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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

#151

Post by [deleted] »

roel_v wrote: post #137
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really shouldn't be buying plant seeds off the internet. Invasive species is a big problem, and even if you buy legit oregano (or whatever) seeds, there's a high risk that a couple of the seeds are really something else that's not native to your region.

What is 'native'? All apple trees are Persian, in the end. Just because there are a few species that outcompete others, doesn't mean that we need to freeze whatever is the current state of geographic dispersion of species to the 'gold standard', that we will defend and maintain at all cost. I explicitly seek out exotic seeds to see how they will behave in my climate. Diversity is good. This whole 'native first' (or r…

[deleted]

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

#152

Post by sbov »

roel_v wrote: post #137
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really shouldn't be buying plant seeds off the internet. Invasive species is a big problem, and even if you buy legit oregano (or whatever) seeds, there's a high risk that a couple of the seeds are really something else that's not native to your region.

What is 'native'? All apple trees are Persian, in the end. Just because there are a few species that outcompete others, doesn't mean that we need to freeze whatever is the current state of geographic dispersion of species to the 'gold standard', that we will defend and maintain at all cost. I explicitly seek out exotic seeds to see how they will behave in my climate. Diversity is good. This whole 'native first' (or r…

Invasive species tend to be a term used for things that thrive and choke out all competition and ultimately come to dominate and severely alter the landscape. Ultimately they tend to be bad for diversity.

Sorta like humans, except in plant/other animal form.

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

#153

Post by superquest »

chrischen wrote: post #150
eliudnir wrote: post #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…

Honestly a time window is standard practice to prevent customers from potentially holding the ability to negatively review as leverage. For example if they were to allow indefinite periods for reviews, then customers could hold off on reviewing for a year, then leverage it to get the seller to provide out-of-warranty service. Not sure what their time limit is, this is the case for it. In any case, good customer servi…

I think OP is saying they hadn't even received the product within the review window.

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

#154

Post by usrusr »

accountyaccount wrote: post #70
danso wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So kickstarter is close to what could be the ideal platform when you primarily want the product to exist, with actually selling that product being a secondary goal at most. Unfortunately, only very successful kickstarters would be cloned and by that point one would be far too deeply invested to be content with the product existing.

Put a great idea on kickstarter, with the "rewards" orders at a high price point to make it more attractive for cloners, then if it succeeds fulfill rewards with rebadged knock-offs. What a gamble that could be!

Could a zero-cost kickstarter fully refund backers if the founder capitulates after finding formally succeeds? Can kickstarter fees be postponed until the funding is actually used? If that is possible, this charade could be a surprisingly light shade of grey, "we try to find manufacturing, otherwise you get your money back" would hardly qualify as a lie if the only omission is that you intend to look no further than alibaba.com .

Kickstarter for ideas, anyone, with the established crowdfunding model on the C side and open bidding for design and manufacture on the B side?

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

#155

Post by wilgertvelinga »

stevewillows wrote: post #84
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…

Its interesting to see the path Etsy has taken. IIRC, around 2007 or so they closed all of the 'vintage' shops because they weren't handmade. They quickly went back on that and restored those accounts. (In 2014 they also tried removing 'vintage' from 'browse', which resulted in a lot of backlash.) Its a shame to see them relaxing the standards over the years. In 2007 their blog even acknowledged the mass-produced ite…

Maybe the future of Etsy is with Vintage instead of handmade? I think it is easier to distinguish between vintage and factory made then handcrafted and factory made.

For example: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BonjourBizarre . I'm pretty sure you could not find any of those items on AliExpress.

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

#156

Post by beaconstudios »

blhack wrote: post #147
TulliusCicero wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think they're in a really tough spot. When they weighed the options, my guess is that they realized that it would be best to let the consumers just decide what they want to buy. ...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?

>what makes them better or different from any other storefront? Brand, or...genre? I'm having a difficult time finding the word for it, but there is definitely a type of thing I go to etsy to look for. For instance, this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/159631469/aztec-death-whistle-t... (which is such a cool piece with such a cool story!). I have no idea where else to go to even look for something like that. When I wan…

I tend to think of Etsy as being the place to go for cultural, rather than mass-produced consumerist, goods.

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

#157

Post by afarrell »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #120
blhack wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I think they're in a really tough spot. When they weighed the options, my guess is that they realized that it would be best to let the consumers just decide what they want to buy. ...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?

They are cheaper for sone things: my wife and I bought our wedding rings from there for a fraction of the cost of going to a jewelry store. Plus, in the case of both the the style of rings we wanted and also bum bags (I'm forgetful and women's clothes don't have pockets), some goods aren't available anywhere else.

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

#158

Post by contingencies »

ReverseCold wrote: post #129
contingencies wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why centralized marketplaces in general are, in my opinion, on the way out. In the future people with something to offer will be able to offer it without being routed through one-size-fits-all platforms who want to control your options for communication, payment, reputation, shipping, etc. in a "my way or the highway" attitude. If one takes this perspective, then Ebay, Taobao, and Etsy are all anachronisms, t…

Centralized is never on the way out. It just makes everything so easy. I don't like it, but saying that anything centralized is on the way out is just wishful thinking.

You forget the successes of decentralization. In the same way that bureaucracy was surpassed with the web, torrents, and Bitcoin, so too will it be surpassed eventually in the field of business and consumer supply chains. It may not be today or tomorrow, but it will happen.

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

#159

Post by stevewillows »

wilgertvelinga wrote: post #155
stevewillows wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its interesting to see the path Etsy has taken. IIRC, around 2007 or so they closed all of the 'vintage' shops because they weren't handmade. They quickly went back on that and restored those accounts. (In 2014 they also tried removing 'vintage' from 'browse', which resulted in a lot of backlash.) Its a shame to see them relaxing the standards over the years. In 2007 their blog even acknowledged the mass-produced ite…

Maybe the future of Etsy is with Vintage instead of handmade? I think it is easier to distinguish between vintage and factory made then handcrafted and factory made. For example: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BonjourBizarre . I'm pretty sure you could not find any of those items on AliExpress.

Definitely. I think a combination of handmade and 'curated' is fantastic --- just not 'curated items from AliExpress.'

The overarching issue is that Etsy doesn't appear to recognize their users and what they're actually looking for. They've allowed for too much noise over the years.

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

#160

Post by rixrax »

e15ctr0n wrote: post #63
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 ht…

And... 8) Artists and craftsmen creating legitimate handcrafted products are under assault of [Chinease] mass manufacturers that appear to monitor items/craftsmen whose items sell fairly well only to offer their el-cheapo counterfeit / knock-off alternative of these same products. (*

This at least appears to be the case for a friend that is selling his handcrafted stuff in Etsy. And at least his experience seems to be that Etsy has done very little to curb this behavior even when reported to them.

(* caveat emptor - hearsay

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