Etsy, Inc. (ETSY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining. Ygal Arounian on the Citi Internet team close to wrapping up day 1 here at the TMT Conference. So thanks for joining us. Really excited now to have Etsy's CEO, Josh Silverman with us. I appreciate you being here, and thanks for taking the time.

Thanks for having me.

So we had a little debate. Do you want to say the safe harbor stuff...

I would refer folks to Etsy' safe harbor on our website.

All right. Perfect. Okay. So with that out of the way, I just -- I want to start with what I thought was kind of one of the most notable shifts you talked about at earnings. And that was this greater focus on engagement and browsing on the platform versus just driving GMS conversion, driving better health of the overall environment. Can you elaborate on that? What's changing exactly last week, maybe under the rate offer some folks, they're probably on vacation, but you launched an evolution to the search and discovery algorithm on the platform. So let's start with that. What's changing on the platform? How are you approaching this?

Yes. Maybe I'll pull back and say a bigger change in how I'm running the company and then how that's resulting in some of the launches like the one you just referenced. For 7 years, we've had a very successful operating model for running Etsy that I think has been fairly unique. We have Etsy's organized into squads of 8 or 10 people, it's going to be 6 engineers or sell a product manager, a designer and an analyst. And every squad has given a customer problem to fix in a GMS target. So make search better in a way that delivers an extra $80 million of GMS or make recommendations better in a way that delivers an extra $60 million on GMS. And that has really resulted in Etsy becoming a much better shopping experience in a lot of ways, doing a much better job of converting visits to purchases and driving GMS growth over the past 7 years in a way that I and I think the whole team are really proud of, and it has its limits. And I think we've really reached the limits of that. What it is incented effectively is to take what exists and make it a little better in a way that's very measurable and very accountable. What it doesn't do is say, what does great look like in a new experience, work backwards from great. And I think we have very significant opportunities to evolve Etsy. What it's really driven us to is to be a place that if you know already what you're looking for, we almost certainly have it already for sale on Etsy, and we do a great job of getting you there and getting you through the purchase. We do a great job of helping to exploit your existing interests. We have a huge opportunity to help explore what else we have on offer and how to expose you to new things on Etsy, learn new interests and take very high-level ideas like I'm just generally thinking about Halloween or I need to get a gift for my mother for her birthday and take that all the way down to here's the best possible gift for your mother or the best possible gift for or a best possible costume for Halloween. We also really leading a lot right now into Etsy's point of differentiation, and that gets to the recent launches that you spoke of. In this moment, when the macro is so tough in consumer discretionary, everyone is going to value. They're all going to what is the cheapest way I can sell this. And there's a price war underway. We're doing the opposite. We're really leaning into what makes Etsy even more Etsy, what is differentiated about us and how do we really elevate that. And so the quality launch that we did just last week is a great example of that. We've just rearchitected the way search works on Etsy in a really fundamental way for the past 18.5 years or so since Etsy has existed, our search engine has had one objective function, which is trying to predict what are you most likely to buy and show you the things you're most likely to want to buy. And if you're a seller on Etsy, you wondered how can I rank higher in search. And when you go and do research on that, what you'll see is a lot of videos on YouTube and other things that talk to you about keyword stuffing. How do you SEO Etsy? And it's all what keywords do stuff into your title and tags. That does no one any good. We've rearchitected search now, so that we actually not just think about the relevance of each listing, what are you likely to buy, but the Q score, the quality of each seller and each item. And we've exposed to sellers a dashboard. Here's how we rank the quality of your item across a set of key metrics. And here's how we rank the quality of your service. You consistently ship on time. You always get 5 star reviews. Do you charge a fair price for shipping? If the photography of this item good? Do you have a reasonable refund policy? We expose that to sellers and tell them how they rank and now we create a virtuous dynamic where sellers are competing based on the quality of their service to earn a higher spot in search. It's a pretty big rearchitecture of the search engine. And in a world where -- in our old model where everyone is just trying to grind out another $10 million this month of GMS. They're not going to be incented to rearchitect the search engine in a pretty fundamental way that unlocks, I think, a major new avenue of growth for Etsy. But we're working backwards from great now. What would a great ecosystem look like? It would look like a system where sellers compete on quality. We just launched that this week actually to sellers. I think the reception has been really good. And I'm really excited to see how that evolves in really causing buyers to have a much better buyer experience and sellers to feel like they have a lot more agency.

