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As of October 1st 2013 Etsy had some major rule changes to the site that set off a firestorm of comments and complaints. Almost a month later and people are still trying to figure out “what it all means”. I think if you distill it down to the basics, Michael Korrs could open a shop on Etsy and be within the new guidelines.
A little history for those who haven’t dealt with Etsy at all, Etsy started in 2005 as a site where they focused on handmade times, art & craft supplies and vintage items (over 20 years old so we are talking 1993 by this point). It was considered like a permanent craft fair where you could open up your craft stall and sell goods to people with discerning taste.
I have mostly used Etsy for supplies with the occasional really cool handmade good purchase that I have enjoyed over the years.
In the beginning they were pretty good about policing their marketplace and removing people who were skirting the rules about both vintage and copyright issues. But like any market place there were those who just didn’t follow the rules at all and came up with reasons why they weren’t violating the rules.
There was an entire site devoted to Etsy and its not so fabulous entries called Regretsy. One of the things this site did was point out groups that were reselling items that they bought from other companies to sell at rather inflated prices. One of the biggest controversies was Ecologica Malibu who then said, “Oh we are a collective.” Collective became the code-word for manufactures goods and was used by many to skirt the rules.
The other issue was copyright infringement. There were two kinds of this. One was the typical kind where intellectual property of bigger companies (Cartoon Network, Disney, or Warner Brothers to name a few) was being turning into items sold by the sellers (think the Jayne Hat from Firefly or Harry Potter wands). The other kind was people seeing someone who had a good idea or goods and then making something almost exactly like it and selling it for less. This was a bit more of a grey area because I noticed that when a new technique was discussed in a magazine or a clever way for making something, there was a plethora that then showed up on Etsy pretty shortly there after. I saw some very clever bleach ideas, which took a long time to do, all of the sudden show up all over the place. There were copies of things and outright recreations of goods. Some of it Etsy dealt with and some of it they didn’t because it was the method that was being copied not the item itself. They were fast when the Children’s Television Workshop came to them because someone was selling what they called “replicas” of popular puppets in the show. Slower for another friend who’s art had been used to create iPhone stickers, which I never understood how that was even crafty (that is the stickers not her work which is fabulous.)
As of October 1st they have seriously changed the playing field by allowing manufactured goods on the site along with resale of said goods. They are touting it as the next step for the site allowing small businesses that have grown from one person making the items to a real business.
The new language reads
If you work with an outside manufacturer to make items that you have designed, we ask that you share additional information with Etsy and share information about the manufacturers you work with on your shop and listings. We also expect that you choose ethical manufacturing partners.
From what I can figure out from reading through the rules and the like, you can call it handmade if you are the creator of the original idea or “authorship” as they say in Etsy speak then you can have it manufactured and shipped from where ever you wish. So I could get someone in say South America to manufacture Phluzzies for me and I could still use the handmade label even though I never touched the puppet. Also the rules for proving copyright infringement have been made even more torturous than before.
I know that someone is going to use this new set of standards and trying to resell goods on Etsy. Heck, it has already started. Over the past month there has been an influx of goods that aren’t handmade by the seller at all. Now according to the rules you have to say if you are farming the work out but Etsy has not exactly been stellar about this sort of thing in the past and I don’t expect anything to change.
What I do expect is that my Etsy shop will probably be gone by the end of the month since Etsy has seemed to make this policy of shutting down/out dissenters at a rather rapid rate. They shut down threads in the forms that aren’t “happy” threads. Questions get censored and resellers have made Etsy their new home.
There are alternatives to Etsy. Some are start-ups and some have been in the game for a while. None have the buyer base that Etsy has built over the years so you have to do a lot of promotion to get people to your site. But self-promotion has been a large part of being a handcrafter anyway so that is really nothing new.
It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Over 7 years ago Etsy was touted as the best alternative to Ebay which allowed the crafty person to be able to set prices and sell their goods to the public. Now it is changing its business model and the business models for many. I expect the next site that will be more selective is around the corner.
