Despite brick-and-mortar stores opening, Etsy boosts its active buyers and grew its member base in the second quarter. The marketplace also shares how it plans to integrate its two new acquisitions, Depop and Elo7, into its house of brands.

Etsy Inc. continues to experience growth in both sales and buyers on its marketplaces, despite the effects of the pandemic waning for some online merchants.

Gross merchandise sales (GMS), or the total value of goods sold on Etsy.com and Reverb.com, was $3.04 billion, up 13.1% year over year from $2.68 billion for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Etsy’s marketplace GMS was $2.8 billion, up 14.2% year over year. And Etsy’s GMS per active buyer on its marketplace grew 22% year over year, Etsy reported. 

For the first six months of the year, Etsy’s GMS, including Reverb, reached $6.18 billion, up 53.0% from $4.04 billion during the same period a year ago.

While the world is returning to normal with more brick-and-mortar stores opening, “shoppers chose to return to Etsy,” said Etsy president and CEO Joshua Silverman on an earnings call transcribed by Seeking Alpha. “And most importantly, they chose to shop with us more frequently.”

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Etsy’s marketplace acquired about 11.9 million new and renewed buyers—consumers who haven’t made a purchase in a year or more. The marketplace says 8 million of that 11.9 million are new buyers. Etsy says this is double the number of new buyers compared with Q2 2019.

Etsy is No. 18 in the ranking of Digital Commerce 360 Top 100 Online Marketplaces.

Etsy’s recent acquisitions

Etsy acquired Reverb, a shopping portal for musical instruments and gear, in July 2019 for $275 million in cash. And in the last two months, the marketplace has been busy making two other acquisitions: It acquired U.K. apparel shopping app Depop in early June for $1.63 billion and Brazil-based handcrafted goods marketplace Elo7 in early July for $217 million.

“Just like we’ve demonstrated with Etsy and Reverb, we see significant opportunities [in Depop] to make focused improvements to the on-site product experience that we believe can expand the conversion rate,” Silverman said on the earnings call. “[For Elo7], we now have a foothold in Latin America, a region with high barriers to entry, where we previously did not have a meaningful customer base.”

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Reverb, Depop and Elo7 are similar in that each sells products in what Digital Commerce 360 terms niche categories instead of general merchandise. For Etsy and Elo7, their products are all handmade and, therefore, different than other marketplaces such as Amazon.com Inc. (No. 3) or eBay Inc. (No. 5). Additionally, 50% of Elo7’s gross merchandise sales are within its “special event and life moment” categories, such as weddings, baby and children’s parties. Depop and Reverb sell products in specific retail verticals—apparel and music, respectively.

In the Top 100 Marketplaces ranking, 47 marketplaces sell products from a particular merchandise category, such as apparel or home goods. The 47 niche sites collectively grew GMV (gross merchandise volume) 46.9% to $69.64 billion in 2020, faster than the 29.0% growth of the entire Top 100 marketplaces.

What’s more, consumers are shopping on niche marketplaces: 42% of online shoppers purchased from a specialty marketplace that focused on a unique category in the past year, according to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers in April 2021. And the popularity of these marketplaces is growing. The same survey in 2020 showed 29% of shoppers purchased from a niche marketplace.

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Etsy didn’t share details about future acquisition plans. Silverman said its primary focus right now is to integrate Depop and Elo7 into its “House of Brands” while continuing to drive robust performance at Etsy and Reverb. “Hopefully, we’ve demonstrated to you that we balance our ambition with discipline, making thoughtful and strategic moves that build long-term value for all of our stakeholders,” he said of the acquisitions.

As it looks to the second half of the year, Etsy is not issuing financial guidance due to the continued uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic brings. But it did estimate how the recent acquisitions might impact Q3:

Etsy estimates that Q3 GMS will be $2.9 billion to $3.0 billion, with a 12.5% year-over-year growth. It also estimates its Q3 revenue will be $500 million to $525 million, a $13.5 year over year growth.

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“These growth levels continue to represent strength in the business and our ability to attract and engage buyers,” Silverman said. “While Reverb, Depop and Elo7 all represent small pieces of our overall company today, we anticipate they will… provide new avenues for growth and further deepen Etsy’s differentiation compared to the many commoditized places there are to shop.”

For the second quarter ended June 30, Etsy reported:

  • Revenue, including Reverb, was $528.9 million, up 23.4% from $428.7 million.
  • For Etsy’s marketplace, its revenue grew 19.1% to $395.5 million from $332.0 million.
  • Net income of $98.3 million, up 1.9% from $96.4 million.

For the first six months of the year, Etsy reported:

  • Revenue, including Reverb, increased 64.4% to $1.08 billion from $656.8 million.
  • For Etsy’s marketplace, revenue reached $809.1 million, up 65.8% from $487.9 million.
  • Net income of $242.0 million, up 122% from $108.9 million.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding.

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Fareeha Ali contributed to this article.

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