The latest "reimagining" of Etsy

[joebcrafts]

“Big announcement” from Josh today… just reshuffling the deck chairs and calling things by new terms in my opinion.

The excerpt that pisses me off:

we’ve reorganized our policies into new Creativity Standards. To be clear, this is about clarifying what is allowed on Etsy, not changing it.

So “Sourced by a Seller” is the new term for “reselling off alibaba/temu/etc”???

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https://community.etsy.com/t5/Announcements/A-Message-from-Etsy-s-CEO-Strengthening-our-commitment-to/td-p/146041446

Hi sellers,

Thanks for taking the time to watch. I’m so excited to bring our vision to life together and to double down on sharing your creativity with the world. In addition to the information I shared in the video, please read on for more details about how we are strengthening our commitment to creativity and keeping you—our sellers—front and center in everything we do.

Embracing our past to inform our future
Since our earliest days, Etsy has been the home for creativity and self-expression. We’ve proudly connected creative entrepreneurs, like you, with tens of millions of buyers around the world. And, as we’ve grown, it’s still our top priority to invest in Etsy for the long term, so that your items can shine and you can find success on our platform for years to come.

Here are some examples of those investments:

• Since our founding in 2005, we have nurtured a diverse marketplace that allows users to express themselves through a wide variety of unique items, including truly handcrafted pieces, vintage finds, personalized and customized products, and craft supplies.
• In 2014, we began allowing production partners to help support sellers that wanted to scale their creative businesses with us.
• When we experienced tremendous growth in recent years, we increased resources across customer support, product, marketing, and more.
• Today, with more sellers than ever turning to Etsy, we also have significantly scaled our enforcement efforts to combat noncompliant listings and help protect the magic of our marketplace.

Introducing our new Creativity Standards
Along our journey, we’ve heard a need from both sellers and buyers to better understand what is allowed on Etsy and why.

We recognize that, in today’s world, makers almost always use tools to bring their creativity to life. Sculptors and painters use chisels and paintbrushes; furniture makers use power tools; and many artists today use digital tools, such as computer-aided and 3D-printing techniques, print-on-demand tools, and, most recently, GenAI tools to bring human ideas into visual form. The common thread that weaves through all of the creative goods allowed on Etsy is human imagination and involvement. We are, and will remain, the marketplace for original items from real people.

To reinforce what we stand for, so that everyone who comes to Etsy sees why we are different and what makes us so special, we’ve reorganized our policies into new Creativity Standards. To be clear, this is about clarifying what is allowed on Etsy, not changing it. We’re not allowing new items that were prohibited before. Rather, the Creativity Standards underscore the specific work that a seller does for each item in our marketplace. All items on Etsy must be either:

• Made by a seller
• Designed by a seller
• Sourced by a seller
• Handpicked by a seller

I strongly encourage you to read the Seller Handbook article for details about how this impacts your shop and to view the full Creativity Standards policy, which is effective immediately.

Highlighting your creative processes for buyers
We know that most people who come to Etsy are not combing through our policy pages. So we need to make it clearer, directly in the shopping experience, why an item belongs in our marketplace and the seller’s role in the process.

Starting today, there will be a new item detail on listing pages, labeled as one of the following:

• Made by ShopName
• Designed by ShopName
• Sourced by ShopName
• Handpicked by ShopName

Find details and definitions in the Seller Handbook article to understand these new categories and where your items fit in.

We’re also excited to add more options to the listing form for sharing details about your processes, materials, and tools.

I want to stress that this is just the start of our work to elevate your role in our marketplace. We’re also exploring how to highlight it in areas, such as search, discovery, and new marketing experiences. We believe this will better meet buyer expectations and help them find the exact type of item they’re looking for—from artisanal pieces crafted by your two hands to production-assisted items personalized to perfection.

Additionally, the seller community told us that search can feel like a “black box.” So, we’re providing more actionable insights to help you improve the visibility of your listings . We’ve identified specific factors that signal a high-quality listing on Etsy, and we’re getting ready to spell those out more than ever, so you can ensure your listings get seen—and most importantly, sold! Stay tuned for more information on that later this summer.

Spotlighting you, the heart of our marketplace
I’m thrilled to share our new marketing campaign, which illustrates how Etsy sellers are truly the heart of our marketplace. It includes a TV commercial, billboards, and social-media content in the US and UK, and highlights sellers who make our marketplace so special, and so human . Read more about the full campaign on our news blog.

We’re even refreshing our homepage in the US and UK to show new shoppers how all of the items on Etsy involve a human touch. Sign out to see it on Etsy.com!

Celebrating with our seller community
Finally, Etsy’s seller community is one of the most engaged groups of creatives on the planet. This year, we are bringing back two beloved seller programs that help educate and celebrate the Etsy community:

• Etsy Up: Our flagship, virtual seller conference returns on September 10. Gather inspiration, find insightful tips, connect with other sellers, and elevate your shop for the holiday season—and beyond. RSVP for free.
• Etsy Design Awards: On July 16, we’re kicking off our annual global award program, honoring the work of Etsy sellers across multiple categories. Submit your entry for a chance to be named one of this year’s award winners! Look out for an email with details next week.

There is no one better to tell the world what creativity means today than you—the creative entrepreneurs that power Etsy.

All of the updates I have shared today are part of Etsy’s efforts to uplift and support your businesses, so that we can continue to make Etsy the marketplace for original items from real people.

[joebcrafts]

From the Handbook link:

So I was wrong… Sourced is supplies and print on demand… “I’m reselling from Temu” must still be in Made by a seller - The item was “altered” by putting it in its own box/mailer for final shipping.

[GGX]

They’re not cutting off alibaba resellers, not now, not ever. Simple fact of the matter is that’s where the majority of the revenue comes from nowadays.

