86.5 million active buyers in Q4. Down 3.4% from the year before. That's the headline Etsy keeps trying to bury under revenue growth and take rate expansion. But there's a counter-argument forming.
U.S. buyer GMS rose 0.3% in Q4, the first increase in four years. Etsy acquired 6.8 million new buyers and reactivated 10.4 million in the quarter, a 2.7% increase in gross additions. The trajectory is technically improving, just slowly. And Etsy's core marketplace GMS was $3.29 billion, basically flat year-over-year.
Flat used to be a death sentence in growth-stock land. Now it's being marketed as stabilization. Whether you buy that depends on how patient you are.