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Etsy's move into manufacturers is an error IMHO. Etsy would be better served by shoring up its advantage in craftpeople sellers, including artisinal products,

by jph 11y ago

Etsy's move into manufacturers is an error IMHO. Etsy would be better served by shoring up its advantage in craftpeople sellers, including artisinal products, one of a kind items, and handmade creations. Etsy has had difficult times since the spring IPO. The causes that I see are primarily due to large increases (+50%) in spending vs. no corresponding movement in income. Discoverability/search has decreased, and gamed listings by knockoff manufacturers are squeezing out legitimate handcrafters. In addition, Etsy sellers who are true independents are moving to other hosting platforms that provide more capabilities such as Wix and SquareSpace, and to more popular promotions areas such as Instagram and Pinterest. Amazon Handmade looks promising as well. Rather than trying to diversify into manufacturers and supply choices, Etsy would be wise IMHO to focus on its core strength of handcrafting, and specifically focus on two immediate goals: 1) Significantly improve discoverability/search. Esty needs to make it easier for people to locate items by e.g. regional areas, fair trade practices, true handcrafting, one of a kind items, etc. 2) Return the Etsy treasuries. Treasuries were user-curated collections featuring browse by image. The treasuries worked much like Pinterest, and looked somewhat like Instagram. The important aspects are the user curation and the inclusion of multiple craftspeople and items on one page.

paulmd 11y ago
The manufacturers were already on Etsy anyway, and Etsy wasn't really making much of an effort to get rid of them, so it's basically a move to legitimize the status quo. I agree that the brand damage is probably going to hurt in the long term, Amazon and eBay have already locked up the "generic crap from China" market. But I guess Etsy is probably thinking that their money spends just like everyone else's, so. I strongly agree with your first point. Etsy's search is hot garbage, you just can't get there from here. The only major e-commerce site with a comparably bad search is Amazon, and they are highly aware of how many of their inlinks are coming from "productName amazon" and working hard to rectify the problem. Personally I wish more sites implemented searches that let you get at categories and attributes and apply Boolean logic to them (eg "glass bowl NOT pipe region:PacificNorthWest"). At least then the powerusers can eventually strugglebus their way through the crap. Ebay's search is actually fantastic in this respect, and you can find a lot of the same stuff that's on Etsy - much more easily. Especially, again, the generic Chinese crap. Now mind you, I've never seen anyone actually DOCUMENT their searches well, even in the cases where they implement them. Not even Google has a single source where you can find everything.

by jph 11y ago

paulmd 11y ago

The manufacturers were already on Etsy anyway, and Etsy wasn't really making much of an effort to get rid of them, so it's basically a move to legitimize the status quo. I agree that the brand damage is probably going to hurt in the long term, Amazon and eBay have already locked up the "generic crap from China" market. But I guess Etsy is probably thinking that their money spends just like everyone else's, so. I strongly agree with your first point. Etsy's search is hot garbage, you just can't get there from here. The only major e-commerce site with a comparably bad search is Amazon, and they are highly aware of how many of their inlinks are coming from "productName amazon" and working hard to rectify the problem. Personally I wish more sites implemented searches that let you get at categories and attributes and apply Boolean logic to them (eg "glass bowl NOT pipe region:PacificNorthWest"). At least then the powerusers can eventually strugglebus their way through the crap. Ebay's search is actually fantastic in this respect, and you can find a lot of the same stuff that's on Etsy - much more easily. Especially, again, the generic Chinese crap. Now mind you, I've never seen anyone actually DOCUMENT their searches well, even in the cases where they implement them. Not even Google has a single source where you can find everything.