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Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

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Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#31

The conversion problem on mobile does seem like an issue, but speaking as a former customer of Etsy what drove me away was the selection. Not that it's too small - rather, Etsy is now flooded with thousands of storefronts selling "artisan" pieces that are actually bought on AliExpress or similar and marked up. If they're trying to apply ML to managing customer recommendations, they should figure out how to identify w…

There seems to be some natural law of Internet shopping that ensures that every "Specialized marketplace for X," will, once it becomes popular, inevitably devolve into a flood of thousands of sellers all reselling identical cheap junk from AliExpress for $0.99 + free shipping--to the point where it's impossible to find anything genuine or non-counterfeit.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo is a basic example of activist investing. Activist investors try to increase shareholder value in the companies they invest in, in any way possible, to achieve above average returns for their investors. If that means burning down the house (e.g. selling a company in bits and pieces, or pushing certain strategic changes) then they will. Apple has plenty of cash on their books. If an activist shareholder could so…

Yahoo was a bloated carcass by the time activist investors got involved. Cutting the fat, selling off parts, and returning some value to investors was the only fair outcome.

Yahoo stock price went up 400% in 5 years. Investors made out quite well.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#33
post #30
post #16

It's bizarre to see how Etsy went from producing a significant amount of technical software and community engagement a few years ago and then suddenly stopped. Their GitHub is a testament to this sudden dropoff. Was there anything ever mentioned about why they went from super public about things like dashboarding to nothing?

A scenario where a new 'top dog' enters and proposes the solution to all problems™ : let's measure our conversions, optimize this and that and make more sales. By the way, all this time you're developing open source you're not helping the company so let's stop that, it costs us developer time and money. It's not unfeasible. It would be a scenario that could explain both portfolio degradation and community leave, and…

> By the way, all this time you're developing open source you're not helping the company so let's stop that, it costs us developer time and money.

that was not my experience at all. officially, open source was encouraged because it raised etsy's stock in the tech community, which was beneficial for hiring.

unofficially, middle managers discouraged it because it detracted from shipping quickly (which made them look good to upper management).

obviously the CTO/etc. could've just been paying the engineers lip service about open source, but they seemed to genuinely support and encourage open source contributions. they certainly celebrated when open source contributions actually happened.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#34

Welcome to the bursting of the second tech bubble. It's been slow so far, but it'll accelerate soon. Hang on! Why is it that on these threads, nobody seriously considers the possibility of a secular decline? Fundraising, after all, has slowed, real estate in south bay has softened, and interest rates are rising (making tech relatively less attractive). Not to mention the scandals that have erased billions; see Theran…

You said "a bursting of the bubble," and then asked why people aren't considering a decline. I think most people accept that investors are getting pickier, but that's not the same as your first paragraph (the sole contents of the original comment) suggesting a bubble burst, which by definition is a violent event.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#35

The conversion problem on mobile does seem like an issue, but speaking as a former customer of Etsy what drove me away was the selection. Not that it's too small - rather, Etsy is now flooded with thousands of storefronts selling "artisan" pieces that are actually bought on AliExpress or similar and marked up. If they're trying to apply ML to managing customer recommendations, they should figure out how to identify w…

it's trickier than you think.

a VERY common complaint i saw while i was at etsy:

"i make bracelets and someone on aliexpress is ripping off my designs and even my photos, what do i do?"

i'm not denying that someone would do exactly what you're describing (purchase on ali and resell on etsy), but it's sometimes way more complicated than that.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#36
I ordered a rustic pipe desk from Etsy a while back and the seller was not able to deliver the item on time. He/she communicated the issue so it wasn't that big of a deal for me. I had a prearranged vacation coming up while waiting for the item to be finished and sent, so things took a little bit longer then expected on both ends.

When I finally got back home and put the desk together, I noticed that there were items missing and some things had not been packaged well so they were damaged/scuffed in shipping. Most of the issues were minor and I decided to not make a stink about it with the seller as I could easily work around and fix the problems. I did however want to leave a review of my experience for the seller to be made aware and future buyers to be warned.

