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Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

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Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#211

Post by vonklaus »

jonnathanson wrote: post #194
profinger wrote: post #123

I'm not surprised at all. Etsy used to be user based and hand made. Now it's just another market place. They still act like they try to enforce "non-mass-produced" but there are countless examples of the opposite being true. Places where people have directly reported instances of this and the problem is still present. I think the problem is that they stopped caring about their user base and, therefore, became less ub…

An alternative hypothesis: maybe they reached the limits of the scalable, addressable, growth market for small-batch, handmade goods?

An alernative hypothesis is that etsy was a predominently female community that (kind of conjecture) used to have a comminty driven social aspect. As it became more of a market place, and less of about discovery and community, most of those people moved to the "better version" of etsy.

Now, pinterest is the best of both worlds, a place full of like minded people driven by discovery of cool things (what etsy was) and the marketplace is like central.

I suppose gender doesn't matter, but it is worth mentioning these sites have a greater population of women and most of the products I have seen are jewelry, clothing or crafts that are made by women and likely bought by their peers.

I suspect, that as it became less trendy and creative, and more of a store, most of the top people left and went to pinterest. When a community has a their top talent leave, and their competitors are more in line with their customers expectations, then thay community is through.

Pinterest isnt something I use, but I have seen some cool designs and for discovery of certain things, it seems great.

Tl; dr, as an outsider, i think thar pinterest out etsy'd etsy

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#212

Post by jonnathanson »

vonklaus wrote: post #211
jonnathanson wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative hypothesis: maybe they reached the limits of the scalable, addressable, growth market for small-batch, handmade goods?

An alernative hypothesis is that etsy was a predominently female community that (kind of conjecture) used to have a comminty driven social aspect. As it became more of a market place, and less of about discovery and community, most of those people moved to the "better version" of etsy. Now, pinterest is the best of both worlds, a place full of like minded people driven by discovery of cool things (what etsy was) and…

But Etsy was always a marketplace. It was never a curation site per se. Unless I'm missing something here? If anything, I see Etsy and Pinterest as much more complementary than competitive.

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#213

Post by vonklaus »

sulam wrote: post #17
tyre wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market cap is just value of a single share * number of shares outstanding. Do you have a better way of valuing a publicly-traded company? When you say "its actual value is probably unchanged", what value are you talking about? If you think there is a disconnect between share price and value (however you're measuring that), then it is an excellent opportunity to arbitrage an inefficient market.

I _know_ there's a disconnect between the share price and the value, I just don't know what direction it's going to go in. This is why straddles are so much fun. :) The efficiency of markets is widely overrated.

I agree with you, and something I am actively working on. That said, anecdotally, the market seems to overvalue many things a medium amount, and greatly undervalue a small few things by an order of magnitude.

So while I would say, sure, the market cap of a company, in what could pitentially br another downturn, is not exactly precision science, this company is in bad shape.

Huge successful direct conpetitor: pinterest.

Massive successful competitors generally like the amazon, the entire internet, and most flea markets and shops.

Negative trending community; shrinking

Not profitable

Publicly traded.

also, on a final point. Even when markets are wrong, which I dont think is the case here,they can become correct by driving the company the direction they expect it to go.

So on balance, you're correct. Specifically, I wouldn't buy their stock.

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#214

Post by interesting_att »

bkjelden wrote: post #120
interesting_att wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stocks you mentioned barely get any buzz in tech media (TechCrunch) or HN. The stocks that OP mentioned get a significant number of mentions here. A number of unicorns are dying, experiencing significant criticism (Theranos), doing not-so-well (Square, Zenefits), or exiting negative returns for investors (Gilt Groupe) The point is the companies that seem to be getting the most hype (young, 'disruptive' companies)…

Where is the news that Zenefits is struggling? All I have seen is that they are 'one of the fastest growing companies ever'

Fidelity marked down its investment by a whopping 43% http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/snapchat-isnt-the-only-startup...