Okay. Got it. So that's live globally as of this week.

As of this week, yes. And it took multiple iterations of the search engine. We've been working on that for the whole year to create a search engine that can incorporate quality without tanking conversion. And so we did multiple tests and multiple iterations to get to something where we've actually been able to hold GMS flat or conversion rate roughly flat while also incorporating quality.

Okay. As we think about the algorithm, there -- sounds like there's no near-term negative impact on GMV from this, but the idea is, obviously, over time, that get better conversion.

Right. So the team worked really hard to get to something where at launch, it doesn't negatively impact conversion, which may sound like nothing to celebrate, but we're using really cutting-edge machine learning. So the prior search engine algorithm was quite sophisticated and beating that black box cutting-edge ML with a new algorithm that's explainable to sellers that tells them, here's factors of quality that we're going to consider getting that new explainable algorithm to match the black box algorithm was actually quite a feat of computer science. We're really proud of that. But you're right that, that launch did not harm conversion rate. And now we've created this virtuous ecosystem that I think is going to mean we're not matching you with items you are likely to buy. We're matching with items you're likely to love. And that, I think, is going to elevate the whole buying experience on Etsy and making the selling experience at Etsy more satisfying as well.

Okay. So the algorithm is doing this already. The sellers are just starting to learn about this. So then they iterate and...?

Days old, they literally have had a few days. But even in these past few days, we're seeing a large number of sellers take actions to adjust their listings in order to meet the quality standards. For example, we've done a lot of research with buyers and buyers tell us that $6 is the amount that they think the max that they think is reasonable to pay for a U.S. domestic package. And so we've told sellers is one of the elements of our quality score is your shipping price. And if you're charging more than $6 for a U.S. domestic package with certain exceptions like furniture or something obviously very heavy, but for normally priced items, if you're charging more than $6, that's not appropriate, it's going to hurt you in search. And that because buyers tell us that's what they're willing to pay. And we're seeing a meaningful number of sellers take action to make sure that their shipping prices are not more than $6, and we think that's going to be great for the marketplace.

Okay. Sticking on the theme a little bit, just -- so loyalty is a big factor in part of your drive to push more frequency. The new loyalty program coming out is in beta, right? It's coming out in full [indiscernible] soon.

It is not to go in beta, yes.

It's not to go into beta. So how does that fit in? What are the expectations around that? And who are you trying to target with that program?

Yes. So when we ask buyers who haven't jumped on Etsy recently, why haven't you shopped at Etsy more often or more recently. The number on thing is I don't have a need which means they just didn't think of us. And number two is shipping prices are too high. And so we've often wondered what would happen if we could wave a magic wand and make shipping prices go away. And if buyers were part of a paid program, since I'm paying every month, I should maybe start my searches on Etsy. We know that if they started on Etsy, we'd have what they need, the vast majority of the time, we just need them to think of us. So we also know that if we offered a free shipping program for many of our most loyal buyers, we would lose a lot of money. And so we want to test our way into a program that's economically sustainable, and we think can drive a lot more frequency and loyalty from all of our buyers over time. But let's start with only our occasional buyers. And so we're launching a beta program that's invite only. The primary focus of that program will be people who shop on Etsy only occasionally. And we're going to learn from that what is their willingness to pay, what is the impact when shipping prices go away? Do they shop on Etsy more often? How much more often do they shop? What are the churn rates? And I think we're going to learn through that program quite a lot. I would expect that there's going to be an evolution, and we're going to do a lot of testing. By the way, free shipping isn't the only piece of that program. Members of the program will also get access, for example, to exclusive deals and drops and other cool emotional benefits in addition to the rational benefits. But we're really excited to see where that program goes. And I think over time, Etsy, a loyalty program could be a powerful part of the Etsy ecosystem.

Okay. Great. We'll keep an eye on that. The other big thing you talked about at the quarter was the Etsy app. It's already 40-plus percent on GMS, but there's a focus to drive more traffic there. Why is that so important? And how do you accomplish that goal?

