Was Etsy too good to be true? - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/9/4/20841475/etsy-free-shipping-amazon-handmade-josh-silverman <comment><USER2> Etsy fell apart when they failed to police non-handmade goods. For example I was looking for a picture frame and any permutation of search terms I used returned thousands of results from a handful of sellers that are obviously just Chinese junk I could buy at Wal-Mart (all mislabeled of course--I was searching for 'walnut 18x24 picture frame' and the results contained frames of all colors, shapes, and wood types). Then to make things even worse when I waded through the results I DID find someone selling a frame like I wanted, but then I looked a bit further down the page and found the EXACT same frame from another seller. They're located geographically near to each other (separate cities though) and they used the same pictures. And the prices were quite different. Some sort of scam is going on there but I'm not sure what-- either people are buying from a local craftsman and reselling on Etsy, or the local craftsman is selling his products online at slightly different prices for a reason I couldn't quite grasp.

<comment><USER3> > _when they failed to police non-handmade goods_

They never failed at this. Moving beyond handmade goods was a deliberate move.

FTA

> _But the growth — and yet another round of VC funding — put even more > pressure on Etsy. Chief technology officer Chad Dickerson had taken over as > CEO after Kalin was voted out by the board in July 2011, and in October > 2013, in an infamous town hall meeting at Etsy HQ, he announced that the > company would allow sellers to contract with outside manufacturers to help > make their products, so long as they designed everything themselves and were > willing to provide detailed explanations of their process to Etsy's > Marketplace Integrity team.

Much of the community was aghast, fearing the change would ruin the culture of the site forever._

<comment><USER4> _> willing to provide detailed explanations of their process to Etsy's Marketplace Integrity team_

Either that rule has been dropped, or is simply not (adequately) enforced, in my limited experience of Etsy. Unless "I order it, it comes in a boat from China, I list it for sale" counts as a perfectly good explanation of a process.

There are still many "proper" makers on Etsy (I know people personally who use the site to sell artwork, corsets & other dressware, etc) that are genuinely hand-made, but they are often undercut by those selling similar but mass- produced alternatives (that are usually lower quality, but people often don't seem to care about that until after they receive the product, and they then judge all on Etsy by that standard).

<comment><USER5> The rule was placed so the community could swallow the pill. Once factory built products make it into the marketplace, it is a lot easier to gradually decrease rule enforcement over time, until you are effectively a niche alibaba, allowing factories to sell directly to consumers (they probably sold the board on that exact term)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Etsy is my go-to for counterfeit licensed merchandise. Need some video game themed dish towels? Cuff links inspired by your favorite book series? It's all there. Etsy is the genie lamp you get when you cross image search with artists' alley.

Amazon could never ever compete with Etsy in this category. The twist is Etsy can't advertise that they are the font of dreams for whatever IP you'd like to violate the commercial rights of.

<comment><USER7> Selling fan-art should honestly just be allowed at this point. There are a lot of rules that should be in place like not being able to directly use the official assets or labeling that it's 3rd-party and not endorsed but these kinds of things should be able to operate above board.

The current system of "don't get on the copyright holder's bad side" is silly.

<comment><USER8> > Selling fan-art is just a copyright loophole that should honestly just be > plugged at this point.

Or we should stop letting companies monopolize markets and become insanely rich off of that thing they came up with 30 years ago. Plug it? Tear it wide fucking open.

<comment><USER7> I don't disagree with you but I think perfect is the enemy of good in this case. Changing copyright a little bit to allow fan-art is a much smaller problem than dismantling copyright in it's entirety and we can work on both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I looked at selling stuff on Etsy recently and was completely turned off, basically you are competing against cheap knockoff or mass produced products from sweatshops. Despite what management says, its nothing more now than an Amazon with a better looking website. What Etsy was, was a valuable place for small craftspeople, what Etsy is today is just another money machine.

<comment><USER10> I sell on Etsy. It's harder, yes, since the explosion of clearly mass-produced knockoffs. However, with quality products (and especially a focus on producing quality photos of those products) sellers can still do well, and plenty of buyers recognize the difference. In fact plenty of buyers deliberately avoid those super low priced items because they are looking for legitimately handmade quality items. I actually raised my prices to help distinguish myself in that way and while I don't sell as many items, I still sell about the same $ amount.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My wife and I have been slowly buying furniture for our house, and Etsy is our go-to. I don't know where else I can search for such a wide array of styles for things like desks and coffee tables, find exactly the style I want, and THEN get it custom-made to the dimensions I want. I really like the way it opens up smaller shops like that for higher-end purchases like furniture, and I've never had a bad experience despite buying items in the 4-digit range.

