eRank’s 2023 Etsy Shopper Search Trends Review

Reading time: 17 minutes

At eRank, we love reviewing trend data. So, to polish off 2023, let’s see which Etsy shopper searches were most popular, shall we?

We’ll begin with the keywords that made the most monthly Top 20 lists from January through December 2023. And then here at the end, we’ll give you Etsy’s Top 20 US shopper searches in 2023 based on total search volume.

Most popular Etsy shopper searches throughout 2023

Only one keyword made every monthly Top 20 list this year. 

Earrings

As far back as we’ve been reporting on Etsy’s top trends, “earrings” has been a Top 20 constant. The only constant! “Gift” is just the runner-up. Surprised?

Here is what success looks like in Keyword Tool.

In November 2023, there were 209,730 searches for earrings. That’s down a little from its 15-mo high back in November 2022. Earrings ranked 15^th this November; last November it ranked 11^th. Its 15-mo low was in July with 86,600 searches – still plenty to secure the 13^th spot.

Gift / gifts

Either “gift” or “gifts” (or both) made all but one monthly Top 20 list in 2023. That exception was in March – but “handmade gift” ranked 4^th that month. And nine Top 20 lists had multiple entries with the word gift/s in search phrases. (We’ll get to those in the next section.)

Stickers

The only month of the past 12 without a sticker search in its Top 20 was November. Note though that there were eight gift-related searches in that month’s Top 20. Those had a hand in pushing stickers out and down to #32. And note that in terms of search volume, “stickers” was actually up Month on Month by several thousand.

It’s just that in every November, it takes many more searches to reach the Top 20. For the past two Novembers, the threshold to secure the 20^th spot was 152,000 searches. Compare that with March or July this past year. For those months, the cut-offs were 72,880 and 60,860 respectively. Much easier to crack the Top 20. (And stickers ranked 20th in December.)

Wall art

Next comes “wall art,” which ranked in all but two monthly Top 20 lists. And for both of those, it was so close! In September, “wall art” ranked #22, and in November, it ranked #25.

Tshirt

This search made all but three Top 20s. In fact, from January through May, “tshirt” never fell below the Top 10. Then in June it slipped to 11^th, and in July to 12^th. Still quite high, though!

But in August, tshirt dropped to #37. It rallied in September, rising to 26^th. And in October, as “t shirt” (with a space after “t”), it made the Top 20 once again, ranked 17^th. However, in November, tshirt dropped once more and this time by a lot, barely making the Top 100 at 97^th.  But wait: let’s take a look.

A year ago in November, there were 31,800 searches for “tshirt.” This November, there were 49,770. So, tshirt was up 56%. But we’ve got our December data now and it is most decidedly not climbing as it did last year. That said, tshirt hit its 15-mo high of 194,000 searches in January 2023. So maybe it could still shoot up from here? We shall see.

Runner-up keyword: necklace

“Necklace” made eight Top 20 lists. And it ranked in the Top 20 shopper searches from March straight through July. Then again in October through December. Let’s take a quick peek.

We’re showing you the pie chart here because necklace is popular in several of Etsy’s other top countries. And there on the left you can see that, yes, necklace is doing quite well! In 15 months, it’s only dipped below 50,000 searches once. That was back in October of 2022, and with 47,850 searches, it was close.

In November, “necklace” was up both Month on Month and Year on Year. It shot up to a 15-mo high of 159,960 searches to rank 18^th in November’s Top 20. Then in December, “necklace” fell off a little. But it’s still way up Year on Year.

Honorable mentions: these made seven of Etsy’s top shopper searches

“Handmade jewelry” made seven lists. (We’ll talk more about that one in the next section when we analyze keywords in search phrases.) And it did quite well for itself – better than “handmade gift,” which only made six Top 20 lists. 