Sellers just say they handmade stuff, and etsy has little/no incentive to vet those claims. As a business that works off of commission, all they care about at the end of the day is total GMV. They already have a reputation for having a lot of junk resellers, but most buyers don’t care.

That said, I did get some nice stuff off etsy a long time ago, those days are long gone though.

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

I mean I like the idea but who’s going to enforce it?

China/ali/tmu resellers/drop shippers are just gonna label everything made by seller.

[LR72]

The “certain collections of items selected/curated by a seller” is the loophole for Alibaba/Temu.

I wonder where all the download art that’s scraped from museums falls into this. I suppose they’ll say they “altered” it by changing the size.

The problem is buyers are leaving Etsy now because of all the junk. None of this will fix that.

[GGX]

@LR72

buyers are leaving Etsy

For every person that will pay a premium price for a premium product, there’s 20 who will buy junk at a cheap price

[ModernSwitch]

That was a whole lot of word salad to just basically say “hey we are changing the name of LABEL but doing nothing to make sure people are choosing the right LABEL”

[Dogtamer]

@ModernSwitch

That was a whole lot of word salad to just basically say “hey we are changing the name of LABEL but doing nothing to make sure people are choosing the right LABEL”

Nail, meet hammer.

[LR72]

@GGX

For every person that will pay a premium price for a premium product, there’s 20 who will buy junk at a cheap price

That’s fair. I should have said ‘quality’ buyers.

[lake]

From Day 1, Etsy has some sellers who’s creativity and fabrication skills were the equivalent of an elementary school student.

They have grown to be key members of the Etsy community, and buy as well as sell on Etsy.

It is hard to erect barriers to Asian sellers who are no more creative and whose fabrication skills are no more advanced.

Artificial barriers might be of questionable legality.

Etsy also has sellers who are far more innovative and could standalone and compete in many more sophisticated channels, but they are stuck with Etsy because they may not be geographically close to those channels.

Etsy management has a real problem and they appear to be trying to thread the needle between moving up and destroying their traffic.

IMO it cannot be done.

Their strategy will never please all of the sellers who want it to be a venue for people exactly like them, and people who want a venue which generates some sales, any sales, even if their products are replicated in every country on the planet.

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

According to the verge:

The company says that this won’t change anything in practice – things that were previously prohibited, like the reselling of items made by someone else, still won’t be allowed under the new policy.

Yeah right

[Bird_of_Paradise]

Handpicked (by clicking on the item at Alibaba).

[meredithbead]

@LR72

The problem is buyers are leaving Etsy now because of all the junk.

I’m glad I emptied my three Etsy shops at the end of 2022. I can’t compete with Temu/Alibaba, and I gave up thinking my products could be found underneath the heaps of landfill fodder.

[aerides]

well those new “policies” are clear as mud.

I think I might update my descriptions to be more explicit. “Everything I sell is Handmade by me, designed by me, with stones and components sourced by me, original designs, real silver, real quality gems - any questions feel free to ask!”

[Old-Timer]

I wish more of our Etsy buyers would leave pictures of our finished custom product with their reviews. Most just leave a review. A few buyers add the picture.

I have to start going through all the “Your Text Here” main images and replace them with an actual finished product. Darn, but that will look better.

And, find out how to fix the “Designed by” and have Etsy place the correct “Made by” on some of our listings Etsy has marked inaccurately.

[packetfire]

My wife can’t draw but she has an artist freind over in the UK who hand-draws birthday, Christmas, Valentine, and anniversary cards to her specifications.

The are all for me. Cute little cartoon scientists drilling holes in the ice with giant cartoon corkscrews with emperor penguins hanging over their shoulders supervising, a guy dangling from sailboat masts in the middle of squalls trying to clear a jammed block, a proud pilot having safely landed in an abandoned shopping mall parking lot due to engine failure, all sorts of crazy stuff, little snapshots from our adventures and years together.

The art is amazing, and she first hired her over Etsy, as she offered penguin cards for sale, and the penguins were very authentic. But she has a long email letter every so often that she sends in reply to my wife’s letters, and etsy brings her to tears far more often than Amazon brings any of you to tears.

Etsy tries to pretend to be warm and fuzzy, but they aren’t, and they hoodwink the most innocent souls who just never expected to be treated so poorly, and simply cannot deal with it.

Amazon at least lowers our expectations from the get-go. They are at least “honest” where etsy is not.

[lake]

Etsy is in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not a place for wimps.

The area of Brooklyn is DUMBO.

No. it is not an elephant. It is Down Under The Manhattan Bridge.

[ModernSwitch]

I still find success on Etsy and I’m just not sure if it’s because I’ve been on there since 2008.

Sales this year now are finally rising again after being a stagnant plateau for a few years. I’m grateful.

One of the biggest changes this year I’ve made, that I’m not sure is a factor in my growing sales, but might be: I’ve put a picture of my self on my banner and also as a picture of myself in every new listing (and old listings as I go thru and edit them). Kind of a “meet the maker” ideally trying to show people that I’m a a real person owned small business.

I don’t think anyone reads descriptions anymore, and so I try to put as much info now in my photographs. Anything that was in the description is now on a photograph. It helps I think fill out the 10 photos…not sure if it’s required? That’s really the only thing I’ve done this year is more photos.

[papy]

@aerides

I think I might update my descriptions to be more explicit. “Everything I sell is Handmade by me, designed by me, with stones and components sourced by me, original designs, real silver, real quality gems - any questions feel free to ask!”

“Literally you might find my fingerprints, hair strands, and/or dna in the form of blood, sweat, tears, spittle, and elbow grease deeeeep in the depths of this product that I have grown and nurtured from the scattered ephemera of idea atoms into this precious tangible reasonably priced handcrafted keepsake”