That being said, complete dumpster fire on the lower-priced items like this article is getting at. I really enjoy Etsy when it can deliver on its promise of opening up a marketplace of skilled artisans who otherwise would've have had a hard time getting started. Hope it can get back to that.

<comment><USER12> There used to be a site for exactly this called custommade.com. Aside from a list of items that others have already made for you to browse, you could also put up a description of the project and let craftsmen contact you with questions or bids for the project.

I'm not entirely sure what happened but they ended up refocusing on strictly custom jewelry instead of custom whatever you want that someone else can make. It's really unfortunate because it was an excellent service with very talented makers and I haven't been able to find anything similar to replace it.

<comment><USER11> That sounds (sounded) awesome! As I was typing up my previous comment I was wondering if there are any other services out there that does this same sort of thing. Fingers crossed.

<comment><USER13> If you're near one of our current 11 markets, you can find some local, custom makers: [https://attic.city](https://attic.city). Or ff you're in the DC area, see [https://attic-dc.com/custom-furniture](https://attic-dc.com/custom- furniture) for an expanded offering.

Sorry if you're from outside of these markets; we're working on building out to more. Feel free to put in a vote for a particular one :)

<comment><USER12> Looks like a great service. Sadly none of your current markets are near me and the closest city I could vote for is an eight hour drive away. I'll check back periodically and see if you've expanded to anywhere within driving range. Thanks for letting me know about the service!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anecdotal comment: I've been a buyer of Etsy sourced things since around 2011 (roughly 160 purchases? hard to tell without manually counting, 16 pages of about 10 per page) - I have watched the features of the site degrade over time around the community aspects, usability features and whatnot - the way making and sharing interest lists was drastically changed, for example, and is now frustrating and non-intuitive. Certain other features were introduced with no way to edit or disable them, such as their Notifications fiasco. I rarely visit the site anymore - even Instagram has better handcrafted makers who are easier to find than Etsy. (contrary to many popular memes, IG has a lot of healthy small communities for collectors and aficionados)

Etsy's movement as a site and company drove me away as a frequent buyer of goods - they don't listen to real user feedback (well, mine :)), they're definitely trying to engage the mass market buyer now with quantity not quality and craftsmanship even in search results. Recently. I wanted a silver ring; it took a _lot_ of work to find actual, real handcrafters who bang out the silver bar, solder it into a ring and polish it (I did find two great ones though, a guy in Greece and a gal in Thailand - beautiful rings, bought one from each). But it took me a lot of time and effort just to locate these two actual crafters buried amongst an overwhelming number of pretend crafters selling pressed rings they probably bought in bulk and are just reselling.

</comment><comment><USER15> " _It doesn't help that Etsy changed its transaction fee from 3.5 percent to 5 percent last June — fair enough, it had been flat for 13 years, but still, the timing._ "

Wait. That's not how this works. This is not a price, it's a proportion.

Anyway, it sounds like Etsy has decided to become a more general online retailer, which does open it to a much larger market. It also removes any barriers protecting Etsy from being marginalized by larger retailers. I hope the management really is smarter than everyone else in the field.

<comment><USER16> I think the author meant the 3.5% was flat in the sense that it hadn't increased in thirteen years.

It's not very clear English either way.

<comment><USER17> Usually if you say you're raising prices because they've been flat for years the implied justification is that it's to match inflation. But that doesn't apply to a percentage fee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wish Etsy would hang on to being the "alternative" seller so that i can still satisfy my well-paid hipster sensibilities by going "Oh, they add shipping costs but that's ok because i'm supporting independent makers", but can see why they have to do this.

</comment><comment><USER10> This story is framed all wrong. It even admits that this change will improve sales, but still comes down hard on Etsy for making a change. A change that improves sales for its sellers.

Not only that, it's really not Etsy that is forcing this change, it's consumer behavior that has been changed by access to free, fast shipping by both Amazon and others. Etsy has little choice but to ride that wave. If they didn't make this change, sellers on Etsy would be pushed out in the long term anyway.

Not only that, but it's clear that sellers on Amazon often price their shipping costs into the product price, which is the exact option that Etsy built explicitly into this switch: When turning on free shipping, sellers had the ability to say "change my product prices to be [current price] + [shipping cost].

Finally, I sell on Etsy. I switched to free shipping mid July. My sales have improved by about 30% over where I'd expect them to be for this time period. More people are buying more items to get to that $35 threshold. It more than covers the difference in shipping.