Yes. So we know that when our customers download the app, their lifetime value goes up. And we've actually done enough research to know that, that's causal not correlated. They visit more often, they visit for free more often and they end up shopping more often. The way that we have been running the company, which has so many benefits. But if you're asking squads every week and every month to show how much GMS they've produced, the fastest way to test new experiments is on the web. And so we have, by default, tested everything on mobile web and when it works, roll it out to the app. And in fact, the app should be the very best place to be shopping on Etsy. And so we've shifted quite a lot of focus this year to really be starting our product development process with what is the best possible app experience and leaning into mobile web more and more for the goal of mobile web is to get you to download the app. So starting to introduce a little more friction in the mobile web, and we're going to need to test and learn this a lot more. But in all the right places in the mobile web to really be marketing, hey, you really should be on the app right now. And I think over time, well, you're right, about over 40% of purchase volume is on the app. It's substantially less than that in terms of visit volume. And many of our e-commerce peers have much higher app penetration than we do. So we think there's a big opportunity to drive a lot more app penetration. And in doing so, drive a lot more organic traffic, drive a lot more frequency and improve sales and economics on that, too.

Got it. I think this is tied into that, but it's also more broad, just a lot of discussion from investors around your marketing strategy. You've stepped up into paid social. Brand's been a big part of your strategy over the last few years. Paid marketing was up year-over-year significantly this quarter, but that was off of comps from last year where you were some incrementality testing. Can you maybe define the marketing strategy? What are you getting out of it? How do you think about that and what the opportunity is there?

Yes. I'd say, first, we are extremely focused and always have been on what is the marginal return of each dollar spent in marketing. And we have never been a growth at all cost company. We have always been extremely diligent around and invested a lot in analytics around is every dollar we're spending, paying off. For quite some time, the vast majority of our marketing spend was in Google PLAs, because both it's very measurable and Google has done a lot of the work to help people figure out exactly what they want. And again, if you know exactly what you want, Etsy has it. And so we can take that traffic from someone, who knows exactly what they want, land them on Etsy and convert them to a sale. We then started investing at the top of the funnel in television around general brand advertising. People love Etsy, but they don't know when to think of Etsy. And so exposing people to more of Etsy's great for home, Etsy's great for fashion, Etsy's great for gifts, for example. But what we've observed is there's a big opportunity for us in the mid-funnel and that is people who have a generalized need, I'm planning a wedding, I had a baby. I'm redecorating my home where Etsy has not been strong historically is taking people from these relatively generalized needs and helping them to narrow down the infinite, which is Etsy to get to a very specific use case. And that is when we think about the shift, is build backward from great that I started talking about, how do we build backward from what is a great navigation experience for people who have only a general idea of what they're looking for? And how do we help them go from the infinite down to -- this is the perfect thing for me. And fortunately, Gen AI is making incredible advances to help us both understand our inventory, understand the way customers think and help us to organize the world in a way where I'm very optimistic we can make huge gains on the Etsy site in doing that, which is going to help us to -- for all those people who love Etsy would say they didn't have a need. What they mean is I haven't yet figured out exactly what I want. And I do that off Etsy, and I only come to Etsy at the end once I know. We want you to start on Etsy, and we want to help you figure that out on Etsy. We think we have every right to be able to do that. And as we do that, it opens up a lot more opportunity in mid-funnel in places like Facebook, Instagram, where people are more easier to target. People who are just had a baby, just moved home, planning a wedding, planning Thanksgiving, planning a Halloween party, but don't know yet exactly what item they're searching for. So I think this experience we're building on site around discovery is also going to be very powerful for us in terms of opening up new marketing channels as well.

And this is in play. I know to a certain extent, obviously, but is it in play largely? Or is there still iterations and evolution in what you're talking about here?

That part of the work, I would say, we are kicking off. So sort of helping people go from very generalized use cases to much more specific use cases is work that we've begun this year and is in earlier stages. The quality work just launched. The loyalty program goes into beta next week. So the sort of new way of working and tell me what great looks like and let's work backwards from that is something we kicked off at the beginning of the year. We're already seeing launches in quality and diversity. The search engine has evolved very significantly even just over the course of this year and now turning to curation and discovery as the next major focus for us.

