Etsy First Quarter 2024: Sales Down Year-Over-Year

 

May 9, 2024

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Etsy, Inc. results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024 revealed gross merchandise sales (GMS) of $3.0 billion—down 3.7% year-over-year.

“Our first quarter performance, while in line with our guidance, was pressured by the challenging environment for consumer discretionary products, which continues to be a headwind to Etsy marketplace growth,” said Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy, Inc via press release. “That said, we are encouraged by the meaningful progress we have made to improve customer experiences that we expect will drive buyer consideration and frequency over time, and we are working with focus and urgency to set the foundation to reignite Etsy marketplace growth. I’m confident that leaning into our differentiators to make Etsy even more Etsy will help ensure we stand out in the sea of sameness in e-commerce.”

First quarter 2024 performance highlights:

  • Consolidated GMS of $3.0 billion, down 3.7% year-over-year and down 4.1% on a currency-neutral basis. Headwinds to consolidated GMS included a still challenging macroeconomic environment that impacted consumer discretionary product spending, as well as a small headwind from the prior year divestiture of Elo7.
  • Etsy marketplace GMS was $2.6 billion, down 5.3% year-over-year and down 5.6% on a currency-neutral basis.
  • Gift Mode is off to a solid start as one important component to drive awareness of Etsy as a destination for gift giving. In the first quarter, Etsy’s site-wide ‘Gifting’ GMS grew low single digits on a year-over-year basis, outperforming the Etsy marketplace’s overall growth and select U.S. online gifting ‘pure play’ peers.
  • Active buyers increased 1.9% year-over-year to 91.6 million, largely flat on a sequential basis. United States active buyers grew slightly on a year-over-year basis for the third quarter in a row, and Etsy continued to see healthy year-over-year growth in international active buyers.

“On a consolidated basis, our revenue outgrew GMS, and adjusted EBITDA margins were in line with expectations,” said Rachel Glaser, chief financial officer. “We believe that our disciplined investment approach and sharp eye on cost management enable us to simultaneously invest in future growth while delivering on profitability. It is encouraging to see continued health in our Etsy marketplace active buyer metric during the first quarter, which remains at record levels – with further improvement in the U.S. and continued growth internationally on a year-over-year basis.”