Sure, that positive scenario may not play out for all sellers. But then the long term picture wouldn't have been any better as Amazon's own "handmade" venue and cheap mass-produced alternatives eat their sales.

<comment><USER19> It is 100% Etsy forcing this change. Josh Silverman is there to increase revenue and this is how they are doing it.

There was no consideration for their sellers, a large number of which cannot do free shipping. Etsy want to be "Etsy" not a platform and service for sellers.

Sure some stores won't be affected but plenty had already tried free shipping and reported it did not work, Etsy didn't care. Anyone shipping heavy items or internationally can't do free shipping properly. I know UK stores who have been told to just offer a code and discount back some of the value to their UK customers so that these stores can sell with free shipping in the US. It doesn't make sense. This is a pure revenue driver, it does not benefit stores.

Etsy do not know how to run small businesses and they are forcing people who do to make bad decisions.

You could have offered free shipping anyway if you had wanted to.

<comment><USER10> Your right, I could have offered free shipping. But it wasn't until Etsy made it nearly a requirement that I did so. I wasn't happy, but it actually turned out to be better for me. Maybe there are some small minority of sellers that truly can't offer free shipping, but I don't see how most can't offer it and simply add the cost to their items, or as it was in my case, result in more sales that more than make up for the difference.

And yes, technically it is Etsy that is implementing this change. In that sense they are "forcing" it. But a failure to do this would also have resulted in the slow demise of many of their sellers. In that sense, the market, in order to keep pace with competitors, forced this change. Etsy, acting in its own best interest, also acted in the best interests of a majority of its sellers. A failure to act might have been in the best interest of a minority of its sellers. So it was a choice of doing what's best for Etsy _and_ most sellers or nothing, which would slowly kill Etsy and _all_ of its sellers. Not much of a choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> How does it work with international sales? Do you need to make shipping free to everywhere, or only to one place to get the ranking boost?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, we were an Etsy seller. At first it was nice, but then slowly we saw the problems, the issues, and Etsy started adding "features" that were insulting at best. Etsy might be fine for the home hobbiest, but the reality is, at this point, anyone doing serious business on Etsy is looking for alternatives. Shopify is a probably the most popular choice. But Etsy hasn't done anything to support sellers for a long time.

In the end, the only reason you use Etsy is to bank on the brand and people's expectations that Etsy is still hand made.

However, even that reputation is losing ground, and soon it will be a store front with limited tools and even more limited features.

We moved off Etsy, and it was the best thing we did for our business.

Edit: I want to add, in hindsight, we didn't need Etsy to be able to move. We could have started on Shopify and been just as successful.

<comment><USER21> I guess maybe it depends on what you're selling, but we found we badly needed the discoverability of the Etsy marketplace. Which sucks, because as of late they've been doing a lot of things to annoy sellers.

We (mostly my wife) have three Etsy shops, all paying Etsy+ customers. Each shop does probably 30-50 orders a month, so we're not tiny potatoes. We received two low ratings (one three star and one one star) across 6 months in one of our shops. The one star was because Etsy didn't wait until the order was mark delivered by USPS to solicit feedback from the user, so they said "we haven't gotten it yet so I don't know." The other was an issue that the buyer didn't read the listing at all (they complained about the item being smaller than expected, but the measurements on the listing were actually a good bit _smaller_ than what they got so it should have been too big...?). Either way, two somewhat off feedbacks in like 200 sales.

Etsy sends an email that basically says we've fallen below their standards for customer satisfaction and we need to get back on track. When we asked what they were talking about, they said they'd gotten a "significant number" of customer dissatisfaction reports. When pressed, it was those two reviews. When we pushed back that those were kind of unfair negative feedbacks, they just brushed it off and, basically, said we need to get our act together. What the heck?

The kicker? That shop went from 2-3 sales a day on average to zero. For like, weeks. It's finally back and selling things, but I think we were being removed from search results or at least ranked much lower as punishment or something. They've really pumped up this gatekeeping behavior lately, and it's really starting to chafe me. :/ I'm 99% sure because we're paying Etsy+ customers that we get preference in search rankings. I know they definitely prioritize shops that offer free shipping even if the price is higher because they've said so (which is a really annoying way to squeeze your sellers for more money while inciting them to raise prices and thus increasing your percentage take on the final value fees...). I wish they'd stop trying to influence people's discovery so much, but I'm guessing they have to have their data scientists working on something to make money?

But like I said, without the community (which is great) and discoverability of their marketplace, our sales are junk (we've tried). I know we could invest in marketing this or sales that or promoting locally, but frankly we're very small and don't make enough to invest in that sort of stuff to get an equal return. It just sucks that it at least _feels_ like Etsy has become a lot more seller hostile in the past year. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Whatever Etsy is, they spawned the wonder Regretsy.com (sadly dead now), so there will always be that silver lining.

