What we collect—and what we deliberately leave alone.

Who is responsible for your information?

Joe Stanley, trading as What Sells Next, is the data controller for information collected directly by this service. What Sells Next is operated from the United Kingdom.

For privacy questions or requests, email hello@whatsellsnext.com.

Information we use

Etsy outcome tracking is not currently offered and no new outcome records are accepted. Existing historical records have not been deleted; contact hello@whatsellsnext.com for access or deletion. Guest profiles, pinned ideas, saved projects, guide progress and Radar work are kept in that browser where storage is available. Signed-in work is saved automatically to the account and restored when you return. Valid, non-conflicting guest data from the same browser is copied after verified sign-in; an existing account profile wins a conflict. A fallback browser copy remains until you clear browser data. If two browser copies disagree, neither is auto-merged or deleted. Etsy credentials, subscriptions and allowances are not transferred. Signing out stops access to that account’s workspace.

Do not enter customer names, addresses, private messages, payment information, passwords or sensitive personal information into product searches, planning replies, outcomes or feedback.

Privacy-conscious product measurement

What Sells Next records a small set of first-party event names, such as opening the product, completing a demand check, starting development or saving a project. New events use either a signed-in account identifier or an anonymous first-party guest identifier derived from an essential random guest cookie, together with a temporary random session identifier, so we can estimate active users and understand where the product journey needs improvement. The secure, HTTP-only guest cookie lasts for up to 180 days and also keeps free-check allowances, guest feedback and their deletion controls tied to the same browser.

The first-party measurement record does not contain your search wording, maker-profile text, planning replies, saved-guide content, Etsy listing details, buyer information, IP address or advertising identifier.

You can turn this measurement off in this browser and delete existing events linked to your account using the control below. The on/off preference is local to this browser; set it on each device you use. Core product features continue to work when measurement is off. Older browser-era events require support for deletion.

Separately, Google Analytics can measure page visits and general interactions so we can understand how the site is used. Google Ads can measure a verified new account registration. Google Ads and Reddit Ads can also measure an account-bound, confirmed Premium subscription and record the subscription value in pounds. These external measurement tags are not loaded unless you choose “Allow measurement.”

After you allow measurement, a temporary signed, HTTP-only cookie and a random tab token establish when this visit began. For up to 30 minutes, we can compare that time with your verified account creation time to measure a new registration, rather than an ordinary sign-in. Only an opaque, purpose-specific conversion reference is sent to Google; no account identifier or email is sent. Withdrawing measurement or excluding this browser clears the tab token and requests deletion of the cookie; the cookie also expires automatically.

After you allow measurement, this tab can keep campaign labels, ad click identifiers and the referring website's origin in session storage. We use that record for up to 30 minutes to retain the visit's source through navigation and sign-in; it does not include arbitrary URL parameters or sign-in tokens. Withdrawing consent clears it. The “Exclude this browser” control below stores a browser preference that pauses product statistics, Google Analytics and advertising measurement for your own visits and testing, including while signed out. It clears this attribution record and keeps your other measurement choices.

If you choose “Allow measurement,” Google analytics storage, advertising storage and advertising user data are enabled, and the Reddit Pixel loads to record page visits and account-bound confirmed Premium purchases. This lets Google Analytics report page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, form interactions, video engagement and file downloads. No Google or Reddit measurement tag is loaded before that choice or after “No thanks,” and production tags are not loaded on the staging or legacy-account hosts. Site-search capture is disabled. Google ad personalisation, remarketing and Reddit's automatic email and phone matching remain disabled. We do not send your email address, phone number, search wording, maker-profile text, shop data or payment-card details to Google or Reddit. You can withdraw this choice without deleting saved work from the data controls on this page.

What Sells Next for Etsy: Chrome extension

The extension adds Crossover controls beside Etsy listings. When you choose a listing, it reads a limited amount of that listing’s text and its link. On individual product pages, this can include the title, description, category and materials. After you confirm the simple product, those details go to the What Sells Next connection tab to run the research you requested using your maker profile. It does not collect your general browsing history or read private Etsy pages, messages or buyer details.

If you turn on “Show sales estimates,” the extension sends the IDs of visible Etsy listings to your signed-in WSN connection tab. WSN uses public Etsy data and shared estimates cached for up to six hours. For your own connected shop, complete paid-order counts can replace estimates when you have granted order-reading permission. WSN processes those orders on its server; only the aggregate count, listing and shop identifiers, dates and whether a figure is estimated or actual are returned to the extension. Raw orders, buyer details and Etsy credentials never reach Etsy page controls. The toggle is saved locally; turning it off stops new lookups. Sales overlays do not use AI or research credits, and do not automatically add watched shops.