Okay. I think it's a good segue to talk about Etsy's TAM and what you regularly referred to is Etsy's right to win. You've been very adamant that you're nowhere near capturing that TAM, and there's still a lot of opportunity. Just help frame what you view as the TAM and what your opportunity is? And there is that point that Etsy's generally more craft, right, in unique versus general item, but you have a view that there's still plenty of room there.

Yes. I think you and I were in an investor meeting just a minute ago, where you saw that. I do not believe there is a market for handmade. I don't think there are very many people out there who say, I'm looking for something and it has to be handmade. That exists but very rarely. People come to Etsy, and they're looking to furnish their living room. They've just done a remodel and they are shopping on Etsy, they're shopping on West Elm. They're shopping on Wayfair, they're shopping on Target. They're shopping in a number of different places. And when we talk to them, they're typically shopping in a combination of offline and online for that same use case. They're open to offline. They're open to online and they're shopping in a number of places that are selling commoditized commerce. Etsy they go to because our differentiator is that we're handmade. But they're not exclusively looking at handmade. They are going to buy a throw pillow and they may buy it from us and they may buy it from Target. And we've got to show that we have a better throw pillow at great value that speaks to them and we can because this is made just for them, it comes with a story. It's beautiful. It's all the things. Their friends don't own the same throw pillow. But that's a differentiator for us. It's not a market. So Etsy's biggest categories are home furnishings, clothing, jewelry, paper and party goods, art, toys, pets, these are each massive categories. Our largest category is home furnishings. That category in and of itself has a massive TAM to it, we would be a tiny share of just that category. We've also started to give people cuts of the market by occasion. So gifting has been a big focus this year. We estimate that the average American spends $1,600 per year on gifts. That is about a $400 million TAM just in the U.S. Of that, we think about $200 million is addressable by us. So about half is things like electronics or dinner out or cash gift that we don't compete in, but the other half are the kinds of gifts you could buy on Etsy. It's about a $200 million TAM. We think we have about 1% of that right now. Even for people who shop on Etsy, Etsy active buyers, less than half bought a gift, even one gift on Etsy in the last year. So we see gifting as a huge opportunity for us and something where Etsy has a very much a right to win. So I don't think that Etsy is constrained by the TAM. I think our opportunity is to demonstrate that we offer real value and to be part of people's consideration set more time, so they think to come to Etsy. And while the whole rest of the world is competing in a race to the bottom around who can offer more discounts and promotions, that's never going to be Etsy's real winning spot. You see us investing in quality. You see us investing in centering the seller and her work as part of this making of the good. So you understand that the thing you're buying is genuinely handmade, made just for you and you see the value in getting it. And the last thing I'll say on this is when I think about where Etsy is today, during the peak of the pandemic, you couldn't spend money in restaurants, you couldn't travel, you couldn't shop off-line you could only, if you wanted to spend money, do it online. And even if you wanted to buy things online, most people were out of stock. Their goods were stuck on boats. And the government was funneling stimulus money into everyone's pocket and discretionary product spending was exploding. And Etsy was one of the only places you could go and buy things and know that anything you wanted was in stock and would ship on time and arrive on time. And as a result of that, Etsy absolutely exploded. We benefited maybe more than anyone in any sector as a result of the pandemic. It's hard to find anyone who had more tailwinds from the pandemic than we did. Fast forward to today, where we all know the consumer discretionary spend challenges that everyone's having, McDonald's, Starbucks, Dollar General, down 20% today because people can't afford to buy things in a dollar store. Etsy did almost as much GMS in the last 12 months as we did in the peak of the pandemic. I find that kind of remarkable. Let's take one product as an example, masks, Etsy sold $875 million of fabric face masks between April 1, 2020 and April 1, 2021. We sold de minimis face mask in the last 12 months. So we've replaced $875 million staying flat on GMS and which we've done in the last just as one example, is $875 million of replacement of facemask, not to mention all the other stuff we were doing during the pandemic that we were buying on Etsy. Everyone in the world decided that they needed a fire pit and fire pit sales on Etsy exploded. Just an example after example, we replaced all of that, what staying flat has looked like is actually replacing all of that in this macro environment. So if even in this macro environment, Etsy is able to deliver the same level of sales, I can only imagine what happens as the macro turns. So we're very focused right now on doubling down on what makes Etsy great, what makes Etsy Etsy, what differentiates us and demonstrating to customers the value in that and delivering an amazing experience. And as we do that, I believe there's tremendous growth and TAM is not the challenge. I believe there is tremendous growth for us ahead. Yes. Oh, sorry, $200 billion in gifting TAM, I apologize. I misspoke and said $200 million in gifting TAM, $200 billion.