[https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/craft-ideas/how- to/g21...](https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/craft-ideas/how- to/g2191/craft-disasters-regretsy/)

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/regretsy- closure](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/regretsy-closure)

</comment><comment><USER23> The looming scepter of Amazon seems to cast a very long shadow nowadays. It is beginning to feel like the bogeyman on which every company blames their current struggles.

<comment><USER10> Well, Amazon did go out and create a new seller venue, "Handmade", specifically to compete with Etsy in this area. So it's not like some random retailer complaint, Etsy legitimately has a new struggle as a result. It's honest competition though. And plenty of Etsy sellers (me, for example) checked out Amazon Handmade, hated it, and still just sell on Etsy. So Amazon can compete on prices and a larger captive audience, Etsy is still competing on quality, unique marketplace (though more generic than it used to be) and a better seller experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My one Etsy experience was great, I paid an order of magnitude less than "regular" businesses were asking for a small piece of brass acid-etched with my own .svg design. I turned to Etsy because I imagined that such an item could be manufactured at home with low overhead cost. Still, many Etsy sellers were asking more than I expected and it was only when I searched based on a common use for such an item (not my use) that I found a great price. My use: boat plaque. Common use: pet tag.

I wonder what other small-batch custom manufacturing can be found on Etsy at a good price and under what search terms.

More generally, is there a list of "where to get it made" based on manufacturing methods, materials, (small) quantity, size, etc.?

<comment><USER25> That would be a great list! Perhaps HN could make one?

In particular, some things that would be useful for me:

\- product enclosures (plastic, metal, wood even?)

\- fabric products (backpack? tent? blanket?)

\- small metal items

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> They can't beat Amazon but they're trying to become it.

Second, they're not getting their sellers to ensure they're not drop shipping or acting as a front to sweatshop manufacturers.

It's unsure whether they could have grown to their size remaining a craftsperson's and artisan's marketplace, but it'd be nice to have a store dedicated to people who are small time producers of craft and artisanal goods.

<comment><USER27> Is there an alternative to Etsy for actual hand-crafted goods?

For a version 2.0, I'm thinking each seller would be required to post a 5-minute video on their production, showing where they do the work, and showing actual people working in a non-factory, non-assembly line environment.

I'd also require on-site visits by an agent to ensure veracity of that.

Yes, this would be enormously invasive / intrusive and a high burden for sellers. And it doesn't scale well. Maybe the sellers could police each other? Have the person in Wilmington who makes HO-scale vintage sports cars also check in on the Wilmington resident who quilts superhero-themed stuff.

I don't know.

<comment><USER10> > _" Is there an alternative to Etsy for actual hand-crafted goods?"_

There are a few, none nearly so larger with such a large audience though. I think people that sell on them are often using them as a second option, Etsy as the first. One is aftcra.com. There's also a few services geared toward making it very easy for hand-crafted sellers to make their own shop-- Big Cartel and IndieMade come to mind.

<comment><USER27> Overall the aftcra.com site seems nice, though the selection is very limited.

Then I ran across this for Adobe Acrobat XI Pro:

[http://www.aftcra.com/fullstop/listing/308980/adobe- acrobat-...](http://www.aftcra.com/fullstop/listing/308980/adobe-acrobat-xi- pro-download)

WTF?

<comment><USER28> Pirates infiltrate any service where they can list an item for sale. Report and move on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I tried selling some blacksmithed items I created on etsy and found it really hard to even get views. I was able to sell a few steel ladles I forged to a local craft store, but I failed big on the internet. Ah well.

</comment><comment><USER13> Opportunities abound in this space for someone to do things better for consumers. The e-com retail space is soooo fragmented. Take furniture for example, a maker/dealer has all of the following online retail options (and probably more): Etsy, eBay, ApartmentTherapy, 1stDibs, Chairish -- and those are just the marketplaces. They can also chose a more roll their own such as an ecom site from SquareSpace, Shopify, Wix etc. The same is true, but even more fragmented, in the area of fashion. Add to the above PoshMark, theRealReal and many others.

The fragmentation is a disservice to consumers. If this move by Etsy leads for vendors to further disperse across some of the other options, then it adds even more barriers for consumers who want to see the full breadth of offerings in a particular vertical. It's unclear Google is really interested in or up to the task of resolving this.

