Today someone tweeted a link to their friend’s Etsy shop. I clicked on the link, landed at the Etsy shop, and noticed an overlay in the footer that said:

Hi! We'd like to set these regional settings for you: English (US), $ United States Dollar USD, United States : (Okay) (No thanks)

I saw this and thought to myself: I prefer English (UK) when I have a choice, I prefer $ Australian Dollar AUD, and I’m in Australia. I tried to click on the text but it wouldn’t let me change any of the options so I clicked “No thanks” and expected it to go away. Instead the overlay was replaced with another letting me know that my preferences had been saved. What?! I’d said “No thanks”!

Your preferences have been saved. You can always update these regional settings later at the bottom of any page.

There are a couple of flaws here:

• Etsy gave me the impression that I had options.
• Etsy gave me options that did not match my needs.
• Etsy offered me a choice to decline the options and then ignored my choice.

What Etsy could have done:

• Not shown me an overlay and defaulted the site to English (US), $ United States Dollar USD, and United States. If I had reached the point where I was interested in buying I may have noticed the options to switch over to $AUD, or I could have been given a specific option when I was about to make a purchase. This isn’t ideal because I could be put off browsing products if I don’t have a good sense of the exchange rate.
• Shown me the overlay without a “No thanks” button – it would have forced me to click “Okay” but at least I wouldn’t have felt like I had any other option.
• Shown me the overlay and allowed me to adjust the settings in-line with the message.
• Shown me the overlay but matched my IP address or browser settings to have a better guess at which settings I might like to have. This can be a problem as there are many reasons why an IP address/browser will not match a person’s preferences but at least it has a chance of being a little more accurate than defaulting everyone to be American. In combination with the suggestion above to provide in-line settings, I could have adjusted the options if they were wrong.
• Shown me a different message when I clicked “No thanks” such as “We have left your settings at our default options of English (US), $ United States Dollar USD, United States. You can always update these regional settings later at the bottom of any page.”

From what I can see of the language, currency and region options that are available when you click on the link at the bottom of any Etsy page, Etsy appears to be in the process of rolling out new options for different countries and languages. It takes effort to provide that level of service on a site, however not providing clear instructions in the overlay they currently show is missing the mark and is failing to promote the options that are available.

All in all this is a minor gripe as taking a bit of care with small interactions like this isn’t going to save the world, however attention to detail can impact brand perception and the roll-out of grand plans.