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The Fall of the House of Etsy

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Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#51

Post by JumpCrisscross »

readyman wrote: post #30
UberFly wrote: post #24

The best version of Etsy is long gone. Hand crafted items from their original source just won't satiate IPO investors. There REALLY needs to spring up a (good) Etsy alternative that's content to be what it is and not an exponential growth machine that poisons the roots they originally built on.

> not an exponential growth machine This is increasingly impossible under capitalism for fundamental reasons, which are illustrated most clearly in modern financialized capitalism by shareholder interests. Your desires (and mine) will require a reorganization of society as we know it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_prof... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation

> increasingly impossible under capitalism for fundamental reasons

Most of capitalism, historically and today, is about preserving capital and making a small return. High-growth ventures are a minority, despite how it feels in tech.

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#52

Post by JumpCrisscross »

readyman wrote: post #48
marcinzm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your desires (and mine) will require a reorganization of society as we know it. So far every attempt to do this has done the exact opposite.

Nonsense. Capitalism was a great success compared with feudalism. It is outright defeatist, senslessly conservative, and frankly anti-scientific to insist there is nothing more to be done merely because it has yet to be realized.

> It is outright defeatist, senslessly conservative, and frankly anti-scientific to insist there is nothing more to be done

Nobody said that. It’s just that I haven’t seen a better proposal to date.

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#53

Post by JumpCrisscross »

acheron wrote: post #6
seattle_spring wrote: post #3

The prevalence of drop shipping is what killed Etsy for me as a buyer. I guess I was too trusting originally, but I was very disappointed when I found out that several items I had bought from them, all marketed as handmade, were just cheaply made pieces of garbage from places like Ali Express, then marked up 10x.

Where do people actually handmaking stuff sell now?

> Where do people actually handmaking stuff sell now?

In my experience, on commission. Hire a carpenter or artist to make what you want and pay them for their materials up front and time on delivery.

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#54

Post by reducesuffering »

threecheese wrote: post #35
acheron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do people actually handmaking stuff sell now?

Shopify has implemented much of Etsys value as a selling platform, though it doesn’t serve as a marketplace for discovery. Social media (TikTok and Insta) can easily offboard to a website shop, and lots of product creators sell there (and some use TikTok’s Shop, which admittedly is competing more with Etsys garbage dropshipping than anything else). Clearly there are gaps here, as not everyone can create a Shopify sit…

> though it doesn’t serve as a marketplace for discovery.

Their popular Shop app does. It's search through Shopify stores

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#55

Post by walterbell »

acheron wrote: post #6
seattle_spring wrote: post #3

The prevalence of drop shipping is what killed Etsy for me as a buyer. I guess I was too trusting originally, but I was very disappointed when I found out that several items I had bought from them, all marketed as handmade, were just cheaply made pieces of garbage from places like Ali Express, then marked up 10x.

Where do people actually handmaking stuff sell now?

Can they market or pre-sell handmade goods via a Youtube channel showing their craft?

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#56

Post by crabmusket »

tensor wrote: post #33
sbierwagen wrote: post #7

This isn't new. The Regretsy blog extensively complained about dropshippers in 2010. The problem is that operating a two sided marketplace connecting small makers to customers just really sucks as a business. Tons of churn, intractable problems with quality and fulfillment, having to pay for a lot of customer service agents who fundamentally can't solve any problems, since they don't actually work for the person who…

Shopify did very well connecting small makers/vendors to customers. Granted, to your point they are now trying to go for big vendors, thinking they can somehow unseat amazon. Probably won't work out well for them either.

Shopify is not a marketplace, is it? When I want to buy something I don't go to shopify.com and search for it. I think this is a critical distinction.

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#57

Post by crmd »

readyman wrote: post #30
UberFly wrote: post #24

The best version of Etsy is long gone. Hand crafted items from their original source just won't satiate IPO investors. There REALLY needs to spring up a (good) Etsy alternative that's content to be what it is and not an exponential growth machine that poisons the roots they originally built on.

