Etsy’s marketplace thrives on personalization, but something was missing: the human touch. While algorithms did a great job surfacing relevant products, they lacked the inspirational magic of curated collections that starts trends and sparks inspiration.

Create a seamless way for buyers to explore trend-driven, handpicked collections while maintaining the personalized experience Etsy is known for.

The challenge was twofold:
‍Balance Curation & Personalization – We needed to blend editorial selections with dynamic recommendations in a way that felt natural.

‍Scalability – The merchandising team had to be able to easily build and update curated collections without engineering support.

I conducted user interviews to understand how buyers discover new products and engage with curated content.
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I worked with the merchandise analyst team to analyzed shopping behavior data to identify which types of collections drive the most engagement that we could test with.

I explored multiple layouts to blend curated picks with dynamic recommendations and created a flexible card-based design that worked across desktop and mobile.

I built interactive prototypes and ran tests to ensure the experience felt natural. I iterated on filtering options to make curated collections more discoverable.