Recent research jobs, selected listing references, aggregate result snapshots, pending save actions and the owning WSN account identifier are kept in the extension’s local Chrome storage to recover progress and prevent another account from claiming a result. This storage is bounded to recent jobs, not automatically cleared when research finishes. Earlier beta saves remain on that device until removed from the extension panel. Removing the extension clears its local data.

Save to WSN adds the aggregate research to your account’s pinned ideas, under the storage and deletion rules above. Sign-in credentials, authentication tokens and payment details stay with the WSN site and its existing providers; the extension does not receive them. The requested research uses the Etsy and AI processing described here. Normal WSN research-usage and allowance records also apply, subject to the measurement controls below. We do not sell extension data or use it for unrelated advertising.

Your Etsy shop connection

If you choose to connect Etsy, you authorise What Sells Next through Etsy's own sign-in page. We request the read-only shops_r permission to identify your shop and listings_r to read its active listings. We store your Etsy user ID, shop ID and shop name; encrypted access and refresh tokens; token expiry and scope; and a compact profile made from active-listing titles, materials, tags, styles, price range and listing count.

The standard connection does not request order access. If you choose Connect order statistics, Etsy asks you to approve the additional read-only transactions_r permission. We use dated receipts to count paid orders containing your listing, excluding cancelled and refunded orders. Receipts may include buyer details; those details are discarded during aggregation and are not shown, stored in the application database or sent to the AI service. Only an aggregate order count and its date range can be saved with a listing scenario.

We do not request permission to create or edit Etsy listings, and we never receive your Etsy password. Raw connected-shop responses, receipts and listing images are not retained in the application database.

An authorisation state can be used for only ten minutes while you move between What Sells Next and Etsy. It is deleted when the callback finishes; an abandoned or expired record is removed by later connection activity or the scheduled daily cleanup. You can disconnect from the main product or use the deletion control below; this deletes the stored tokens, imported shop summary, personal trend reports and followed topics linked to your account.

Public Etsy marketplace information

What Sells Next searches public marketplace information through Etsy's official API. Results can include listing titles, links, images, asking prices, favourites, shop names and listing-review counts. For buyer-topic summaries we transiently check up to ten recent reviews per sampled listing, using English-language text, its language and creation date. We retain only fixed topic labels and aggregate counts in research caches and saved evidence, not review text, review images or buyer identifiers. The review text is not sent to the AI service. They produce bounded market comparisons and are not treated as exact competitor sales.

Direct listing images, Etsy member identities and private buyer information are not sent to the AI service. See Etsy API use for the full boundary.

Competition Watch

When you follow an Etsy shop, we save that preference under your account. We collect bounded public listing details, sales counters, views and aggregate dated review counts to provide labelled sales and revenue estimates and record changes. Public observations can be reused for other people following the same shop. Review text and buyer identities are discarded. Premium watchlists can refresh in the background while the feature is enabled.

You can privately enter actual sales and item revenue to compare against an already saved estimate. These entries stay linked to your account, are not shared with other watchers or sent to AI, and do not change public estimates. The Crossover and product-idea actions pass only the editable product description into the chosen tool.

When you view your own connected shop in Competition Watch, optional read-only order access can replace estimates with recorded figures for the same dates. Items sold means paid item quantities before returns. Item revenue excludes delivery and tax and reflects discounts; revenue affected by unresolved refunds remains unavailable. Only complete date ranges are displayed. These private aggregates stay in the current page, are not shared with other watchers or sent to AI, and never train the competitor estimates. Choose Connect sales history to grant order access if your connection does not already include it.

Social trend research

Social Briefing is currently paused. We do not start new social research or generate social reports while it is paused. Earlier records remain subject to the retention and deletion rules below.

Social trend reports use recent public posts and conversations collected through Buzzabout's API. We retain bounded evidence excerpts, source-platform names, post links, publication dates and collection dates to support the reports. The sources and date coverage available for each report can vary.

For subscribers with a connected Etsy shop, relevant shop-profile details and any followed topics help us prepare a daily personal report. Related research can be shared across reports, while advice based on your shop stays linked to your account. The AI service receives relevant profile details and social evidence to interpret the findings; it does not receive your Etsy access tokens, buyers or orders.

