111–120 of 273 posts
Is there a deficiency in some cultures (Chinese, also maybe Jewish) that lends itself to profit above quality?
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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…
Doing that would decrease their sales and ability to grow drastically. Hand made does not scale.
Besides, when the point of the site was unique handcrafted items, selling manufactured stuff undercuts the one thing that makes you different from your competitors.
I can't understand the argument you're trying to make. It's like saying that fine art doesn't scale because painters are so slow, so art galleries should postcards instead. Perhaps that would indeed be more profitable, but then you're not an art gallery any more, are you?
Maybe ignorant question. Why would one choose Etsy over Amazon
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That's the business model of Zara, and there's nothing wrong with it. You can't "steal" something if it's public domain. If you die off because some Chinese seller "stole" your idea which by the way you came up with first, then you deserve it because it means you didn't execute well enough. I think this kickstarter culture has done more harm than good for makers because it made them chase instant gratification instea…
> If you die off because some Chinese seller "stole" your idea which by the way you came up with first, then you deserve it because it means you didn't execute well enough. I won't argue that copying ideas and reimplementing them cheaper/faster doesn't have upsides. But one worry is that the immediate downsides are felt by the original inventors. Sure, cheap copying is nice for the consumer and reseller, but they're…
We have to pop the fairytale bubble that some of us live in. Marketing and sales will win the day. No matter how fancy your technology is, there will be competitors and rivals, and it won't really matter who was "first". Being first can, in fact, be a substantial disadvantage, since you don't have the response/feedback from a competitor's prior attempt to gauge and reference.
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That's a real shame. My wife has a store on Etsy and is downstairs right now sewing up another handbag. So it's kinda tough to hear that the reputation she's worked hard for on Etsy with the solid ratings, and with the hard work she's put in, the Etsy brand itself is turning people away. Etsy provides just enough to make it easy and worthwhile to use the system, but I wonder if she's legitimately losing sales this wa…
Handbags? Oh my god, why isn't she selling on Facebook? I know a very wealthy woman in Thailand selling custom $400-600 handbags to New York yuppies and literally her entire business is on Facebook. I normally don't advocate this sort of thing but their ad platform and social network are basically made for this kind of business. Custom/Handmade luxury goods for upper-middle class women over a certain age? Facebook, e…
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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.
That's the business model of Zara, and there's nothing wrong with it. You can't "steal" something if it's public domain. If you die off because some Chinese seller "stole" your idea which by the way you came up with first, then you deserve it because it means you didn't execute well enough. I think this kickstarter culture has done more harm than good for makers because it made them chase instant gratification instea…
Okay, I think I understand this idea. If somebody else can cut corners by cheaping out on materials, or skipping testing, or relaxing tolerances, and their product still sells, then clearly your own standards were simply too high.
> I think this kickstarter culture has done more harm than good for makers because it made them chase instant gratification instead of substance.
This seems in contradiction to the first statement. If you take instant gratification, you're a symptom of more harm than good. If you take your time and do it right, you deserve to die because you're not going as fast as your competitors. ?
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 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…
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...
There's definitely a market for Etsy, but the concept behind it doesn't scale enough to meet crazy startup growth expectations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Handbags? Oh my god, why isn't she selling on Facebook? I know a very wealthy woman in Thailand selling custom $400-600 handbags to New York yuppies and literally her entire business is on Facebook. I normally don't advocate this sort of thing but their ad platform and social network are basically made for this kind of business. Custom/Handmade luxury goods for upper-middle class women over a certain age? Facebook, e…
Well, you can always try your luck selling on wechat. According to my wife, she drops a few people a month because they start trying to sell her something.
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 is tougher than it seems on the surface. A few years ago, I was involved in planning and running a maker "fest". We invited makers, and artists to the festival to show off their projects, and some of them wanted to sell things. A not-insignificant number of participants who wanted to sell things were just reselling things you could buy at Michaels, or buy online (in bulk) for cheap. Sometimes with just a little…
...but then the problem is, what makes them better or different from any other storefront? If there's a ton of mass-produced product on Etsy, why would I want to shop there rather than on Amazon?