Here's What I Found In The Hunt

The Jewelry on Etsy Team Treasure Hunt is over and I have been going over some stats. I kept track of my sales, hearts, views, and other little tid-bits of info from when the hunt began through to the end. Sorry for the all the boring stats. These are all personal stats pertaining to just my shop, because I wasn't about to try to keep track of everyone! The conclusions and personal observations toward the end of this post are what I think are really interesting. Although there is still some time left for the winners to go back and purchase more items for the shopping spree, here is what I found so far:



Results from 3-14-08 Treasure Hunt

(12:00pm 3-14-08 through 5:00pm 3-15-08)
73 items in shop
Hunt item is 5th item in shop, Page 1
Total # treasuries during the hunt 7

**2 hour down time during hunt when there was a dropped link



Total New Views 97 (Fri.)/207 (Sat.)=304
Pg. 1- 88 views(Fri.)/116 views(Sat.)=204 views on page 1
*Fri.-3 items in 5 treasuries, hunt item
*Sat.-2 items in 2 treasuries

Pg. 2- 4 views(Fri)/ 50 views(Sat.)=54 views on page 2
*Fri.-1 item in treasury, 0 views on treasury item
*Sat. 1 item in treasury, 0 views on treasury item

Pg. 3- 1 view(Fri)/21 views (Sat)=22 views on page 3
Pg. 4- 4 views(Fri)/20 views(Sat)= 24 views on page 4



Total New Views Past Hunt Item 24 (Fri)/ 143(Sat)= 167 views



Item With Most Views
Cherry Bombs Earrings (Hunt item)44(Fri)/30(Sat)=74 views

Item With 2nd Most Views
Hand Prints Earrings (in 2 treasuries)14(Fri)/15(Sat)=29 views

Item with 3rd Most Views
Mod-Flower Decoupage Pendant (1st item in shop)7(Fri)/9(Sat)=16 views



Total # of Items with 2 or 0 views 54
Items listed are to illustrate where the views dropped off
Item #5 (Hunt item)
Item #6 (in 2 treasuries)
Item #7 (1 view prior to down time*)
Item #8 (1 view prior to down time*)

Zero views prior to down time* begin at Item # 9, out of 73 items in shop!



*2 hour down time when there was a dropped link in the hunt beginning at my shop. I believe the only reason these items were viewed at all is because someone was trying to track down the missing link. Prior to the down time these same items had 0 views.


Total New Item Hearts 3 hearts(of these, 2 items in 2 treasuries, all items on pg. 1)
1 Heart Hand Prints Fine Silver Earrings (in 2 treasuries, shop pg. 1)
1 Heart Cherry Blossom Fine Silver Ring (in 2 treasuries, shop pg. 1)
1 Heart Lullaby Dolly Decoupage Pendant Necklace (shop pg. 1)


Total New Shop Hearts 2(Fri)/2(Sat)=4 hearts

Total New Sales during hunt 0
Total New Sales from hunt winners 1



Other Shop Totals Overall
Item With Most Hearts 12 Cherry Blossom Fine Silver Ring (in 2 treasuries, shop pg. 1)

Item With 2nd Most Hearts
6 Hand Prints Fine Silver Earrings (in 2 treasuries, shop pg. 1)
6 Leila Sterling Silver Bracelet* (relisted once, shop pg. 2)
6 Ariel Dichroic Glass Bracelet* (relisted once, shop pg. 3)
(*No hearts on these items since 2-19-08, Ariel in treasury at that time)



Total Items With No Hearts At All 27
Pg. 1- 10 items
Pg. 2- 8 items(of these 1 item in treasury)
Pg. 3- 6 items
Pg. 4- 3 items
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Conclusion 1: Treasure Hunt did not appear to be as effective as it could have been at getting people to look through the shops (at least my shop).


Possible Reasons For Conclusion 1: Hunt item was item #5 in the shop. Of the 73 items in the shop, more than 1/2 the total new views were for only items 1-5*, indicating that people stopped looking through the shop as soon as they found the link to the next shop.

*See Above (Total # of Items With 2 or 0 Views)


Conclusion 2: Disproportionate number of views for hunt item compared to others, (More than 2x the number of the second most viewed item. Also, 2nd most viewed item was in 2 treasuries.) indicating that people jumped directly to the hunt item from the clue.


Possible Reasons For Conclusion 2: Hunt clue was too easily solved?

Possible solutions or improvements to be made for next time:
~More exposure to additional items may have been gained if the hunt item had not sold and needed to be relisted prior to the hunt.

~Should have had the sold hunt item changed to another item further into the shop instead of relisting, putting it at the front of the shop.

~The clues were cute, clever, and well done and made the hunt alot of fun for the players. But, it might have been better if the clue did not pertain to the item’s name or physical appearance of item. This way, players would have to actually view and read the descriptions of several items in the shop before finding the clue and continuing on. Possibly future clues should include trivia questions about the item's written description, size, or secondary pictures so that players cannot jump directly to that item, skipping past all others in the shop. I did not have time to go through the entire hunt from start to finish, so I don't really know about all the clues other than that in my own shop.

~I did like the clues for the instant prizes. I thought they were just tricky enough to be challenging but not frustrating. And I liked how it got people to look at shop profiles as well.

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Personal Observations

All in all, I think the hunt did gain some exposure for the shops involved. It actually gained the most exposure for the hunters that joined in the thread, as many JETs went to check out their shops as well. (Note to self: Jump in on other teams contests and post to their contest threads!) I cannot say that others who did not complete the hunt did not look at some of the shops involved. But one thing is for sure, aside from looking for the missing link, VERY little attention was given to items further into the shop than the hunt item itself, and almost no attention at all given to items on the 3rd and 4th pages of the shop. Overall, these pages get very little action anyway. It may be wiser to trim back the number of items in the shop and list only 2 pages worth. I will have to go back and look now at individual items and if their views are significantly lower, maybe put them in edit mode until some other items sell, or let them expire and do not renew unless the shop is under 2 pages.