Listing copy checks

Basic checks run in your browser and identify observable text issues; they do not establish overall listing quality. An AI copy review assesses your current title, description and tags from a listing verified as belonging to your connected shop. Choosing Audit my shop starts these reviews individually, with visible progress and pause controls. Photos are not sent to AI or visually assessed.

Copy reviews send this selected text to the OpenAI API, using store=false. OpenAI's applicable API retention controls still apply. Reviews do not receive photos, photo URLs or metadata, Etsy access tokens, buyer information, orders or private messages. Results include supporting excerpts and editable suggestions, cached under your account for six-hour reuse and removed by the existing retention process or when you disconnect the shop or delete your workspace. WSN does not retain image files or raw AI responses. Saved drafts use the usual account workspace storage. Suggested edits never publish automatically to Etsy.

URL and shop imports may also show Etsy's reported view count and original creation date where available; an undated view count is not treated as recent traffic. If you continue to a new draft, you choose the product name, search phrase and confirmed facts to send through Listing Helper.

When you choose to connect order statistics, a temporary copy of your current audit edits and statistics inputs is kept in this browser tab so it can be restored after Etsy authorisation. It is restricted to the same WSN account and listing, used once on return, and expires after 30 minutes. This recovery copy is not uploaded to account storage.

A saved revenue scenario includes your supplied listing views, the order count for the same period, its source and dates, sale value and any assumptions you choose. These are conditional calculations, not measured gains caused by WSN. Older scenarios without a matching statistics period remain available for review but are excluded from current totals.

With your existing order permission, the shop audit can load available order history and recent counts for all your listings in one check. Aggregate counts remain in the current page; buyer details and raw order records are discarded. The annual value display combines the listed price with an editable assumed increase in annual orders, using complete history and the original listing date where available. Its minimum one-extra-sale scenario is an assumption, not guaranteed revenue. Section amounts share that one scenario and are not added to saved earnings or lifetime totals.

AI-assisted processing

When you request product ideas, planning help or a visual aid, relevant maker information, your instructions and limited aggregate market evidence are sent to the OpenAI API. Listing copy reviews use the selected listing text described above. Daily social trend reports also use relevant collected social evidence and, for personal reports, connected-shop profile details. Connected-shop access tokens and raw Etsy responses are not sent to the AI.

OpenAI processes API data under its business data terms and applicable retention controls. What Sells Next does not use your information for third-party advertising and does not sell personal information.

Why we may process information

Your right to object: you may object to processing based on legitimate interests. Email us with your circumstances; we will stop unless there is a compelling lawful reason to continue.

Service providers and international processing

• Clerk, for customer sign-in. It handles account registration, email verification, recovery and selected social sign-in connections. What Sells Next does not store your Google, Apple or X password. Existing test accounts continue to use their original sign-in until explicitly migrated.
• OpenAI, for AI-assisted outputs.
• Buzzabout, for API collection of public social posts used in social trend research.
• Cloudflare, for website delivery, application hosting, database storage and security.
• Google Analytics, for consent-aware page and general interaction measurement. Analytics storage is denied until you allow measurement. Site-search capture is disabled, and we do not send search wording, maker-profile text, shop data or payment-card details.
• Stripe and Link, for hosted checkout, subscription management, payment processing, tax, fraud prevention, disputes and transaction support. Stripe acts as merchant of record for eligible Managed Payments purchases and receives the contact, payment and transaction information entered during checkout. What Sells Next does not receive or store your full payment-card number.
• Google Ads, for conversion measurement after you allow measurement. It can then store attribution information. Ad personalisation and remarketing are not enabled.
• Reddit Ads, for consent-aware page-visit and conversion measurement. Its Pixel loads only after you allow measurement; automatic email and phone matching and remarketing are not enabled.
• Etsy, for public marketplace searches and seller-authorised shop access.
• eBay, only when a secondary market check is deliberately used.
• Microsoft 365, when you email the support address.
• Professional advisers, regulators or authorities where reasonably necessary or legally required.

Some providers may process information outside the UK. Where UK personal data is transferred internationally, we rely on applicable adequacy regulations, contractual safeguards or another lawful transfer mechanism.

Retention, storage and cookies

Your display currency defaults from the country supplied by our hosting service, or your browser’s regional language setting. If you change it, we remember that choice in local storage until cleared and in a first-party preference cookie for up to one year. The browser-data control clears both. Public reference exchange rates are fetched by our server without sending your account, shop or research details to the rate provider.