Etsy's policy was however to deny me to review an item outside of a certain time window. I emailed Etsy's customer service to petition that I should be allowed to leave a review even though my window had passed given that the seller could not deliver in the time he/she had promised. Etsy's replies and refusal to allow this left a permanent impression on me and I will never spend another dollar there as a result of this ordeal.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#37

The conversion problem on mobile does seem like an issue, but speaking as a former customer of Etsy what drove me away was the selection. Not that it's too small - rather, Etsy is now flooded with thousands of storefronts selling "artisan" pieces that are actually bought on AliExpress or similar and marked up. If they're trying to apply ML to managing customer recommendations, they should figure out how to identify w…

I have to completely agree. The times I've bought something on Etsy I've spent hours filtering through the stuff that either didn't seem that interesting or unique or just wasn't handmade. So its more of a time commitment.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scenario where a new 'top dog' enters and proposes the solution to all problems™ : let's measure our conversions, optimize this and that and make more sales. By the way, all this time you're developing open source you're not helping the company so let's stop that, it costs us developer time and money. It's not unfeasible. It would be a scenario that could explain both portfolio degradation and community leave, and…

> By the way, all this time you're developing open source you're not helping the company so let's stop that, it costs us developer time and money. that was not my experience at all. officially, open source was encouraged because it raised etsy's stock in the tech community, which was beneficial for hiring. unofficially, middle managers discouraged it because it detracted from shipping quickly (which made them look go…

Thanks for taking the time to write this!

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#39

Welcome to the bursting of the second tech bubble. It's been slow so far, but it'll accelerate soon. Hang on! Why is it that on these threads, nobody seriously considers the possibility of a secular decline? Fundraising, after all, has slowed, real estate in south bay has softened, and interest rates are rising (making tech relatively less attractive). Not to mention the scandals that have erased billions; see Theran…

How is mismanagement and terrible user experience about the tech bubble bursting? How are you making that leap?

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#40

The conversion problem on mobile does seem like an issue, but speaking as a former customer of Etsy what drove me away was the selection. Not that it's too small - rather, Etsy is now flooded with thousands of storefronts selling "artisan" pieces that are actually bought on AliExpress or similar and marked up. If they're trying to apply ML to managing customer recommendations, they should figure out how to identify w…

it's trickier than you think. a VERY common complaint i saw while i was at etsy: "i make bracelets and someone on aliexpress is ripping off my designs and even my photos, what do i do?" i'm not denying that someone would do exactly what you're describing (purchase on ali and resell on etsy), but it's sometimes way more complicated than that.

This is something which is really a challenge.

In many markets discovery is a challenge (how do you create visibility to all of the customers who might be interested in your product) and then operational costs when your concept is discovered.

When brainstorming things I heard an idea which I thought was pretty cool, create a "trademark" registry in these bespoke market places. It would work by sending the market maker (Etsy in this case) pictures and a description of an item you are going to sell on the site.

They would take those images and descriptions and first verify that nothing else on the site already had both the same look and application, and then they would issue you a "trademark" for the product which you could start selling and advertising. If it was popular and someone tried to make copies, they would not be allowed to sell them on Etsy because when they submitted pictures and descriptions it would be apparent they were too similar to an existing product.

It is interesting to consider what the overall effect of such a system would be, we know that it would give a strong 'first mover' advantage (+1 to the sellers) but also prevent price competition (-1 to the buyers). It would help prevent counterfeits (+1 to the buyers) and might limit a seller selling their own product because the copy had already gotten to the market first (-1 to sellers).

I put trademark in quotes because while this is exactly the role of trademarks in the US, it is too expensive to pursue trademark violations for a $10 bracelet that you sell may 20 a month of. So you need a locally implemented system that can reduce the cost to implement and as much as possible automate enforcement through policy.

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