Etsy Loses Its 'Handmade' and 'Vintage' Labels As It Takes On Temu and Amazon

Instead of "handmade" and "vintage," Etsy created four new classifications for sellers on the site: "made by," "designed by," "handpicked by," and "sourced by." In order for products to be sold on Etsy, they'll now need to fall into one of these four categories. The Verge reports: Vintage items -- a backbone of Etsy's offerings -- will fall under "handpicked by," though these items will also have "vintage" labels on product listings. Craft supplies like beads or clay are considered "sourced by." A vase handmade by a ceramics artist would be in the "made by" category, whereas a digital illustration would be considered "designed by" the seller. These categories will be visible on Etsy product listings. 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.

"The consistent theme here is that items are infused with a human touch, because that's what makes Etsy, well, Etsy," CEO Josh Silverman said in a video message. The goal for the new categories, the company says, is to provide more details to shoppers about how an item is made and how a seller was involved in the process. Etsy has differentiated itself from other marketplaces like Amazon or Temu, emphasizing itself as a place to find unique items made by an artisan or selected by a curator. But over the years, the company has loosened its rules around what exactly counts as "handmade."

Handpicked?

[kmoser]

things that were previously prohibited, like the reselling of items made by someone else, still won't be allowed under the new policy.

Most vintage items were made by somebody else. So are they allowed, or not?

Re:

[sg_oneill]

I presume "Vintage" meant something like "Boy look how old fashion this thing I made is". Marketing nonsense term.

Re:

[reanjr]

Whoever wrote this article for the Verge and their editor are morons.

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[arglebargle_xiv]

Or is this just a way for people to sell their boogers on Etsy?

"[W]hat makes Etsy, well, Etsy"

[93 Escort Wagon]

I haven't shopped on Etsy, but my daughter does a fair bit - and a lot of what she's purchased looks like the same cheap knock-off crap you see all over Amazon.com.

Re: "[W]hat makes Etsy, well, Etsy"

[guruevi]

Because it is. With processes like 3D printing and injection molding you can very cheaply make things that look unique but are actually the same thing with a different shape, as long as the market is large and broad enough, things will be unique within your immediate social circle even if they produced and sold 10,000 of them.

It hasnâ(TM)t been a site for hand made ashtrays in at least a decade.

Is "handmade" the only criteria?

[Pollux]

"The consistent theme here is that items are infused with a human touch, because that's what makes Etsy, well, Etsy," CEO Josh Silverman said in a video message...Etsy has differentiated itself from other marketplaces like Amazon or Temu,

Is handmade the only criteria that matters to them? Because, secret's out, a lot of Temu's crap is also handmade...handmade by Uyghur prison labor [latimes.com]. If someone did enough digging, it wouldn't surprise me if at least a few items on Etsy also came from those prison factories.

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

The "human touch" part comes when they pull the plastic doohickey off of the 3D printer's build plate and throw it in a bag.

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[gosso920]

I always called him Vanilla Ice, Jr.

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[drinkypoo]

There's definitely now a ton of stuff on Etsy that is a mass-produced copy of something handmade that someone was selling... on Etsy. And even more that're copies of a digital product sold there. It would be surprising if a lot of the stuff in the first category wasn't made exactly as you describe, since that's what's cheapest.

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[Mr. Jerar]

Agreed. Sadly, even at arts/craft shows, which you could say is like Etsy but in person, the mass-produced items show up there too. For Etsy for us, the only saving grace is since it is harder to mass produce working canteen drinking gourds, we do not see any many cheap made in China postings since it takes time and skill to clean them and turn them in to functional drinking vessel. Downside, due to the cheap products on Esty or even at the arts/craft shows, we sell less too than we do at shows/festivals th

Resellers

[PhrostyMcByte]

Go shopping for a bowl on Etsy and there's a ton of bulk-made cheap stuff listed right alongside hand-made and vintage items. It kinda sucks because the site's whole draw for me is the human connection and knowing I'm directly funding a small artist.

So, I think this will have a positive impact on my experience assuming it works.

I wish they'd have made a bolder choice to move those sellers to a different site entirely. I totally understand the business case for not doing so, but I continue to be sad experien

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[ArchieBunker]

Etsy is now Amazon, the middleman for Aliexpress.

Re:

[postbigbang]

Etsy gonna die.

They're better at this curation meme than FleaBay, but their CEO seems desperate to shrug off analyst views of their market rep.

They need a new mojo. Fast.

Etsy Died Long Ago

[coopertempleclause]

For ages Etsy has been a dropshipping website with a "boutique" price markup. As always, the MBAs destroyed another great idea in pursuit of money.

It's been a long time since their old labels...

[mhkohne]

Were enforced. I'm not hopeful that they'll enforce these either. Stupid - they had a market where they could make money being DIFFERENT than Amazon/Temu/whatever. Now they're just trying to be one more of the same.

Fuck Etsy

[Phact]

I spent a month building a small store last year, I made one sale, and they suspended the store without giving a reason. Actually the reason was maybe i violated a policy or maybe i owed them money, they wouldn't say anything except to point to a big policy document which i read thoroughly and could not figure out what i did wrong. My products were original, not lewd or hateful, my accounts were not in debt.
They have an appeal process i tried. I was immediately ruled against, The store was permanently suspended with no possibility of reinstatement. They never said what the issue was, and I could never figure out why, Fuck them, Giant waste of my time.

Etsy is dead

[nmb3000]

Or if not dead, on life support.

It has become a cesspool of resold Temu and other drop-shipped shit, same as Amazon and other online resellers. You can still find the occasional quality handmade stuff, but those stores have been suffocated by the tidal wave of identical cheap garbage coming from China. Since genuine handmade items cost real money, these store owners get blasted for being "too expensive" and any that see real success are immediately copied with low-quality knockoffs by copycats and scammer