Much bigger TAM.

Yes, it's more exciting than $200 million for sure. I apologize.

Okay. So a few things to follow up on, but since we ended off on the macro, obviously, it's remained a challenge longer than expected. Consumer discretionary where you're really -- that's where you are. It's been the most challenged. Some of your -- many of your competitors have doing things like pricing, discounting, some benefit from trade downs. Is there anything on the macro front that you've done or can do to offset some of the headwinds? Or is it just kind of heads down on way can control product wise until you got come out the other side?

In 2023, we did a lot around discounts and giving sellers better tools so they could put things on sale. And if you're not on sale right now, you're really tone deaf. And so our sellers are doing a lot more to put things on sale and take advantage of that. And we've done a lot to build tooling for them. But ultimately, that's not a race we win or a race we really want to win. We do best when people recognize that the stuff on Etsy is unique. It's special. It's made just for them. And so leaning into what makes Etsy different and special is a big part of that. So the creativity standards that we launched just a couple of months ago, I think even less than that, we're really about helping to make very clear to buyers exactly what role did this seller make in making this product. Did she make it herself with her own 2 hands? Did she design it and then work with a production partner? Is it a vintage good where she hand picked or hand curated it and then really elevating that? And what you'll see us do in the future is make that role of the seller in the process more and more visible, more and more center so that you really understand and value what you're buying on Etsy is truly different than what you're buying elsewhere. And then this quality launch as well, this idea of really allowing the very best experience, best purchase experience to come to the top. That's where we really want to compete. That's where we really win over time. We've done some of the stuff around discounts. We'll continue to do kind of the basic hygiene there. Of course, we'll do table stakes. But our main focus is on elevating the great work our sellers do and making sure people understand how and why Etsy is different.

Okay. The competitive environment has also come up a lot over the past year plus some really obvious competitors that have sprung up. But in general, I think the e-commerce landscape has changed to some extent over the past few years. How are you viewing the competitive landscape? Maybe things like social commerce and TikTok and some of the evolution around that and how Etsy fits within that?

Look, I love capitalism, and it's a very -- marketplaces are competitive and dynamic. And there's always a lot of competition, and that's a wonderful thing. And we've been facing. When I joined Etsy everyone is sure that Amazon Handmade was going to kill Etsy. And all of the talk was Amazon Handmade, Amazon handmade. No one talks about Amazon handmade anymore. I never really was that worried about Amazon Handmade. Amazon is a competitor. If we've got to fight to beat Amazon, not Amazon Handmade. We've got to show that the beautiful handcraft and stuff on Etsy are worth, maybe pay a little premium or maybe it takes a little longer, but it's worth it. And here's why and help to demonstrate that. And you know what, it really is an awful lot of the time. And so we got to just keep competing against those folks. The good news for us is they're all selling the same product. Temu is just Amazon without the middle person. They just cut Amazon out, right? It's the same suppliers that are selling on Amazon that just sell direct-to-consumer through Temu now. So all these people are just trying to sell you the exact same product and sell it $0.02 cheaper or ship at 2 minutes faster, let them fight it out, go ahead, they'll all fight it out, and the more people shop on those, and they will, the more you will crave an alternative. And there's no better alternative to that than Etsy. Our job is to make Etsy the best possible alternative to all that commoditized commerce and race to the bottom that's happening between all these other big brands. And the role to be the #1 alternative to that, I think, is a huge opportunity.

Okay. On that point, I want to ask your view on the de minimis tax regulations around cross-border shipping. Do you have a view on that? Is it you're not focused on, it doesn't matter, is that something you're kind of pushing for?

