star rating and optional text or photo. Feeds into Star Seller eligibility and shopper trust.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): How many dollars of revenue you get per dollar of ad spend. Spend $10, make $40, that’s a 4x ROAS. Basically the inverse of ACoS.
S
Section: A category inside your own shop (like “Mugs,” “Stickers,” “Gift Sets”) that you create to organize your listings.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization): The practice of optimizing your titles, tags, attributes, and descriptions so Etsy shows your listings to the right shoppers.
Search Volume: Roughly how many times a keyword is searched in a given period. Higher volume means more potential traffic, but usually more competition too.
Shipping Profile: A reusable bundle of shipping rules (origin, carrier, cost, processing time) you can apply to multiple listings at once.
SKU: Your internal product code for inventory tracking. Etsy doesn’t require one, but they’re useful if you have a lot of listings.
Star Seller: A badge Etsy awards to shops that hit three performance thresholds over a rolling 3-month window: 95%+ message response rate (first messages, replied to within 24 hours), 95%+ on-time shipping with tracking, and a 4.8+ average review rating. You also need at least 5 orders or $300 in sales in that window. Doesn’t directly affect search ranking, but the habits it enforces tend to help.
Supplies: A separate Etsy category for tools and materials other makers use (beads, fabric, yarn, kits). Different from finished goods.
T
TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales): Ad spend as a percentage of your total shop revenue, not just ad-attributed revenue. A more honest view of what ads are really costing the business. If TACoS drops while total sales grow, your ads are pulling in organic momentum too.
Tag: One of up to 13 short keyword phrases you attach to a listing. Each tag can be up to 20 characters. Tags are one of the main signals Etsy uses for search.
Title: Your listing’s headline. Up to 140 characters. Front-loaded words carry more SEO weight, so put the important stuff first.
Transaction Fee: Etsy’s 6.5% cut of the total order (item + shipping charged + gift wrap). Applied on every sale.
V
Vacation Mode: A setting that pauses your shop. Listings stay visible but can’t be purchased. Use this instead of deleting listings if you’re stepping away for a bit.
Variation: A version of a listing with different options (size, color, style) that all share one product page.
Vintage: On Etsy, vintage officially means the item is at least 20 years old. Anything younger doesn’t qualify for vintage categories.
That’s the essentials. If I missed a term you wish was in here, send me a note and I’ll add it!