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Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

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Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#171

Post by pkamb »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #78
MichaelGG wrote: post #27

Bizarre. I've only tried to use Etsy once, figuring it'd be a great place to get some sort of unique jewellery as a gift. It's filled with junk, both of the super-manufactured kind and of the "modern art" kind (someone glues 2 pieces of crap together and wants $500.) I haven't gone back, though I did enjoy the Regretsy blog while it was up. >Etsy’s insistence on running its own servers rather than using cloud-based s…

There's still plenty of incredible hand-made and vintage furniture and interior design objects on Etsy. The problem, as ever, is about filtering. For every quality piece there 50 amateurish things cobbled together from steel pipes and reclaimed wood (or worse: distressed "shabby chic" furniture made to look like something you'd find in an old B&B on the French Riviera). With all the AI being thrown around, can't some…

> With all the AI being thrown around, can't someone build a "tastefulness" filter

I've long wanted an extension for Google Image Search, eBay, Etsy, etc. that simply filtered out all listings with images of items with pure white backgrounds. That would go a long ways toward a "tastefulness filter".

Huge indicator of handmade / vintage / used items sold by an individual seller vs. a new item being dropshipped from Amazon or China.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#172

Post by kuschku »

arenaninja wrote: post #121
kuschku wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That reminds me of the silly StackOverflow "if you are a real you must setup your own servers". There are certain benefits of cloud or not, but this kind of thinking confuses me. Why stop there? Do they build their own Ethernet cables? Racks? Make their own distros, compilers, etc.? Build their own network -- after all, your network is critical in delivering pages to your users, why outsource this to XO and Cogent…

That's insanely cheap. Can you share where you're renting this and what plan? A cheap DigitalOcean plan is around $20 a month, and since you said "server(s)" (plural) I'm assuming you get more than one for that $20?

I’m personally using Online.net, although you might also want to try out scaleway.

You can check out https://gist.github.com/justjanne/205cc548148829078d4bf2fd39...

I’m personally actually paying 30€ now, for several Dediboxes from Online, running kubernetes.

The big issues of Google, AWS, etc is the cost for bandwidth and performance – I can transfer 180TB in one month on one server, and pay no extra fee, and don’t get throttled – while a startup using Firebase might end up paying 7000% more (or worse).

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#173

Post by exolymph »

CPLX wrote: post #73
Exuma wrote: post #16

The entitled employee comments at the bottom made me literally groan. Everyone bemoaning facts of life, it's not like what they did was a surprise or unjust. If your job title is "Senior internal paper waste management analysis director" then you shouldn't be surprised when you get canned.

I've seen the work entitled applied to employees many times, but never to an investor. Curious, that.

Because investors are entitled in a literal sense, not a figurative one.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#174

Post by exolymph »

pkamb wrote: post #171
lobster_johnson wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still plenty of incredible hand-made and vintage furniture and interior design objects on Etsy. The problem, as ever, is about filtering. For every quality piece there 50 amateurish things cobbled together from steel pipes and reclaimed wood (or worse: distressed "shabby chic" furniture made to look like something you'd find in an old B&B on the French Riviera). With all the AI being thrown around, can't some…

> With all the AI being thrown around, can't someone build a "tastefulness" filter I've long wanted an extension for Google Image Search, eBay, Etsy, etc. that simply filtered out all listings with images of items with pure white backgrounds. That would go a long ways toward a "tastefulness filter". Huge indicator of handmade / vintage / used items sold by an individual seller vs. a new item being dropshipped from Am…

I like the idea, but this would also be easy to game.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#175

Post by lobster_johnson »

pkamb wrote: post #171
lobster_johnson wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still plenty of incredible hand-made and vintage furniture and interior design objects on Etsy. The problem, as ever, is about filtering. For every quality piece there 50 amateurish things cobbled together from steel pipes and reclaimed wood (or worse: distressed "shabby chic" furniture made to look like something you'd find in an old B&B on the French Riviera). With all the AI being thrown around, can't some…

> With all the AI being thrown around, can't someone build a "tastefulness" filter I've long wanted an extension for Google Image Search, eBay, Etsy, etc. that simply filtered out all listings with images of items with pure white backgrounds. That would go a long ways toward a "tastefulness filter". Huge indicator of handmade / vintage / used items sold by an individual seller vs. a new item being dropshipped from Am…

Sadly, they sort of figured that out already: http://www.storenvy.com/shop/category/home-furniture/. (Yes, that's their furniture category. Who knew ugly, amateurishly made dolls were considered furniture?)