> not an exponential growth machine This is increasingly impossible under capitalism for fundamental reasons, which are illustrated most clearly in modern financialized capitalism by shareholder interests. Your desires (and mine) will require a reorganization of society as we know it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_prof... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation

Nonsense. The majority of my capitalist friends who own businesses work their asses off to build a company that reliably generates a 15-20% operating margin and then spend the rest of their career making sure nothing and nobody breaks their cash generating machine. The only people I know chasing returns far beyond the rate of inflation are VC-backed and private equity-owned businesses, where the parent firm is competing with other investment firms.

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#58

Post by RileyJames »

marcinzm wrote: post #41
irq-1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Etsy should charge the sellers fees per sale, and make them post an expensive bond. Then Etsy can ban drop shipping, give instant refunds, pay return postage, and generally hold the creators to high standards. Etsy should also mandate the inclusion of a scan code in the package, which the customer can use to show they received the shipment but it wasn't as advertised. This would catch people lying about the contents,…

Fun thing about a two sided marketplace. It needs two sides. If you make life hard for sellers then they won't join and then you, by definition, don't have a marketplace.

The point of the article was that Etsy has already established both sides of the marketplace. And that both sides of the marketplace are not equal, as competitors/disruptors are discovering.

To be successful, they need a large consumer base, and a small seller base, who sell high quality goods (which is subjective, but mass drop shipping is certainly not what those consumers are expecting).

Of those, the hardest to attract is a larger consumer base. Sellers will ultimately go where the buyers are.

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#59

Post by nobody9999 »

derefr wrote: post #25
sbierwagen wrote: post #7

This isn't new. The Regretsy blog extensively complained about dropshippers in 2010. The problem is that operating a two sided marketplace connecting small makers to customers just really sucks as a business. Tons of churn, intractable problems with quality and fulfillment, having to pay for a lot of customer service agents who fundamentally can't solve any problems, since they don't actually work for the person who…

> intractable problems with quality and fulfillment • Re: fulfillment — why not ask Etsy sellers to pre-stock everything that's not made-to-order into fulfillment centers like Amazon's? And, in fact, to send anything that is made-to-order to a fulfillment center first , where it'll be inspected, re-wrapped and re-shipped by the fulfillment center — with the buyer's card only having a hold, not a charge, on it until t…

>• Re: fulfillment — why not ask Etsy sellers to pre-stock everything that's not made-to-order into fulfillment centers like Amazon's? And, in fact, to send anything that is made-to-order to a fulfillment center first, where it'll be inspected, re-wrapped and re-shipped by the fulfillment center — with the buyer's card only having a hold, not a charge, on it until the seller's goods are inspected by the fulfillment center as good? (In other words: turn the process into a goods-for-money mediated escrow.)

Why not take a hint from Darknet markets[0] and require escrow for all transactions[1], with funds only being released to the seller after the buyer has confirmed receipt of the goods as advertised, along with seller (and buyer) ratings as well as dispute resolution services?

In many ways, darknet markets are much better than the "legit" online marketplaces. And more's the pity -- because the "legit" players know better and should act accordingly.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_market

[1] And since Etsy is a publicly traded corporation and their sellers are presumably "legit" (i.e., selling stuff that doesn't run afoul of nation-state dicta), an exit scam[2] is unlikely.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam

Re: The Fall of the House of Etsy

#60

Post by fire_lake »

crabmusket wrote: post #56
tensor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopify did very well connecting small makers/vendors to customers. Granted, to your point they are now trying to go for big vendors, thinking they can somehow unseat amazon. Probably won't work out well for them either.

Shopify is not a marketplace, is it? When I want to buy something I don't go to shopify.com and search for it. I think this is a critical distinction.

You’re right, but Shopify is trying to change this with the Shop app
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