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I think that's the fundamental flaw with Etsy. By it's very nature, you earnings are time limited. So once you get well known enough and successful, suddenly Et

by awjr 12y ago

I think that's the fundamental flaw with Etsy. By it's very nature, you earnings are time limited. So once you get well known enough and successful, suddenly Etsy does not look attractive any more. Etsy's move into allowing designed items to be sold is a recognition that to cash out on Etsy you need to have other people make your products for you (as you are time limited) or attempt to price yourself high while trying to sell into a market where people are constantly undercutting each other. So there is a natural progression to mass made designer items. The moment you begin thinking about higher pricing, you're on the path to selling at your local craft markets or in local boutique shops.

pjc50 12y ago
.. except that the entire sales pitch for "craft", "handmade", and "indie" relies on believing that the items are being made in a particular way, by non-alienated labour. Turning it into mass production is the opposite of what the original buyer's culture wants.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Agustus 12y ago
  Exactly this, the products became more and more mass produced instead of the etsy sales pitch of one-offs.
noelwelsh 12y ago
You are right but it's deeper than that. The entire philosophy is nonsensical. Notably Etsy didn't restrict their own scalability. It's not like each order was hand fulfilled or something. Etsy is very happy to utilise their capital to scale their business while they restricted their sellers from doing the same. It's funny that this article positions Etsy as selling out, where as what they had before was a manifestly unfair business model for their sellers.
- goodJobWalrus 12y ago
  No, sellers that refer to themselves as crafters are actually saying exactly the opposite. This business model that allows manufacturing is unfair to them because they can't compete, essentially. The same way crafters can't compete with manufacturing on any other marketplace. And they are disappointed because Etsy has originally promised to be different. And their problem is not only price competition from chinese trinket sellers, but also visibility. Because manufacturers have many more products, small sellers don't show up in search results any more.
  - noelwelsh 12y ago
    The point I'm trying to make is that the crafter philosophy, on which Etsy is built, is non-sensical. Etsy's old rules keep crafters poor, because they can't harness economies of scale. The new rules put new entrants at a disadvantage. At some point Etsy's policy what that you could outsource work if you worked in the same location (IIRC) which biases the market against third world artisans. Morocco, for instance, is full of people creating beautiful goods in small workshops. Under these rules they couldn't have a US representative sell their goods. The only way I could interpret Etsy's rules was as an elaborate code for "people like us" -- affluent, middle class, first world residents.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      I don't follow you. How is keeping things hand made and priced appropriately nonsensical? What economies of scale even exist when it comes to hand crafting? Also, how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves?
      - noelwelsh 12y ago
        > how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves? I'm basing this on my experience in Morocco in 2004. I doubt the artisans I saw could afford Internet access, or would understand how to work a site like Etsy, or had sufficient written English skills to deal with first world customers. The mail system was notoriously prone to losing packages as well. If they could get a middle man they could access the market, but Etsy's rules forbade this.
mcdoug 12y ago
Another approach is to diversify: have a second product that is targetted at larger businesses, with a nice seamless transition from Etsy to this new platform.

by awjr 12y ago

pjc50 12y ago

.. except that the entire sales pitch for "craft", "handmade", and "indie" relies on believing that the items are being made in a particular way, by non-alienated labour. Turning it into mass production is the opposite of what the original buyer's culture wants.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Agustus 12y ago
Exactly this, the products became more and more mass produced instead of the etsy sales pitch of one-offs.

noelwelsh 12y ago

You are right but it's deeper than that. The entire philosophy is nonsensical. Notably Etsy didn't restrict their own scalability. It's not like each order was hand fulfilled or something. Etsy is very happy to utilise their capital to scale their business while they restricted their sellers from doing the same. It's funny that this article positions Etsy as selling out, where as what they had before was a manifestly unfair business model for their sellers.

goodJobWalrus 12y ago
No, sellers that refer to themselves as crafters are actually saying exactly the opposite. This business model that allows manufacturing is unfair to them because they can't compete, essentially. The same way crafters can't compete with manufacturing on any other marketplace. And they are disappointed because Etsy has originally promised to be different. And their problem is not only price competition from chinese trinket sellers, but also visibility. Because manufacturers have many more products, small sellers don't show up in search results any more.
- noelwelsh 12y ago
  The point I'm trying to make is that the crafter philosophy, on which Etsy is built, is non-sensical. Etsy's old rules keep crafters poor, because they can't harness economies of scale. The new rules put new entrants at a disadvantage. At some point Etsy's policy what that you could outsource work if you worked in the same location (IIRC) which biases the market against third world artisans. Morocco, for instance, is full of people creating beautiful goods in small workshops. Under these rules they couldn't have a US representative sell their goods. The only way I could interpret Etsy's rules was as an elaborate code for "people like us" -- affluent, middle class, first world residents.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    I don't follow you. How is keeping things hand made and priced appropriately nonsensical? What economies of scale even exist when it comes to hand crafting? Also, how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves?
    - noelwelsh 12y ago
      > how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves? I'm basing this on my experience in Morocco in 2004. I doubt the artisans I saw could afford Internet access, or would understand how to work a site like Etsy, or had sufficient written English skills to deal with first world customers. The mail system was notoriously prone to losing packages as well. If they could get a middle man they could access the market, but Etsy's rules forbade this.

mcdoug 12y ago

Another approach is to diversify: have a second product that is targetted at larger businesses, with a nice seamless transition from Etsy to this new platform.