I am grateful for venues that allow me to sell my handcrafted goods and not have to compete with businesses that mass manufacture items for sale at ridicules prices.
A little history for those who haven’t dealt with Etsy at all, Etsy started in 2005 as a site where they focused on handmade times, art & craft supplies and vintage items (over 20 years old so we are talking 1993 by this point). It was considered like a permanent craft fair where you could open up your craft stall and sell goods to people with discerning taste.
I have mostly used Etsy for supplies with the occasional really cool handmade good purchase that I have enjoyed over the years.
In the beginning they were pretty good about policing their marketplace and removing people who were skirting the rules about both vintage and copyright issues. But like any market place there were those who just didn’t follow the rules at all and came up with reasons why they weren’t violating the rules.
There was an entire site devoted to Etsy and its not so fabulous entries called Regretsy. One of the things this site did was point out groups that were reselling items that they bought from other companies to sell at rather inflated prices. One of the biggest controversies was Ecologica Malibu who then said, “Oh we are a collective.” Collective became the code-word for manufactures goods and was used by many to skirt the rules.
The other issue was copyright infringement. There were two kinds of this. One was the typical kind where intellectual property of bigger companies (Cartoon Network, Disney, or Warner Brothers to name a few) was being turning into items sold by the sellers (think the Jayne Hat from Firefly or Harry Potter wands). The other kind was people seeing someone who had a good idea or goods and then making something almost exactly like it and selling it for less. This was a bit more of a grey area because I noticed that when a new technique was discussed in a magazine or a clever way for making something, there was a plethora that then showed up on Etsy pretty shortly there after. I saw some very clever bleach ideas, which took a long time to do, all of the sudden show up all over the place. There were copies of things and outright recreations of goods. Some of it Etsy dealt with and some of it they didn’t because it was the method that was being copied not the item itself. They were fast when the Children’s Television Workshop came to them because someone was selling what they called “replicas” of popular puppets in the show. Slower for another friend who’s art had been used to create iPhone stickers, which I never understood how that was even crafty (that is the stickers not her work which is fabulous.)
As of October 1st they have seriously changed the playing field by allowing manufactured goods on the site along with resale of said goods. They are touting it as the next step for the site allowing small businesses that have grown from one person making the items to a real business.
The new language reads
If you work with an outside manufacturer to make items that you have designed, we ask that you share additional information with Etsy and share information about the manufacturers you work with on your shop and listings. We also expect that you choose ethical manufacturing partners.
From what I can figure out from reading through the rules and the like, you can call it handmade if you are the creator of the original idea or “authorship” as they say in Etsy speak then you can have it manufactured and shipped from where ever you wish. So I could get someone in say South America to manufacture Phluzzies for me and I could still use the handmade label even though I never touched the puppet. Also the rules for proving copyright infringement have been made even more torturous than before.
I know that someone is going to use this new set of standards and trying to resell goods on Etsy. Heck, it has already started. Over the past month there has been an influx of goods that aren’t handmade by the seller at all. Now according to the rules you have to say if you are farming the work out but Etsy has not exactly been stellar about this sort of thing in the past and I don’t expect anything to change.
What I do expect is that my Etsy shop will probably be gone by the end of the month since Etsy has seemed to make this policy of shutting down/out dissenters at a rather rapid rate. They shut down threads in the forms that aren’t “happy” threads. Questions get censored and resellers have made Etsy their new home.
There are alternatives to Etsy. Some are start-ups and some have been in the game for a while. None have the buyer base that Etsy has built over the years so you have to do a lot of promotion to get people to your site. But self-promotion has been a large part of being a handcrafter anyway so that is really nothing new.
It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Over 7 years ago Etsy was touted as the best alternative to Ebay which allowed the crafty person to be able to set prices and sell their goods to the public. Now it is changing its business model and the business models for many. I expect the next site that will be more selective is around the corner.
I am grateful for venues that allow me to sell my handcrafted goods and not have to compete with businesses that mass manufacture items for sale at ridicules prices.