(Shameless plug time.) So we built ATTIC, a hyperlocal search and discovery engine for a limited set of product verticals (furniture, decor, fashion). Etsy makes up a fair share of the product you'll find, but we do it in a curated manner, namely by location. Even more important though, we also index products from hundreds of other stores, dealers and makers that are on other platforms. We're quickly approaching 1000 stores, currently across 11 cities and several more to come. See [https://attic.city](https://attic.city).

In the end, I'm not sure consumers really care where they get their product from. They're not that loyal. They care about the product and the ease of getting the product. If vendors flee Etsy, the customers will follow. We're hoping we can eliminate the worry about or need to figure out where those dealers went.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _"The house was burning and nobody was paying attention," Etsy board member > and Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson told the New York Times.)_

This feels like asking the wolf what happened after he bought access to the hen house.

An accounting we will never get, but I would love to see is just how much dysfunction and detriment venture capitalists caused their portfolio companies over the past 15 years.

Fred Wilson gets my attention because unfortunate for him, the book, Hatching Twitter shows just how much discord he sowed at Twitter [0]. He is also on record saying he doesn't regret any of it.[1]

Yes, Etsy exists within the VC system, which demands an acquisition or going public, but how many of the bad decisions throughout its hypergrowth were pushed or enabled by Wilson/USV and Etsy's other VC's?

I think it's important to understand these stories, especially in a world where venture capitalists have positioned themselves and their industry as thought leaders in the startup and growth arenas. VCs' actions are almost always behind the scenes, opaque at best, but when actually brought to light can drastically differ from their public opining.

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching- twitte...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-twitter) [1] [https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about- Hatc...](https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about-Hatching- Twitter)

</comment><comment><USER30> Realistically, free shipping means the price of shipping is included in the product.

<comment><USER31> A long time ago I wrote a warehouse management system for a fishing gear manufacturer that shipped enough packages every day that they had a contract with a courier for a fixed price on their deliveries. Regardless of how many there were and where they were doing a lorry turned up at the warehouse at 4pm every day, all the outgoing packages got loaded on it, and off they went. It cost _a lot_ but it was far cheaper than pricing the packages individually, especially as fishing rods are quite an unusual shape. It meant shipping was a fixed business cost, so the price was only part of the product price in the same way that the office rent was a part of the product cost, or the CEO's salary. I imagine quite a lot of B2C product businesses work the same way.

<comment><USER32> Sure. That's because a lot of the delivery business is fixed costs.

But still, depending on the cost and the average number of packages, it could come out as a significant cost per order.

<comment><USER33> Employee salaries would also come out as a significant cost per order. The point is that it might not make any more sense to pull out explicit shipping prices as it would to include an employee-salary fee on all products.

<comment><USER34> That's an interesting point.

The core reason why shipping costs were pulled out separately is that it allowed the customer to choose between various options freely, if they needed it tomorrow vs. whenever. If there's no choice, there's much less incentive to do that.

However, there's still at least a little something I can think of; shipping is generally not part of the sales tax. Rolling it into the price means you're also making your customers pay sales tax on it. That depends on whether you've got to pay tax on the item in question, of course, which varies every which way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Early on, Etsy got rid of all of the 'vintage' stores, and there was a good deal of backlash --- but proper crafters were totally behind the move.

Back then, if you wanted to get some _great_ traction, you got into the chats with the 'Moms' \-- basically a small group that could easily get a lot of traffic to your shop. Sadly, that aspect of the site died out, they brought back the vintage, and ultimately accepted the non-handmade stuff.

For me, I left Etsy when they dropped / changed the chat part.

Etsy kind of followed the trend of my local indie craft scene. At first it was a small, tight-knit group of actual crafters -- then over time folks who used to visit the shows would blatantly copy another product and start selling... then came the vintage sellers... and then the sellers who sell other sellers, often when they're at the same show as those sellers... and ultimately people selling items that were made overseas that they either designed the pattern for or just purchased and glued something.

It's weird. But overall, as the local craft scenes became more popular, they also became more diluted and generic. There were more people selling, but roughly the same categories of products.

That being said, if you get into the right shows, you can still make bank... but, like Etsy, the maker spirit has died off.

</comment><comment><USER36> There is no such thing as "free shipping". On a site where people rarely make any bulk purchases, adding shipping into the base price is the right thing to do. It's just behavioral economics.

Case in point, I prefer "free shipping" despite being fully aware that it's not a real thing. Just because you're aware that's it bullshit doesn't mean it doesn't work on you.

</comment><comment><USER37> Just read an article about how these changes (and others) are making Etsy profitable and competitive.