These also made seven Top 20 lists:

• personalized gift
• jewelry
• taylor swift
• digital planner

2023’s top keywords in search phrases

Next, we’ll look at words that appeared most often in each month’s Top 20 search phrases. Here’s an example of what we mean. In January 2023, “gift” was No. 1. But “valentines gifts for him” was No. 2; “gift for him” was No. 3; and “gift for her” was 4^th. Then, aways down, “handmade gift” was 17^th. Therefore, out of January’s Top 20, gift or gifts appeared in five of them. Including all four of the Top 4.

Gift/s

If we include words in search phrases in our count, then “gift” and/or “gifts” appeared in every Top 20 list in 2023. And in every Top 20 list in every year since we’ve been looking at these. Gifts are huge on Etsy!

Just counting search phrases now, gift/s made 51 appearances in 2023’s Top 20 lists. Some top ones: personalized gift, gift for her, gift for him, mothers day gifts, handmade gift… Way too many to list here! Just remember this: when you’re assessing popularity, be sure to include results in the Related Searches table.

Decor

“Decor” is runner-up with 18 appearances in 2023’s monthly Top 20 search phrases. Starting with January 2023, that month “furniture and decor” ranked 14^th. February had the same search, ranking 10^th. In March, “handmade furniture and decor” was Number One!* And March also had “wall decor” ranked 18^th.

April had three search phrases with the word decor: #4 “home decor and gifts;” 13^th-ranked “outdoor garden and decor” and #20 “wall decor.” May though had none in its Top 20, but “home decor and gifts” was 22^nd. However, that month’s Top 20 had eight searches related to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. A lot more competition for those Top 20 slots! June was the same, nudged out by Dads and Grads gift searches. Nevertheless, “home decor” made it to #23.

In July “home decor” made it to 14^th. In August, the one-word search “decor” ranked 5^th.It was followed by “wall decor” 7^th, “home decor” 13^th, and “fall decor” in 15^th place. September had two: #5 “fall decor” and #9 “halloween decor.” October also had two: 19^th-ranked “fall decor” and “holiday decor” in 20^th. And then there were November’s two: “home decor” ranked 6^th, and “holiday decor” was 14^th.

*A word about the part Etsy plays in some of these…

Anyone else find this odd? That so many Etsy shoppers typed “handmade furniture and decor” into search, it reached No. 1 in March? We did, too. So we took a look.

That line chart on the right speaks volumes. It depicts searches on four marketplaces. You just can’t see three of them because they are piled on top of each other, all at the bottom. Meanwhile, Etsy’s spiking with 293,100 searches. That so many shoppers searched only Etsy with this keyword phrase is… unlikely.

What is likely is that Etsy put a button on its homepage labeled “handmade furniture and decor.” That said, we don’t mean that shoppers weren’t interested. Look at the bar chart, above left. Of the 30,520 average searches annually, 21,784 shoppers went on to click. So, clearly, there was shopper interest. And more interest than it appears. Remember, those bars are annual averages. For March alone, we estimated searches to be 293,100 and shopper clicks to be 204,880.

Etsy probably did the same with “outdoor garden and decor” in April.

In April (and only on Etsy) there were 108,910 searches with this phrase. We recorded 105,258 shopper clicks. So, once again: considerable shopper interest. Etsy knew what it was doing, choosing to promote these searches on its homepage.

“Handmade” in Etsy shopper search phrases

“Handmade” takes third place in making its way into the most Top 20 shopper search phrases in 2023. There were 15. January had 9^th-ranked handmade furniture; 17^th-ranked handmade gift, and 19^th was handmade jewelry. In February, there were two more: #11 handmade jewelry and #17 handmade furniture.

March’s No. 1 was “handmade furniture and decor,” a glory handmade shared with decor. March also had handmade jewelry in 2^nd place and handmade gift in 4^th. April had #16 handmade jewelry. In May, handmade gift ranked 6^th and in June, it was up to 3^rd place. But July had none.

In August, “handmade jewelry” was back, ranking 19^th and in September, it was 8^th. Handmade jewelry climbed to 7^th in October, along with handmade gift ranked 12^th. And November had none. But handmade made a comeback in December, with handmade gift taking 6^th place.