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#176

Post by valuearb »

clavalle wrote: post #143
valuearb wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The curve isn't flat, but the benefits are massively disproportionately expensive the farther up it you go. This isn't an argument about making the company "soulless". You can still have a great and fun work environment without spending 25% of sales on admin. And much of what makes work enjoyable isn't benefits, but leadership. Having management that is competent, humble, approachable, and driven to empower employees…

No argument here but what do you mean by 'admin'?

"Etsy’s general and administrative expenses amounted to 24 percent of total revenue. (EBay and MercadoLibre.com, the Latin American online marketplace, each spend about 10 percent of revenue on such expenses.) "

I should have said G&A (general and administrative expenses). Essentially the cost of your workforce, the offices, benefits, etc. Etsy's is huge compared to any reasonable comp, and nowhere has anyone explained why it must be so.

Ebay has bigger economies of scale, so maybe Etsy can't really get to 10% with their smaller sales, but it should be in the 10-20% range. If it's "correct" number for G&A is 14%, they are essentially taking 10% of every sales dollar to spend on a party for the employees.

It also means their total compensation per employee might be as much as 70% higher than market. Total comp is pay, payroll taxes, benefits such as medical/dental/parking/mass transit/etc. Probably not, since it also includes office expense such as the cost of the CEO's merry band of office decorators. But it's not hard to imagine that they might be 40-50% over market in employee comp, plus spend way too much on office costs.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#177

Post by valuearb »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #144
valuearb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a shareholder and want to spend some of your profits on ecologically conscious activities, no one can stop you. But that doesn't mean you should force the other shareholders to do the same. And Etsy isn't a B corporation. It's CEO tried to make it one and failed.

Etsy is currently a B corporation. They're likely to not remain one. The article clearly points this out, but it's easily verifiable as well: - https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy - https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b-corporation... - https://www.etsy.com/ca/mission

It's a process the CEO tried to start, never became binding because they are incorporated in Delaware which doesn't recognize B corps, and can't finish because he doesn't have buy-in from the owners of the company.

So it's temporary status doesn't belie the fact it's not going to be one and shouldn't be treated as one.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#178

Post by valuearb »

macNchz wrote: post #145
valuearb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a shareholder and want to spend some of your profits on ecologically conscious activities, no one can stop you. But that doesn't mean you should force the other shareholders to do the same. And Etsy isn't a B corporation. It's CEO tried to make it one and failed.

>And Etsy isn't a B corporation. It's CEO tried to make it one and failed. Their website says Etsy has been a certified B Corp since 2012: https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy

It's headquartered in Delaware. It's B Corp status isn't binding there, and never will be, because they chose to IPO and sold much of the company to investors who don't want that.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#179

Post by valuearb »

sushid wrote: post #129
valuearb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's down over 50% since the IPO.

Not actually? It's trading at $12.97 at the time of this writing. Its IPO price was $16.

You are right, I was referring to it's peak price on IPO day. It did sell it's shares for $16 in the IPO. But either way it's performance has been horrid, 3 years of a -20% is bad enough but it actually slipped to $7 at one point and has only recovered to $12.97 because the CEO got canned and a private equity firm is trying to restructure the entire business.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#180

Post by mncharity »

cowpewter wrote: post #24
chiph wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a look at Storenvy's store owner's agreement. There's several exclusions in there that would be problematic, such as: > Any product containing any hazardous or dangerous material including mercury or any product whose use is regulated by any law in any jurisdiction. I get what they're trying to do, but that's pretty broad https://support.storenvy.com/customer/portal/articles/93987-...

By "internet circles I run in" I'm talking about the ball-jointed doll hobby, so probably 90% of the products we're talking about are handmade doll clothes and wigs. The dolls themselves are usually made of polyurethane resin, which I don't think could be considered harmful once it's cured. Most of the other hand-crafted things I would consider checking Etsy for first are things like jewelry and pottery. Unless you'r…

>> any product whose use is regulated by any law in any jurisdiction > handmade doll clothes and wigs

Toy safety? For example, all the "toy" sections of 16 CFR Part 1500?[1]

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/part-1500 Found via a link on my (shameless plug) "A feel for: torque"[2], under 10^-1 Newton-meters. [2] http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/ZoomB?v=A&p=CK6Ji&m=torq...

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