Do we have a winner in Etsy?
For some while there has been a buzz around Etsy, a marketplace for handmade things. The key to Etsy’s success and why it will bring down Ebay and many other sites is how they’ve organized themselves and their focus on community and the unique value that each seller and item provide.
Etsy shares more common traits with Non-profit organizations than it does with a traditional company and the keyword is Marketplace. Just like before the industrial revolution, the focus is on the individual and facilitating a place for sellers and buyers to meet. They also, through workshops, Virtual labs and Chat, educate and support that marketplace.
In a world where multinational companies focus on producing non-durable goods that has been shipped increasingly long distances and manufactured in extremely poor conditions, the micro economy that Etsy creates has everything to win.
It’s interesting to compare Etsy’s handmade goods to Haute coture, as the value of that unique and handmade good is the connection between the customer and the artist. Every transaction creates a new relationship that brings value to both the seller and the buyer. The ability to facilitate that emotional bond is a core strength of Etsy.
But how does Etsy create more value than, for example, a Shopify or an Ebay does?
Although Shopify tries to establish itself as a marketplace they focus on the item and not the seller behind it. They focus on the generic value of yet another t-shirt instead of bringing forward the unique value of every item. Thus missing the point of a marketplace with a massproduced approach to micro produced goods.
What about Ebay then? Ebay has never catered to a community instead it has maintained a focus on building a mass inventory of items (just as Blocket in Sweden or YouTube regarding video). They’re also not providing unique items instead it increasingly a way of buying cheap items that otherwise could have been bought in a Walmart or H&M. Ebay facilitate a market place where sellers can earn money but not create unique and sustainable value since they’re only selling mass produced goods with the only difference that the transaction is made through a different distribution channel.
Let’s finish with a little video about Etsy (via Jeremiah)
Bloggar.se: etsy, ekonomi, mikroekonomi, värde, ebay
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