I am focused on it, and it does matter. In fact, Etsy played an important role in helping convince the U.S. government to create a de minimis standard at $800. So for those who haven't been tracking this, if you ship a good into the U.S. and its value is less than $800, it doesn't need to go through all of the bureaucracy. It takes time and cost money before it lands direct to the consumer. And for many Etsy sellers, we have wonderful sellers. For example, we have about 30,000 sellers selling about $200 million worth of goods in Ukraine. We're really proud of that. It's a lot of hard currency going to hard-working people in Ukraine who really need it. All of the dishes and plates in my house are made by Etsy sellers in Ukraine and they're gorgeous and they're less than $800, so they can ship them direct to me and they don't need to be exports -- they don't need that seller. It doesn't need to be an expert in duties and imports and so it's a good thing. We think that de minimis exemptions is a good thing. By the way, we also think it's not a good use of customs inspectors time to inspect $50 or $100 packages. So I think the de minimis exemption is important. Now we may be getting abused to buy a couple of players in 1 or 2 markets that are masquerading as small businesses shipping one item to one consumer when, in fact, they're really quite big businesses, doing mass commerce. We think that targeted regulation focused on cracking down on abuse may be very appropriate. We just want to make sure that we don't do one-size-fits-all solutions that would hurt the genuine small sellers like Etsy sellers for whom this de minimis exemption was originally created.

Okay. So you're somewhat actively involved in that.

Yes. we're pretty actively in dialogue on both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C. and in Brussels, because we really see ourselves as a voice for micro entrepreneurs. The needs of businesses of one, which are quite different than businesses of 100. And I've been really pleased by the engagement for all the -- everything in the press about what's going on right now in the environment. A lot of it is really frustrating. I have to say, I sit down with people in Congress on both sides of the aisle a lot these days. And the vast majority of them just want to make the economy grow and help small businesses. And it's actually a little encouraging.

Okay. Helpful. Shifting gears back to gifting for a minute. Gifting GMV was up 4% in 2Q. What's changed? Or is that level of GMV similar to what it was before gift mode? Are you seeing an incremental lift from gift mode? And what -- outside of just the notion of gift mode, what's driving people to come to you for gifting versus something else?

Yes. I do think we're seeing very encouraging signs of progress. So we said gifting GMS overall was up 4% in last quarter when the overall site-wide GMS was down. So there's quite a delta between gifting GMS and non-gifting GMS. And when we compare that to the National Retail Federation projections for what happened in gifting in the second quarter. They also said gifting was down last quarter. So we actually think we gained share in gifting at quite a nice pace. I think that's a combination of the product improvements we're making on the site, making it easier to find the perfect gift and also make it easier to send that perfect gift. And the marketing we're doing to associate Etsy is the perfect place for gifting. I do think that's not a hard sell for people. They do think themselves, oh yes, when you want to give a gift, do you really want to buy it at the cheapest possible place, or do you want to buy it in a place like Etsy that feels cool and special and unique. That association works. And we shared the Mother's Day and then Father's Day growth. Father's Day growth was up well over 10% year-over-year. So if you look at the trajectory of that, it was really encouraging. And again, we're just getting started.

Okay. Let's shift gears maybe to some of the more financial questions. Before we do that, Rachel announced she's going to be retiring you and Rachel essentially joined at the same time. I think I certainly view both of you as instrumental evolving actually to what it is today. So just anything you want to share on what changes with Rachel leaving and what the transition looks like or anything else around that?

Yes. I'd just say Rachel has been a wonderful partner, and I'm so grateful for the partnership and she's just been a fantastic CFO for Etsy and she's beloved inside the company, and I think outside the company as well. So she's got large, small shoes to fill. If you've met Rachel, she's not a very tall person. So her shoes are actually pretty small, but they feel very large. And we've got a high bar for what great looks like. And I think Etsy is an incredible company with incredible opportunity. And I think we're going to land an amazing CFO and I care a lot, we care a lot about leadership and that we bring someone to the company, who builds great teams and develops and grows great teams, but also someone who brings a lot of expertise in the areas that matter to Etsy, like how do we make sure we're getting good ROI on our marketing, how do we make sure we're getting good ROI on the investments we're making in software developers and our product and engineering teams. And I'm terribly grateful to Rachel and also looking forward to -- we'll find someone great. And I think it will be great to bring that perspective to the team as well.

