Well this is saying there’s a problem with etsy then. They should make it straightforward for the customer to resolve it with the site without involving a 3rd party
I cannot say that I am surprised. The market for many of the simple crafts which can be made at home, and demonstrate little creativity has always been limited.
The truly creative artisans continue to sell in traditional crafts channels to avoid the theft of their designs.
The story of all of the Big Internet marketplace companies is a story of too many employees who do too little work. It isn’t good for the employees either which is why many of thsese companies had high voluntary turnover before reality hit and layoffs occurred.
Most Internet companies are poorly managed, have overpriced shares because they should have multiples comparable to retailers not tech, and are unprepared to return to more modest operations and value.
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Marketplaces in general have a hard time competing with Amazon, because Amazon provides fulfillment services at cost to it’s sellers. When you’re paying a 15% referral fee + your own cost of fulfillment at today’s rock bottom ecommerce prices it’s just not sustainable.
Amazon’s the only marketplace where selling $10 items makes sense because they fulfill it for $4. They basically shaped the market to where tons and tons of common household products sell in the $5 - $15 range which makes it impossible for any other marketplace to match because nobody (except walmart now) can match FBA’s cost structure.
No 3PL company can match FBA’s rates because they can’t work for free as that’s their only source of revenue.
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Specialty marketplaces like Etsy, Ebay, ABEbooks, Alibris, Biblio, Discogs, Poshmark have a limited audience by definition and a limit to growth as a result.
They cannot waste money. Not on frills, not on useless software enhancements, not on advertising, not on headcount, not on trying to compete with mass market marketplaces.
Wayfair has to compete with Amazon. Bed Bath and Beyond (Overstock) has to, Etsy eats Amazon Handmade’s lunch, but that does not take much effort.
Amazon is handing the collectibles business to Ebay. Ebay’s strength is collectibles and cheap chinese crapola. And selling those items to price conscious buyers. The collectibles, used book and similar collectibles cannot reap the benefits of FBA, and constantly come in conflict with Amazon’s authenticity programs, wasting the seller’s time and money and Amazon’s.
Ebay has enough flexibility in performance to allow Chinese sellers to ship from China, or from a single fulfillment house on either coast. Things take longer than FBA but they offer an cost-effective alternative.
The International Postal Union offers Chinese sellers a better cost structure than Amazon has gained by its huge investment in its delivery network. It isn’t fair, but so much is not.
This is also part of how Temu has been able to fight Amazon from the bottom.
I don’t want to argue about why so many buyers may be more conscious about cost than delivery time, but it is hard to argue with the fact than more are today that not very long ago.
I am congenitally cheap, so on low priced items I opt for price so long as I have the same expectation of receiving what I order, and the same expectation of warranty or lack thereof for the product.
My Amazon orders are items I would never consider Ebay or other sites for. They are usually 15-20% below local stores including Walmart. I place single unit orders so it costs Amazon more (I do hate the company). And I do not order from 3P sellers on AZ or Walmart unless I know them.
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RIS Top 5 E-commerce Retailers (US only) 2023*
- Amazon
- Wayfair
- Chewy
- eBay
- Etsy
*Online only
https://risnews.com/top-5-e-commerce-retailers-2023
From the same article:
As 2023 has evolved, it has been a challenging year for Etsy. And now they’re kind of realizing, you know, with growth kind of challenged, we do have to right size the workforce.
So they’re kind of actually lagging a bit kind of the trends. So they weren’t laying off this time last year. And now was kind of the time to right size the workforce. So I don’t really see it as anything alarming per se. It’s always good to be more agile, be more efficient. And this will allow them to sort of reprioritize and kind of run the business with a little quicker time to market.
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Thank you for sharing! I laughed at this quote: “Etsy launched a new seller app with technology that, the company says, will enable it to make updates more quickly to address seller feedback. Changes included seamless customer communication and enhanced order and inventory management, with more updates planned”
Why? Because sellers HATE the new app - it’s garbage and ridiculously buggy. But yeah, that’s what’s going to save the platform!
Love seeing Chewy in there.
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This RIS list runs counter to other lists of e-commerce sites, where Ebay does not come close to the top 10.
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The RIS list is US only and online only, as mentioned above, and is the Top 5 e-commerce retailers from the complete Top 100 US retailers excluding restaurants, as noted in the link.
What other US-based online-only retailer rankings for 2023 can you share?
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