Etsy Inc(NASDAQ: ETSY) stock surged over 23.2% on Feb 28th, 2018 (as of 12:38PM EST; Source: Google finance) post their solid fourth quarter of 2017 performance.
The group generated $1 million in GMS during the fourth quarter of 2017, which is a rise of 17.8%. The group had $33.4 million active buyers, which is a rise of 17%, and over 1.9 million active sellers, rising 11%. This shows growth in both active buyers and active sellers at a healthy rate especially the total GMS which grew even faster than active sellers, signifying an increase in average GMS per seller.
The group focused on growing visits and conversion rate. Mobile web continues to be a large part of their growth story as a major driver of both GMS and visits in the quarter. Mobile web visits were over 46% of overall visits this quarter and roughly 67% of visits came to us from their mobile web or app device this quarter. The group’s paid marketing efforts have also contributed to visit growth in recent quarters. In addition to their pay channels, they focused on offering tools for their sellers to drive visit growth through their own efforts.
Meanwhile, Mobile GMS surged 27% year-over-year, rising as a percentage of total GMS to approximately 52%, which is a rise against 49% last year. Growth in mobile GMS was driven in part by several product launches including the introduction of scarcity badges and nudges, which leverage their unique inventory and nudge buyers along the shopping journey improvements to listing pages and the implementation of guest checkout on the mobile web.
During the fourth quarter, the group witnessed an improvement in desktop and mobile web conversion rate versus prior year. Aggregate conversion rate rose this quarter despite softness in their mobile app conversion rate. Several product launches hurt aggregate conversion rate. International GMS achieved their first billion dollar year in 2017 with slightly over $1 billion in international GMS. In the fourth quarter percent, international GMS rose 300 basis points to 33%. International GMS growth accelerated to 28% and continued to grow faster than overall GMS.