Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by icantdrive55 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:24 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #31

mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

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.

It's up the the Founder to hire 8% more Quality Assurance Agents.

When I used to browse Esty, I found it rather easy to spot the imported junk.

I have no sympathy for companies that just let it grow out of control. Actually, maybe it's good. There will be room for another clone?

(I have nothing against buying material/parts from anywhere in the world. It's when you try to deceive your customers--that's what bothers me. Just when I was getting into Esty--bang all the crap started showing up. And no--I don't want a bunch of rules/requirements to peddle hand made stuff, just some common sence a Founder/Founders should possess. So Fire the current CEO--fine--done. Bring in someone with common sence.)

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

#62

Post by gwaefawfewaef » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:26 AM UTC

niftich wrote: post #47

mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

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…

Like issues arising in most multiparty content aggregators, whether they're social networks or marketplaces, Etsy's seller situation reduces down to a discovery and reputation problem. - How do you highlight "genuine" artisan products without some laborious process to inspect the seller? - How do you allow new sellers to build the requisite reputation to be trusted as good and legit? How do you do this in a way so th…

We recently purchased a handcrafted rustic patio set from an Etsy seller in Michigan.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/naturalcrafting

There are definitely some legitimate artists on there.

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

#63

Post by e15ctr0n » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:29 AM UTC

jph wrote: post #12

I spend a lot of time with Etsy sellers, all one-person micro-businesses creating fully-handcraft items. They tell me there are three major problems that are all interconnected: 1) search is poor, 2) cheap knockoffs swamp the search results, 3) there's no obvious way to emphasize truly handcraft items. All the sellers are experimenting with alternate platforms, such as Shopify, Wordpress, Wix, etc.

You have only half the picture because the three problems you've listed have existed for quite some time.

Here are some new problems that are driving more sellers off Etsy:

4) October 2013: Etsy redefines "handcrafted" and allows Etsy sellers to get "help" with making and shipping their items. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/etsys-industrial-r...

5) September 2015: Etsy openly embraces mass manufacturing https://www.wired.com/2015/09/etsy-embraces-mass-manufacturi...

6) October 2016: Etsy forces sellers to enroll in Google Shopping ads and spend their own money promoting their items. On the surface it looks innocent enough but most sellers are not sophisticated enough to run their own ad campaigns. They expected Etsy to provide that service as a marketplace. With no traffic coming in from Google any more, sales have tanked. https://blog.etsy.com/news/2016/introducing-google-shopping-...

7) April 2017: Etsy forces sellers to direct all revenue to Etsy's own bank account (no more Paypal), or the seller can't sell on Etsy any more. https://www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/183258... The deadline to comply is May 17 so expect many shops to die on May 18 because shop owners are loath to turn over their bank account information and personal identity proof to Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18322006...

I can confirm that I know at least one seller who set up their shop on Shopify in January this year.

Here are some current Etsy forum threads discussing the situation from the point of view of the buyer as well as the seller:

Josh Silverman, Here's What You need to Know from Sellers https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18351569...

Out of curiosity... reasons you won't buy from etsy stores? https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18232946...

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

#64

Post by mustacheemperor » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:31 AM UTC

amorphid wrote: post #29

cracell wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my experience as well. Etsy in just a few years has gone from a artisan marketplace to a bunch of mass produced junk. From the articles I've read they've done this to increase the number of sales (cheaper items = more conversions) but I think it's been slowly costing them their customer base. Hopefully they realize this and start banning mass produced items and listening to their artisan stores feedback…

I wonder if they can police the reselling of mass produced junk. I'm imagining initial efforts, making a notable dent in the problem, and then kicking off a "Made By Me" social media campaign. If resellers stopped seeing Etsy as a easy way to sell dollar store items at artisan prices, made that'd curb the problem a bit more.

Until they went public Etsy had a policy against mass manufactured products [0]. They opened this door willingly in the first place.

[0]http://abcnews.go.com/Business/etsy-ceo-ipo-mass-production-...

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

#65

Post by throwaway61891 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:32 AM UTC

look_lookatme wrote: post #59

throwaway61891 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

former etsy employee here: lots of reasons, but around that time etsy invested heavily in infrastructure and tools like statsd resulted from it. the last few years the focus has been mostly on product, and product teams usually don't produce the kind of significant technology contributions you're talking about (huge generalization there obviously). this is more of a personal opinion, but my experience was that the la…

I just assumed everyone booked it after the IPO.

not really. some people, but very few all things considered.

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

#66

Post by ohyes » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:33 AM UTC

mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

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…

They need mass produced junk in order to have the revenue to be worth big money. I doubt there's enough genuinely artisanal product out there for them to stick to that business model and still have high growth...

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

#67

Post by mustacheemperor » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:33 AM UTC

cassieramen wrote: post #13

mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

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…

This hit the nail on the head for me. Etsy was all the parts I loved about Ebay mashed with the parts of an art fair I loved. It's been on a slow slide to another Ebay in my eyes.

And their new CEO is the former head of eBay shopping, here to finish the job for the investors who can't understand they missed this boat already.

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

#68

Post by accountyaccount » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:36 AM UTC

mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

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…

Amazon is also having this problem. Their marketplace is flooded with knock-offs and incredibly low-end goods masquerading as cashmere or wool. It's either wholesale garbage or drop-shipped.

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

#69

Post by throwaway61891 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:37 AM UTC

YZF wrote: post #51

amorphid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they can police the reselling of mass produced junk. I'm imagining initial efforts, making a notable dent in the problem, and then kicking off a "Made By Me" social media campaign. If resellers stopped seeing Etsy as a easy way to sell dollar store items at artisan prices, made that'd curb the problem a bit more.

Sure. Require a refundable deposit of $1000 (replace by some magic number) which is forfeited if you're caught selling mass produced junk. Other after-the-fact punitive measures can be in the contract you have to sign to get on the site. Something along these lines must exist where legitimate sellers can live with it while the cost to the spammers must be unacceptable.

that would go over really poorly.

nobody would spend $1000 on what is essentially a gamble (since etsy is determining whether you're 'selling mass produced junk').

sellers already feel like etsy is way too buyer-friendly (at the expense of sellers).

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

#70

Post by accountyaccount » Wed, May 03, 2017, 1:37 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #55

mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

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 had forgotten that Etsy changed its policy on allowing mass manufacturing several years ago: https://www.wired.com/2015/09/etsy-embraces-mass-manufacturi... http://abcnews.go.com/Business/etsy-ceo-ipo-mass-production-... Alibaba-resells has had a detrimental effect on Kickstarter and Indiegogo-type platforms too. Many of the things submitted to r/shittykickstarters seem to be resells. Indiegogo doesn't mind them, a…

The amazing thing about Kickstarter knockoffs is that there's a huge market for simply stealing an idea and beating it to market. People have made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this. It's completely absurd, Kickstarter product transparency is, in hindsight, almost ideal to steal products from.