Not sure if this is it because it's from 2017: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/business/etsy-josh- silver...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/business/etsy-josh- silverman.html)

</comment><comment><USER38> One of the problems with Etsy is drop-shipped chinese junk sold for excessive price.

This free shipping thing seems like it'll make that worse.

<comment><USER10> Hard to say, but with the US set to withdraw from the UPU, it may become much harder for those cheap items with free shipping from China to compete in the same way.

<comment><USER28> It won't, they'll just drop-ship bulk to some guy in the US who answered a 'make money from home' ad, who will receive a weekly 'box' of packages to send out with bulk-rate prepaid USPS envelopes. A lot of places already have this workaround going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is unfortunately a natural consequence of going public. The founder was pushed out 4 years before the IPO, so what's happening now (pressure to compete with gigantic ecommerce stores) was already being planned around that time.

"The New York Times called it (the IPO) a test of whether Wall Street will embrace a company that puts doing social and environmental good on the same pedestal with, if not ahead of, maximizing profits."

A test for which the answer sheet has been available for decades. A company like Etsy had no chance of retaining their original culture once their operations had to fit into Wall Street analysts' "competitor metrics" decks.

Now it'll be measured on the same metrics as Walmart and Amazon, like it or not, and management will be incentivized to continue to push for free shipping and other seller-unfriendly policies to keep that revenue growth up, regardless of whether it's sustainable or not.

</comment><comment><USER40> Could Etsy be cleaned by restricting number and quantity of products sold per vendor?

<comment><USER41> a) Etsy doesn't want that since they want to maximize their own revenue b) Preventing people from seeing a path to this being a full time job makes Etsy less appealing even to small time sellers

<comment><USER42> I don't see the logic in removing what made them unique and worth visiting for the sake of increasing revenue. To me, this seems like just one more example of how relentless pursuit of growth destroys good things. IMHO they should have let Etsy stay as small as it needed to to maintain it's charm, and focused on building on other things, even another market place site, if they wanted more revenue.

<comment><USER41> Who is they?

Etsy managed to grow by taking on VC money which comes with strings attached. It then went public, to satisfy the VCs, which also comes with strings attached. Moreover, if not for VC money then they probably wouldn't have taken over the market compared to a better funded competitor.

So, to me, the they here is the whole VC ecosystem.

<comment><USER42> Leadership. I don't know if it was Etsy executives, hired strategists, or shareholders that prioritized growth of their marketplace over its quality, but it was, in retrospect, not a good way to handle the brand. The other possible ways they could have grown their company are innumerable even if they aren't obvious. You may be right it's the VCs that are to blame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I find that the Etsy "Vintage" filter still works pretty well to show only true old/authentic items.

I love that it is a prominent, top-level control. eBay has nothing like it except for "new/used" Condition, which doesn't work nearly as well.

I still think that the filter I want the most is some AI to determine if product photos are "real". Fake backgrounds and generated images are sure signs of a mass-produced item that I'm NOT searching for. Even shots in a light-box are a bad sign. This could be done in a browser extension and I think would produce great results.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would pay good money for a Chrome extension that would intelligently remove opening vignettes and other human-interest crud that every writer feels compelled to insert in putative analysis.

<comment><USER44> I agree, but I'm kind of curious as to why it's so pervasive. There must be some sort of A/B test that writers have done that proves it improves engagement. But which people actually are more engaged by it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This sums up Etsy and why it is still good to root for it..

 _"Etsy at its worst is still better than so many companies at their best," she says now. "They try to live their values and help people succeed, and not every company can say that."_

</comment><comment><USER46> Instead of dreaming about what potential lies in Etsy 2.0, why doesn't someone build a competing marketplace that takes the advantage by not accepting a shit-ton of corrupting VC investment?

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't understand why including the price of shipping in the cost of the item is so bad. We include the price of everything else related to the item in the price. I personally like to know the actual price when I look at the item.

Similarly a few years ago when the EU made it mandatory to have the full price listed for air fares I was really happy. Before you'd have a price then when it came time to checkout you'd have taxes, landing fees, handling charges all added and end up with a price 3 times what was originally quoted.

Since I can't get the item without shipping it should just be included in the price.

<comment><USER48> How far do you live from the seller?

Shipping prices can vary widely for items of significant size.

It is easy for a giant like Amazon to negotiate shipping terms that they can amortize over a vast amount of sales, but that is not true for a small seller moving only double digit numbers of items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> > "Right now, customers add things to their cart and balk at shipping costs, > then bounce from the site for good."

lol... so the solution is to make customers balk much earlier in the funnel when they see unreasonable base prices? And put (craft item, low volume) sellers in a terrible position to give up extremely important marginal revenue by not raising prices to fully offset shipping costs? Or else lose sales with dropoff in search placement (even if you're the more relevant search result to satisfy a certain customer query)...

