ETSY is a marketplace for handmade and vintage products as well as various supplies. Ever since this online e-commerce giant was founded in 2005 by a team of techies, led by Rob Kalin, it has been growing rapidly day by day. Having headquarters based in Brooklyn, NY, Etsy became revolutionary, and influenced career decision-making of many people not only in the U.S., but in many other parts of the world. People, who had a passion for designing and handcrafting pieces of art, jewelry, clothing, furniture, etc., gave up their 6-figure paying full-time jobs to turn their hobbies into money-making businesses. With the Etsy website, now, anyone could design, make, and sell their products on their own.
Etsy's user-friendly platform has great marketing features, giving any-level entrepreneurs a good foundation from the start. On top of that, different authors have written all sorts of books on how to start and sustain an Etsy-based business. These books are sold on Amazon, one of the most popular of them being How to Make Money Using Etsy. The big stream of guidance supports an enormous community of handmade entrepreneurs, artists, designers. creators, collectors, and more. A two-way interactive design of Etsy allows both, the seller and the buyer to leave feedback on the experience they had with each other on a particular transaction. Earning positive feedback is very vital for building a strong profile. Each profile represents an online shop, and its owner, or it represents a buyer.
As a buyer, if you are looking for a one of a kind item, which wasn't mass produced, and someone put a lot of heart & soul into creating it. Etsy is a perfect marketplace for online shopping, where you can find millions of custom made pieces, and not just that, ideas for arts and crafts, and the supplies to go with it. Here you can also find unique gift ideas for every occasion in your life, including everything you need to organize parties, weddings. The list goes on, and on. Every handmade product, listed online for $0.20 per piece for the length of 4 months, represents its creator, their personal taste and vision. The seller renews the listing periodically until it sells, giving Etsy additional 3.5% from each sale.
The chart above shows the growing online interest across the world from 2005 till present. It is evident that Etsy met the rising consumer demand for online shopping, and the popularity of Etsy has been going up year after year. That didn't leave well established sellers without being challenged on increasing volume of orders, especially at the time of holidays. Following Etsy's policies that were regulating on how goods were made, and sold, sellers could not hire any help, and basically were left alone. Etsy's team recognized the flaws, and rushed to re-work the restrictions. The changed policies seem to be reshaping the Etsy's business model, which we are familiar with, into something new. Started off as a peer-to-peer e-commerce platform, today Etsy is transforming into something much bigger - a trading marketplace between sellers, who wholesale, and retailers. This might be the beginning of online trade shows.
Looking at the chart above, you can see that among several countries, where Etsy gained its international exposure, the top 3 countries that stand out by their search volume for Etsy, and its handmade goods, are Canada, Australia, and United Kingdom. As a creative maker, who's expanding their small business to international markets, Etsy sellers were yet left again to face new obstacles in transactions with international buyers. For instance, international shipping requires a whole new level of expertise, and it is time consuming to ensure all measurements are considered for estimating costs, contents are permitted for importing into foreign territories, all customs duties & taxes are accounted for, and much more. Etsy didn't leave the community to solve these problems on their own, offering label printing features from the website. Even though it doesn't resolve all issues, Etsy's team is making continuous improvements on adding more features, and updating the website in the way that helps the community, which nowadays solely depends on Etsy's platform.
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