“Jewelry” in top shopper search terms

Along with four appearances by itself, “jewelry” factored in 12 of 2023’s monthly Top 20 search phrases. And often, it was alongside “handmade.” For instance, in January handmade jewelry was 19^th, then 11^th in February, and 2^nd in March. April had two: personalized jewelry in 6^th, then handmade jewelry was 16^th, followed by jewelry ranked 17^th. In May, jewelry climbed to 7^th place, and personalized jewelry dropped to 8^th.

June had no Top 20 searches containing the word “jewelry”: the first one was the one-word search “jewelry,” ranked 28^th. But June was the only month in 2023 without a jewelry-related search in its Top 20. July had two, with summer jewelry in 4^th place and jewelry in 20^th. In August, handmade jewelry was back up, ranked 19^th and in September it climbed to 8^th. September also had 17^th-ranked jewelry.

“Handmade jewelry” continued to climb in October, ranking 7^th. November had two: 9^th-ranked handmade jewelry, and 11^th-ranked personalized jewelry. Here is what 15 months of handmade jewelry shopper searches look like in Keyword Tool.

Not near as constant as “earrings” month in and month out. But handmade jewelry’s 15-mo high is higher: 274,080 to earring’s 209,730. And see how handmade jewelry was down a year ago in November, as it was this year? Then, it rebounded in December, just as it did a year ago. 

And finally, “personalized” in Top 20 shopper searches

Back in December 2022, “personalized jewelry” was in 3^rd place and “personalized gifts” ranked 7^th overall. But then from January through March, no shopper search with “personalized” made a Top 20 list. Here is personalized jewelry.

Personalized jewelry hit its 15-mo high in November 2022 with 412,220 searches. By January, search volume dropped to 6,110: a decrease of 98.5%. Ouch. But from the trend line above we can see that it also bottomed out back in September 2022. It had just 2,430 searches. This September, it had 7,730. In short, it’s a volatile search. Some shopper searches simply are.

Another monthly Top 2023 search phrase with this keyword is “personalized gift.”

See how far it’s up? Year on Year, “personalized gift” is up 795%! Altogether, 13 searches with the word “personalized” made 2023’s Top 20 lists. And 11 of those ranked in the Top 10. In fact, personalized gift held the No. 2 spot four months in a row.

All of which is to say, personalized items were a solid trend on Etsy with shoppers in 2023. Which leads us to ask: what popular trends petered out in 2023?

Top 2022 trends that ebbed in 2023

Remember Mid Century Modern? In terms of style / decor trends, it ruled 2022’s Top 20 lists. Have a look at its waning.

We’re including the pie chart here so you can see that this keyword was popular elsewhere, too. The US has just 60.5% of that Etsy shopper pie. In the US, “mid century modern” regularly garnered over a hundred thousand searches per month. But after December 2022’s 119,930 searches, it failed to make January’s Top 20. And it has dropped gradually to its current 22,270 searches in December 2023. Down 81%.

Mid century modern enjoyed a good long run. But it never soared as high, nor stayed in the Top 5 Year on Year as “minimalist” was doing back in June 2023.

Minimalist

Here’s a snapshot we took in June 2023, showing 15 months of search volume to that point. You can see that the year before, in July 2022 alone, minimalist had over 300,000 searches!

Nevertheless, by June 2023 you could see mighty minimalist appeared to be on the downslope. Mind you, search volume for minimalist was still quite high when we took that screenshot. In June 2023, “minimalist” had nearly 121,000 searches. But look at that Search Trend line. Beginning in December 2022, it drifted downward every month. By June it was down 59%. Still in the Top 5 though!

Now? Oh dear.

Minimalist ranked 9^th overall in July. It hasn’t made a monthly Top 20 list since. In December 2023, it sank to rank #102.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, mid century modern and minimalist ran in tandem. No style trend since has risen to taken their place. Which we don’t find odd. Because in the years we’ve been doing this, no style trend before has ever had such a mighty and sustained run. How huge these two were is unique.