Add this to the fact they announced layoffs a little while ago + are now experiencing significant competition from bigger players, one has to have a not-so-great forecast for the company

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#215

Post by vonklaus »

jonnathanson wrote: post #212
vonklaus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alernative hypothesis is that etsy was a predominently female community that (kind of conjecture) used to have a comminty driven social aspect. As it became more of a market place, and less of about discovery and community, most of those people moved to the "better version" of etsy. Now, pinterest is the best of both worlds, a place full of like minded people driven by discovery of cool things (what etsy was) and…

But Etsy was always a marketplace. It was never a curation site per se . Unless I'm missing something here? If anything, I see Etsy and Pinterest as much more complementary than competitive.

I, again never really used them, but I think it was likely a case of Etsy not realizing they were pinterest.

People went to see fashion, crafts and home made cool things. They started their own stores and shared in that experience.

Etsy never cspitalized on this. Pinterest, is the opposite. It was meant as an awesome place to find cool stuff, then, while people are admiring it, they did a deal with stripe.

Now Patrick Collison brings them up sometimes in interviews, and both Collisons did a class with Ben Silberman in Sam Altmans stanford class.

So, point is Pinterest attracted all the people who made cool shit. Etsy attracted all the people who bought it.

Match point.

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#216

Post by stevewillows »

profinger wrote: post #123

I'm not surprised at all. Etsy used to be user based and hand made. Now it's just another market place. They still act like they try to enforce "non-mass-produced" but there are countless examples of the opposite being true. Places where people have directly reported instances of this and the problem is still present. I think the problem is that they stopped caring about their user base and, therefore, became less ub…

They lost their 'handmade' direction after they let the vintage people back in. For a short time they removed all of the stores that were selling curated collections instead of something original.

Within the crafting world, this was the beginning of the end -- which was a few years back.

It's not surprising to see them slowly fading away. They haven't progressed. Back in the early days you had to get in with the 'chatting Mom's' if you wanted to gain some good traction. Now its just like any other ecom platform.

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#217

Post by jonnathanson »

vonklaus wrote: post #215
jonnathanson wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Etsy was always a marketplace. It was never a curation site per se . Unless I'm missing something here? If anything, I see Etsy and Pinterest as much more complementary than competitive.

I, again never really used them, but I think it was likely a case of Etsy not realizing they were pinterest. People went to see fashion, crafts and home made cool things. They started their own stores and shared in that experience. Etsy never cspitalized on this. Pinterest, is the opposite. It was meant as an awesome place to find cool stuff, then, while people are admiring it, they did a deal with stripe. Now Patric…

It's an interesting way to look at it, and I guess I'd never thought of it that way. I'm still not convinced Pinterest and Etsy are substitutes, or at least not that they always have been. But I do agree that (from what I can tell) Pinterest is the more ambitious and strategic company, and that it has Etsy in a corner it can easily choose to close off at this stage in the game.

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#219

Post by winterchil »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #116
jonknee wrote: post #93

I wouldn't be surprised if Etsy is acquired now that the share price is beaten down. Seems like a good fit for eBay (it would provide much needed relevance) or Amazon. It's a good brand name, but not much else.

My thoughts exactly! Etsy seems like a perfect business for someone like eBay to snap up. Though I could see Amazon having an interest, too.

I understand the product-fit, but what incremental value does Etsy bring to either of those companies?

Re: Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months

#220

Post by dplgk »

milesskorpen wrote: post #203
marme wrote: post #200

etsy is clear case of poor management, just taking a brief look at their financial statements it is clear they are doing something clearly wrong. Their revenue is growing but their expenses are growing at the same rate so they remain unprofitable. from 2014 to 2015 revenue grew from 29 million to 45 million per quarter while general expenses grew from 22 million to 31 million. Amazon is another company that does this…

Amazon is frequently in the red.

A couple years ago I met with the guy who runs tech there and he said they had 150 developers....! How many do they have now and what the heck are they working on?
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