Etsy just seems gassed for ideas.

<comment><USER7> You see a item on the page and think "I'm willing to pay that to have it." Then you add it to your cart and see a large fee added and you are given a moments pause "Is this item really worth it?" and close the tab.

For some goods cost hiding is good because there is a mental commitment that is made by getting to the check-out process and fees are an annoyance but not a deterrent.

For Etsy they believe that cost hiding is bad because the number of people who would pass up an item at a higher initial price is less than the number who would put the item back on the second evaluation once the 'price to own' is known. Etsy is cost anchoring against their own interests.

<comment><USER50> > For some goods cost hiding is good because there is a mental commitment that > is made by getting to the check-out process and fees are an annoyance but > not a deterrent.

Good for the seller, maybe. I'll give up on sites that do this and look elsewhere on principle, no matter how deep I am in the checkout process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Here's my pie-in-the-sky concept for an Etsy reboot:

1\. Member-owned. There are so many details, but the idea is to align the company directly with the values of the members.

2\. Grow by IRL social graph, with people inviting and vouching for new members. You can't sign up from the web, only from in-person contacts. Probably hardware-backed (Yubikey or whatever). Web-of-Trust... handwave!

3\. Open business. Radical openness and honesty as in "Honest Business: A Superior Strategy for Starting and Managing Your Own Business" by Salli Rasberry & Michael Phillips [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22105625-honest- business](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22105625-honest-business)

4\. Minimum prices, high. Like a baseline of US$150. I'm seriously. The #1 problem most Etsy sellers have is they set their prices too low. The market should foster the idea in customers' heads that their purchases are deliberate economic decisions to support a given person IRL as an independent creative success. You _also_ get a fantastic scarf or whatever.

5\. Straight-up _handmade_. No compromises. This is a showcase and marketplace for artisans and creators.

6\. Explicit focus on the growth and success of the members. Things like organizing free classes on running a business, maybe tied in with SCORE ( [https://www.score.org/](https://www.score.org/) ) or something. I think there should be an option for members to have public goals and meters for themselves like e.g. Kickstarter. I'd also like to have "plans" available to outline the paths to certain levels of success. Like, Plan A "Comfortable life in the country, plus good health insurance." to Plan O "Be the next Oprah".

7\. Along those lines, there should be specific help for IP: developing it and protecting it, _and_ paths to automated production. If there's a demand for your style or product the market should help you fulfill it, as opposed to having third parties rip off your designs and order imitations from rapid- turn-around factories. This has to be harmonized with the idea that the primary market is strictly handmade only. You shouldn't be punished for making something so popular it's pirated. The modern automatic economy should be a service, not a competitor.

8\. There should be a kind of graduation when a member becomes successful enough on their own that they don't need the marketplace anymore. I'm not sure of the details here because I don't mean that they should be kicked out or anything like that, but rather that, once you've "made it", your role should shift a bit to where you're helping others reach their success.

9\. All-in-all, double-down on the idea that we're really creating a viable new economy here. Emphasize tracking the supply chains and try to ground them in ecological sources. Have explicit ratings and discussions of the sources for raw materials. People who live off grid should have some sort of extra oomph, like badges to display or something. Promote sustainable, or better yet _regenerative_ , economy.

<comment><USER52> I was thinking about the same thing. The money could be deducted from the fee they add to the sales.

VC capital and fast growth are toxic

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Pretty much exactly what I expected. Maybe the author should just have more reasonable expectations.

</comment><comment><USER54> I tried Etsy once and it was just cheap crap.

</comment><comment><USER55> Another check in the "Amazon should be broken up" category.</comment>


Microsoft announces quarterly dividend increase and share repurchase program - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/sep13/09-17dividendpr.aspx

<comment><USER2> It's very interesting that Microsoft is the first large tech company to do this in the current cycle. So many of their peers are also wallowing in cash and seemingly unwilling to make large investments so the pile keeps growing.

Companies are supposed to use their capital to innovate and create new, market-changing products and services. Perhaps it's because interest rates are so low and therefore capital is so cheap? Is the hording related to an expectation of another round of the regular tax amnesty for them to repatriate the funds to the US?

<comment> a-priori I don't buy the "wallowing in cash" argument.

In the last quarter, Google reported $54.4B in cash and short term investments and $14.1B in revenue, Apple reported $42.6B in cash and equivalents and $35.3B in revenue and Microsoft reported $76.7B in cash & equivalents and $19.8B in revenue.

