Re:Etsy is laying off 11% of its staff
by massysett on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @01:24PM
(#38631794)
"If you want something truly made by an individual artist one-by-one you are going to eventually have a hard time affording whatever that item is."
Yes! Especially an artist in a rich country. You're paying for the artist's time, and in rich countries that's very expensive.
On Etsy I found some great wood art from a Chinese artist, priced at a few hundred dollars.
I do like Etsy for household knick-knacks like napkin holders or nightlights or photo frames. I can go on Amazon and get some random made-in-China junk, or go on Etsy and with a little digging find something a bit more interesting at, say, $50. That's probably ten times what some Amazon dreck would cost but I can splurge on a napkin holder or photo frame.
I wouldn't mind an assembly-line hand-painted painting. I like the texture of hand-painted things instead of a print.
Example: search for toilet paper holders. You'll find stuff like a railroad spike, animal sculptures, pipes with valves...they are far more creative, weird, and eclectic than a typical Amazon search.
Hot take: Etsy's customer doesn't actually want something handmade, what they want is something that's thinking "outside the box" of normal home goods. They want a marketplace of unique ideas.
Whatever Etsy has done is working: https://www.statista.com/statistics/409371/etsy-annual-reven...