• Account profiles, pinned ideas, projects and progress remain until you delete them using the controls below. A content-free account ID and revision remain to prevent an old tab restoring deleted work. Older browser copies remain until you clear them.
• Saved listing drafts and value scenarios remain until you remove them or clear your workspace using the controls below. Scenarios older than 30 days are excluded from the current total until reviewed; exclusion does not delete them. URL imports do not save full listing descriptions or tags to your account.
• An Etsy connection remains until you disconnect it, delete your service data or the authorisation can no longer be refreshed.
• Social trend reports and locally stored source excerpts are removed by scheduled retention once they are more than 60 days old. Followed topics remain until you change or remove them, disconnect Etsy or delete your account data. Disconnecting Etsy or deleting account data also removes personal trend reports. Shared daily reports and source research follow their own 60-day retention period. Minimal service-wide research-run identifiers, dates, status and spending reservations remain to enforce budgets and reconcile provider charges; they do not contain your shop profile or personal report.
• Competition Watch keeps public numeric observations and estimate history for up to 400 days. Older non-current listing detail snapshots are reduced after seven days; the latest remains while the shop is followed. Shops with no remaining watchers and no active collection are removed after seven days. Private comparison entries remain until you delete your account data. Removing a watched shop removes your follow preference; deleting account data also removes your private comparisons and does not delete public research still used by other watchers.
• Product-usage events are normally retained for up to 12 months. You can turn off measurement and delete events linked to your account below.
• Idea-check allowances use a separate account or guest record, including a query fingerprint, start time and cached public Etsy research response. This binds the initial result and its review follow-up to the same check, while atomic reservations enforce the rolling 24-hour limit. These records expire after 24 hours and are removed by scheduled daily retention; later check activity may also prune them. Clearing saved work or disabling analytics does not reset allowances.
• Premium access records store your account ID, access expiry and the source of the entitlement. Subscription records hold Stripe customer and subscription references, status, paid-period dates, agreed monthly price, cancellation status and whether access is blocked after a refund or dispute. Payment collection is available through Stripe's hosted checkout.
• Research and Premium usage records store request fingerprints, feature type, timestamps and completion status. Research queries, research responses and planning-response caches expire after 24 hours and are removed by scheduled daily retention; later relevant use may also prune them. Usage metadata is retained until 90 days after the relevant allowance period ends. Minimal receipts recording used free crossover credits and the first three successful free discovery searches are retained for the lifetime of the account, so clearing browser data, signing in elsewhere or routine cleanup cannot restore the starter allowance. Later weekly discovery receipts expire normally. No image files are stored in these allowance records. Separate safety records contain account IDs, timestamps and estimated request costs; they expire after 24 hours and are removed by the daily retention task.
• Feedback and outcome records are normally retained for up to 12 months after the last related activity unless needed longer for security, legal claims or a legal obligation.
• Support correspondence is normally retained for up to 24 months after the matter is closed.
• Provider security and API logs follow the relevant provider's retention schedule.

What Sells Next uses local storage for your usage-measurement preference, your analytics-and-advertising measurement choice, conversion deduplication, a browser-deletion coordination timestamp and guest profile, pinned-idea, project, Radar, import-receipt and conflict-recovery work. If local persistence fails, current guest edits can remain only in the open page until saving succeeds. Signed-in profiles, pinned ideas and projects use account storage; a valid guest copy remains locally as a fallback after confirmed import until you use the browser-data control. Discovery caches, the previous-idea trail and unfinished planning remain only in the current page. Session storage holds a temporary random first-party analytics session identifier and, only after you allow measurement, a pending Stripe checkout-return identifier for up to 24 hours so a temporarily offline confirmation can retry. A connected shop uses a separate essential, secure, HTTP-only cookie containing a random session value. On the primary site, Cloudflare can also use a network address transiently as an edge rate-limit key for analytics and guest marketplace requests; What Sells Next does not add the raw address to its application database. Google analytics storage, Google advertising storage and the Reddit Pixel are available only after you allow measurement; they are used for site-usage measurement and ad attribution, not personalised advertising or remarketing.

Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may ask for access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection or a portable copy of personal information. You may also complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

What Sells Next does not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. Recommendations are advisory and require human judgement.

Children and changes

The service is intended for adult makers and Etsy sellers, not children. We will update this notice when material features or data uses change and will present significant changes before continued use where appropriate.