How Amy Lucy is rewriting its titles to say what each gift is
amylucydesigns
Amy Lucy has made more than 368,000 sales of personalised gifts on Etsy since 2011, with over 42,000 reviews. The studio is using Alura's listing editor to trade long strings of gift keywords for plain product names that say what each item is, what it's made of and how big it is.
Original artwork on everyday things
Amy started Amy Lucy in 2011 as a surface pattern designer, and the shop still runs on her artwork. Watercolour ducks cover a journal. A row of sausage dogs runs along a tea towel. A robin sits on a Christmas stocking, and a reindeer teddy wears a baby's first Christmas on its tummy. Almost everything carries a name.
Everything is made to order, printed, engraved or finished in the studio in Shropshire. The range is wide: wooden baby keepsake boxes, flower girl aprons, Santa sacks, teacher mugs, baking tins, toy bags and gentle keepsakes for families who have lost a baby, across more than a thousand listings. Gift notes are free on request, and gift wrapping is an optional extra.
Titles built for an older kind of search
For years the usual Etsy advice was to fill a title with every phrase a shopper might type, and Amy Lucy's titles followed it. A child's water bottle was "Personalised Fox Water Bottle, Fox School Bottle, Kids Fox Drink Bottle, Boys School Flask, Kids Children Student Drinks Cup, Fox Theme". A toiletry bag was also a makeup bag, a travel beauty bag, a period bag, a stocking filler and a teen gift, all in one line.
Each phrase was a real search. But more shoppers now browse on a phone, where a title that long is cut off after the first few words. What gets cut is often the part a parent or gift buyer wants to know: what it's made of, how big it is, and how the name goes on.
“Those long titles did their job for a long time. On a phone, though, you only see the first few words, so those words have to say what the thing actually is.”
An AI first draft, with the final word kept in the studio
The studio is working through its listings in Alura's listing editor, starting with a first batch. Each listing has a Listing score out of 100, with separate grades for photos, video, title, description and tags, so it's clear which part of a listing is weakest. In Optimization settings they tick the title, description and tags, then click Start optimization. The AI reads the listing and proposes new versions, one listing at a time. Nothing reaches Etsy until someone clicks Publish changes.
The proposals follow an order that suits a gift shop. The product comes first, then the material and size, then the personalisation. The long lists of possible recipients come out of the title, and the occasions stay in the tags.
Tags get the same treatment. On the pink bow water bottle, loose tags like "Kids", "Bows" and "Pretty Bows" were replaced with phrases a parent would actually type, such as "toddler drink bottle", "metal water bottle" and "name water bottle". The duck journal picked up "a5 duck journal" and "teal heart journal", which describe that exact notebook.
Every proposal lands in the editor first, where it can be rewritten line by line. View changes shows exactly what's different before anything is published, and Listing history keeps every earlier version if a change needs undoing. That matters on a shop this size, because a new title is only as good as the facts in it. If the AI adds a size or a material, someone has to check it against the real product before it goes live.
“I'm happy for the AI to do the first draft. It's my artwork on these things, though, so the final say on every title stays with us.”
Product names a shopper can read at a glance
The new titles are short enough to read in full on a phone, and they answer the practical questions first. Each pair below is the same listing, before and after. Nothing in the new versions is clever. They just say what the thing is. The gift-for lists are gone, the product name leads, and the material or size follows close behind.
Details that used to live only in the description now sit where a shopper sees them first: 100% cotton, A5 or A6, two sizes, a hanging loop. The descriptions changed in the same spirit. The duck journal's old description opened by repeating its title. The new one describes the journal itself: watercolour ducks and teal hearts across its cover, lined pages and a personalised name. Most of the catalog still carries the older titles, and the studio is working through the rest.
Personalised Gym Bag Kids, Girls Unicorn Gym Bag, Girls Drawstring Bag, School Bag, Unicorn School PE Bag, Unicorn Pump Bag, Nursery Bag
Girls Drawstring Bag, 100% Cotton Pink Unicorn School Bag With Personalised Name
Personalised Page Boy Gift Bag, Page Boy Gift Bag, Blue Theme, Wedding Page Boy Thank you Gift, Wedding Gift, Page Boy Gift, Wedding Day
Page Boy Gift Bag, White Gloss Bag With Personalised Blue Thank You Sticker
Personalised Duck Journal, Duck Gift For Her, Duck Notebook, Duck Owner Gifts, Personalised Duck Gift, Duck Lover
Personalised Duck Journal, Watercolour Artwork with Name, A5 or A6 Lined Notebook
Personalised Tea Towel, New Home Gift, Custom Kitchen Gift, Housewarming Gift for Her, Minimalist Kitchen Decor
Custom Tea Towel, Printed Polyester House Illustration with Names, Two Sizes and Hanging Loop
Advice for other sellers
Read your titles on your phone. If you can't tell what the product is from the part that shows, a shopper can't either.
Let a tool draft the dull part, then check every detail it adds against the product on your bench. A wrong size or material in a title is worse than a missing one.
If you sell your own artwork, say so in the title. It's the one thing a shopper can't get from the shop next door.
“Say what the thing is first. Who it's for can come later, because the buyer already knows who they're shopping for.”
amylucydesigns received Alura credits as a thank-you for sharing this story.