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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

#241

Post by wmeredith »

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?

When your store is flooded with garbage, consumers may decide what they want to buy is nothing at all.

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

#242

Post by pja »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #56
0xADADA wrote: post #53

I looked into this, because a bracelet I bought for my wife looked great on Etsy, but when it arrived, it was obviously shitty chinese-knock-off quality Here is the bracelet I bought as a gift, $52 https://www.etsy.com/transaction/1238204808 Here is the same fucking thing, on AliExpress for $6.52 a piece, or you can buy them in lots of 6 for $20. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/24k-Gold-Electroplated-Edge-... fucking…

Your etsy link doesn't work for me

It’s a transaction ID rather than a link to the actual seller’s page.

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

#243

Post by pacaro »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #91
accountyaccount wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know about "wild success" but the 3doodler is now sold in ToysRUs, so that seems like a reasonable metric for entering the mainstream given their area.

MicroPython seems to have acquired a reasonable level of traction in the community too.

If you look at how hard it is to pitch products like these and raise capital, then kickstarter is certainly living up to its name.

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

#244

Post by ramy_d »

code_duck wrote: post #234
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. Folks should just be honest about it.

'Folks should just be honest' is unfortunately not a solid policy for an international marketplace.

It should be a rule liable to punitive measures when broken.

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

#245

Post by ghostly_s »

Meai wrote: post #148
Opalhart wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if there was a system where consumers could identify the wares as manufactured themselves. Like a "legitimacy" rating system

They should really just add a rating system, I dont know anything about etsy but if customers say that they found it on alibaba with a given link then the seller would probably lose all future sales. Sounds like a very easy problem to solve...

Just have a 'reseller' category which users can filter our when searching if they desire, and allow reports like this to force a vendor into this category.

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

#246

Post by Balgair »

pessimizer wrote: post #211
paganel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that you basically have to examine every single item, and then personally decide if it qualifies as art or not. This reminded me of Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", which was written ~80 years ago. Not sure there's any "solution" to what you or the OP are describing.

Turns out you can't mass produce individualism.

I mean, you can mass produce the appearance of individualism with a large enough data set and a well constrained ecosystem. Look at all the IoT-toaster bots on FB and Twitter scamming real people out of money. To some, the appearance is as good as the real thing.

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

#247

Post by jasonlotito »

busterarm wrote: post #109
jasonlotito wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hrm, never really thought about that. When we started her shop, Etsy was the natural fit. There is a community around that. I'll have to look into this. Thanks for the idea!

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

#248

Post by BinaryIdiot »

ramy_d wrote: post #126
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really good point. Even taking mass produced art and modifying it is in a way it's own art and I've seen some really, really good ones. Seems a bit unsolvable.

Maybe if they were required to mention categorical suppliers it would further inform consumers

I like this idea. I'm not quite sure how to enforce it though but it's an interesting approach nonetheless.

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

#249

Post by munificent »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #189
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the pretending is what people are paying/looking for. I certainly see a lot of that kind of thing when surveying supermarket shelves.

Do you really think so, that people don't want, say, a unique piece of jewellery but just to pretend - through what appears to be a fraud on behalf of the seller - that some over-priced mass-produced jewellery is unique. I couldn't disagree more. In part if I buy something on Etsy I'm considering that most of the money I spend will get re-spent in that person's local community. In part I'm trying to encourage them in…

    > Do you really think so, that people don't want, say,
    > a unique piece of jewellery but just to pretend -
    > through what appears to be a fraud on behalf of the
    > seller - that some over-priced mass-produced jewellery is unique.
I guess you haven't been to Pier One.

People do want an authentic, unique piece of jewelry. But they also want something affordable. Sometimes, buyers are a little willing to believe what they want to believe to accomplish both of those goals. And there is no shortage of sellers who will tell them what they want to hear (i.e. lie) to enable that.

For buyers who really do want something authentic, achieving that requires trust in the seller. That trust is something Etsy used to have in spades, and it's something that's been dwindling over time.

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

#250

Post by SilasX »

danso wrote: post #81
accountyaccount wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reminds me of this: "Your brilliant Kickstarter idea could be on sale in China before you’ve even finished funding it" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12724096 That said, there's still vibrant opportunity in the other direction, i.e. finding items off of Alibaba, claiming to not only have made those items but that they are best-in-class/first-of-its-kind, and attracting people who don't bother double-checking on…

Stupid question -- isn't that (usually) good? My model of Kickstarter projects is "I wish this product existed so I could buy it", not "I would like to personally profit from bringing this to market".
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