Comments on: Etsy – Red flags.

By: Victor

Victor — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:06:02 +0000

I see that, but that doesn’t explain the numbers. Other theories could be, “people are out of love with handmade goods” or, “people are selling through facebook Pages stores” or a myriad of other things. Amazon is clearly not the place, by evidence of the lack of items. Your overall theory of Uber losing to Lyft could work out, but the warning that Etsy has lost it to Amazon isn’t open-shut. Etsy is losing it, but not to Amazon.

Amazon smooths the buyer experience as you describe, but it has always made any of its seller side participation pretty clunky. Etsy’s, by comparison, is smooth. That could explain why Etsy has so many more sellers and items than Amazon handmade has. Sorting other ways, Amazon handmade has sellers across all 50 states and an assortment of countries – but again the items are pretty limited and repetitious. Then I searched for the last 20 things my family has purchased from Etsy to see if I could find analogous items in Amazon handmade. Again, no– and it’s not like they’re esoteric items. As a consumer, I’d be just fine if Amazon became the place for handmade goods over Etsy, but any way you slice it, it hasn’t happened yet, as evidenced by the broad catalog offering on Etsy vs. the repetitious offerings on Amazon. What we don’t know is the aging of item listings, but that hasn’t been a problem when purchasing. For the items we’ve ordered, there haven’t been zombie sellers and items hanging around. Everything has been made and shipped in good time, even when the items are made on demand with customisation.

By: windsorr

windsorr — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 08:06:46 +0000

The problem with your opinion is that the hard evidence points elsewhere. The only real data there is is financial performance, and Etsy’s has gone down the drain. I think there has been a fiscal discipline problem which has caused some of it but if Etsy was still the got place, it would be printing cash but the reverse is true. I suspect that it has deep and fundemanetal problems and has lost its edge.

By: Victor

Victor — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 04:29:41 +0000

I wouldn’t be so quick to award the space to Amazon.

I spent 30 minutes clicking “next page” on Amazon’s handmade listings. They’re the same items over and over again.

“Etsy has failed to maintain its place as the go to place to buy and sell handmade artisan products as it has been unable to keep Amazon out of its niche despite having been there for many years.”

Seems incorrect. None of the sellers or items I’d care about are on Amazon, but they are on Etsy. Etsy is deep, where Amazon is shallow. Until that shifts, Amazon hasn’t accomplished enough to matter.