Embroidery

While never the phenom minimalist was, for awhile embroidery approached mid century modern’s highs. And matched both in broad pie-chart popularity.

Embroidery’s 15-mo high was 151,960 searches back in November 2022. Despite the pressure of an Etsy November, embroidery held onto 20^th place. And it only just missed making the next two months’ lists, ranking 22^nd in December and 25^th in January. Then, from February through June, it resumed its place in every US Top 20 list.

But in July, embroidery dropped to 45^th and hasn’t made another Top 20 list since. This November, it ranked in 87^th place. By the end of December, it’s fallen to 169^th.

What’s climbing?

Making predictions about trends is… difficult. Because very often, trends are literally unpredictable! We need look no further than this snapshot taken in July.

That was barbenheimer. It had 64,870 searches that month. Who among us saw that coming? And here’s what it looks like now.

And by the way: if you went by this bar chart, hey, this keyword looks promising, right? Bars are all green! Average click-through rate is 120%, great! Etsy competition is 1,703. Awesome. And this, fam, is why we need all those graphs and data in Keyword Tool. Because yep, as we see on the right, barbenheimer was down to 1,020 searches in December

At eRank, we do stats. So, rather than speculating about annual predictions, we show you what the data tells us. And report to you what we see sliding (like embroidery). And what we see climbing. Like mug.

Mug

Mug is up.

Nothing too crazy. As mug or mugs, it only made four of 2023’s Top 20 lists; in May, June, and July as “mugs,” then again in October, as “mug.” To show the combined stats, we ticked Keyword Tool’s new feature “Include Near Matches” there in the bar chart. Etsy competition is insane, but so is shopper demand. Year on Year, mug/s is up 64%.

Will it continue? Honestly, we can’t tell you. And with competition that high, you’d need to niche way down. Maybe something along the lines of “handmade personalized christmas gift for him mug”? 

What keywords made 2023’s Top 20 of the Year?

Up to this point, we’ve measured the popularity of 2023’s trends by how many Monthly Top 20 lists they made. The Top 20 list that follows is based instead on cumulative Etsy US shopper search volume for the year.

Etsy’s Top 20 US shopper searches in 2023

1. personalized gift
2. gift
3. gift for her
4. gift for him
5. stickers
6. earrings
7. wall art
8. jewelry
9. halloween
10. minimalist
11. tshirt
12. taylor swift
13. handmade gift
14. handmade jewelry
15. necklace
16. gifts
17. rings
18. digital planner
19. home decor
20. mothers day gifts

* Warning: Beware of trademarked terms. This list may contain keywords that are trademarked. USPTO Trademark Database

Interesting, right? Do you find any surprising? Actually, there are only two we haven’t already talked about here. Ninth-ranked “halloween” and in 17^th-place, “rings.” Let’s take a look, shall we?

Halloween

Halloween only made four monthly Top 20 lists in 2023. Here is how that looks.

As you can see, even in its fallow months, there was search volume. At its 15-mo low in February, Halloween still had 8,680 searches. And those highs are high: 499,300 in September 2022, and 481,280 in September this year. Total for 2023? Well over a million searches and even more clicks!

Rings

This keyword too only made four monthly Top 20 lists (although it just missed February’s when it ranked 21^st). The months it did chart were March, April, August and September. Hard to detect a pattern there. Let’s see what we can see.

Funny: in both Decembers, “rings” had the identical number of searches: 95,900. And in both 2022 and 2023, this keyword fell off in December after a high in November. (But this November was up over November 2022.) Unlike “halloween” though, “rings” never drops much below 40,000 searches per month.

Plenty to keep you ring makers and vintage sellers busy year round! Competition is mad high but in jewelry, a high percentage of those sellers are drop shippers. And those products are not what most shoppers come to Etsy to buy. With ever-improving search algorithms, hopefully Etsy shoppers will find you more easily in 2024!

And with that, all of us at eRank wish you the best in the New Year! 

Get some rest; we’ll be here for you in 2024.

RESOURCES

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