Yes. We certainly wish her well in her retirement. There's a well less than 5 minutes left. We could check if anybody has any questions in the audience. Yes, go ahead. I don't see it, mic, but.

So the vast majority of sellers on Etsy [indiscernible] their priority is to drive more male sellers to the site and if it's so, are there any steps you guys are currently taking [indiscernible]?

Great question. Yes. So the question is the vast majority of sellers on Etsy appear to be women, and that's true, about, call it, 85%-ish of sellers on Etsy are women. And the question was, is there an effort to bring more male sellers to Etsy. And that, I'd say, candidly, no, we really don't have a lot of efforts to bring sellers to Etsy. We get hundreds of thousands of sellers joining Etsy organically every month. And we already have 7 million sellers on Etsy. So for the most part, if there's something you want, it already exists and it's already for sale on Etsy. And so really, what we need to make the marketplace grow is to bring more buyers to Etsy. Of course, we welcome with open arms new sellers who joined Etsy, but we want to make the pie bigger for everyone that really involves bringing more buyers. Now on the buyer side, it is also true that about 80% of buyers are women. So we see a huge opportunity to bring more male buyers to Etsy. And it turns out we've got great stuff for men. Men tend to shop a little less often, but bigger ticket, spend a little more when they do shop. And so you're seeing us lean more into male channel -- into predominantly or historically male media channels. So for example, we're advertising more on the NFL, and we're quite pleased actually with how some of those advertising and marketing is going. One out of every 3 women in the United States have shopped on Etsy in the last 12 months. That means 2 out of every 3 women haven't and if we've got something for 1 out of every 3 women, we've got something for the other 2/3 for sure. But only 1 out of every 10 men in the United States has shopped on Etsy. That means 9 out of 10 haven't, and we've got huge opportunities there. And that's only the U.S. We certainly have opportunities in Europe as well.

Okay. So on margins, you're flat year-over-year, but that's the target. There's some acceleration in the second half. We often get the question, and you've called Etsy a lean organization. So you often talked about the headcount as a percentage of revenue compared to your peers. Maybe we often get the question about what's the right investment level if GMS hasn't grown for the last few years, should we be investing more into certain areas or not? How should we be thinking about margins probably?

It's something we think about a lot of the company. I would say I find the conversation of the year efficiency to be a little nuts, because one was it ever not supposed to be a year of efficiency so I would say at Etsy, every year that Rachel and I have been at the company has been a year of efficiency. We've been maniacally focused on making sure that every dollar we invest, we feel like we're getting a good return for it. And we've always cared about that. We've always felt like lean is great because it forces you to make prioritization decisions. And as a result, we have some of the highest revenue per head count of any business. In fact, if a business of our size and scale, I think it's hard to find anyone with the revenue per head count similar to us. You've got to look at much bigger companies before you get to revenue per head count in our ZIP code. And we're proud of that. And we also look at every dollar we spend on marketing and really try to make sure we measure what is the marginal return of each dollar spent. We care about growing this business for the long term and balancing growth and margins. So this year, we came into the year and people said, hey, margins have contracted for the last couple of years, and we're concerned about the trajectory. We'd like you to demonstrate that you can hold margins flat this year. That felt appropriate and we've got a lot of levers in this business. We're fortunate. We don't invest in warehouses. We don't have to buy billions of dollars of inventory hoping to sell it later. It's a wonderful financial model that Etsy benefits from. And so that was a commitment we felt comfortable to make to say, hey, we're going to hold margins. Margins this year will be at least as good as they were last year. And we just launched a major reinvention of the search engine, and we're about to launch a loyalty program, and we launched the creativity standards, and we're really starting to invest in discovery and moving people into the app. And so we're investing in old things that we feel good about. We're being selective on what are the vital few. But one of the few big bold things we really believe can move this business forward, and I'm super optimistic about what they'll yield.

Awesome. Well, that's our time. So we'll leave it there. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate your time.

Thank you.