Measured in terms of quarters of revenue held in cash & equivalents, Google and Microsoft are more or less tied at 3.8 quarters, and Apple is running relatively lean at 1.2 quarters.

Despite not paying dividends Google is, proportionate to revenue, not holding any more cash than Microsoft, and Apple is holding far less.

<comment><USER3> Apple has $140B of cash/near-cash. It just get's bucketed as long term investments because of GAAP rules.

<comment><USER4> Apple also has $15B of MBS (mortgage backed securities) on its books. Near cash it is not. GAAP is correct.

<comment><USER3> I agree with the GAAP rules, but the GAAP rules require < 90 day instruments. The complexity of rolling $140B every 90 days is insane. You are going to have days where there just isn't enough liquidity.

They are basically managing $100B in house rather than getting screwed by banks every 90 days. GAAP is right, Apple is also right, but saying they only have $40B in cash, is very misleading. They could return $100B to shareholders in 6 months with ease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Both are ways to return money to the shareholders with the balance shifting from giving more flexibility to the shareholders vs more flexibility to the company. Of course the chunks are substantially larger when it comes to buying back individual shares vs paying out a (still relatively small) dividend so there will likely be a balance struck between the two.

By announcing a share repurchase they are also signalling they believe that the shares are undervalued but the strength of that signal is strongly dependent on the amount of money they commit to buying back stock, in this case about 1/7th of their total cap.

</comment><comment><USER6> Subtext: We don't know where to put the $$ at this critical transition point (Ballmer leaving). Rather than figuring it out, we're just going to give the money to shareholders -- that's the safe way so that they can't question our fiduciary responsibility.

<comment><USER7> All tech companies should do this once they reach a certain maturity. Eventually every company should return capital to the markets, otherwise the markets would just be one big ponzi scheme...

<comment><USER8> Not necessarily a good comparison, since the shares can be traded. You can step in very late and still have all the chances to get very rich, which is hardly possible with a Ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER7> A ponzi scheme is defined by the fact that the only profit to be made comes from people who buy in after you. If companies don't return capital to the markets (through dividends or buybacks), then it absolutely fits the definition of ponzi scheme.

The proper cycle of a publicly traded company is that it trades equity for capital, uses said capital to invest in itself, then returns capital when it reaches a certain maturity. Anything else is a scam.

<comment><USER9> Or the company is bought out for cash, as in the case of Dell, or bought by another company for cash and/or shares.

<comment><USER7> No company goes public with the intention of being bought out.

And the entity that's buying the company does so with the intention of distributing the profits (to themselves).

<comment><USER10> The difference between a company and a Ponzi scheme is that the company is actually creating some value. It is converting capital into resources, priorities and processes that generate more capital than it gets. At some point it can't convert capital into more capital, so it's better to pay a dividend -- but even if it never does this, it's not a Ponzi scheme if value is being created.

A Ponzi scheme never generates more cash than it gets -- it only simulates profits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I never understood the purpose of share buybacks. Sure there will be less shares outstanding but the company will be worth that much less from having spent the cash to buy the shares.

How does that benefit anyone?

<comment> Tuna-Fish It transfers money from the company to the owners, just like dividends do. Other than possibly providing different tax outcomes, share buybacks and dividend payments are _completely equivalent_. Any shareholder can take their portion of the dividend/buyback as either as ownership of the company, or as cash, by trading the relevant amount on the market.

<comment><USER12> This is actually not true because it ignores the fact that a company's shares could be trading cheap or dear. One dollar in the form of a dividend payment is always worth one dollar (ignoring taxes), whereas if the company can buy in a share with intrinsic value of X for the cost of 0.8*X, then it is "creating value" for the remaining shares. Conversely, if the shares are expensive relative to intrinsic value, then a buyback destroys value for the remaining shares.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder what this means in terms of Microsoft's overall corporate direction... however, the scale isn't large enough to indicate that they intend to stop deploying cash to expand into new markets. (e.g., instead of throwing billions to promote bing, they just return the money to shareholders).

Still, it's a noteworthy change that might mark the beginning of a change towards the post-Ballmer era.

<comment><USER14> Microsoft has been buying back shares and increasing its dividend since 2004. This is just a continuation of the existing program.

It would have been more noteworthy if Microsoft had _stopped_ buying back shares, or _stopped_ paying the dividend, or even just allowed the dividend to remain unchanged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> They've been a revenue producer and not a growth producer for a long time now, so it's good that they're finally paying out some dividends.

<comment><USER16> They've been paying out an ok dividend for a while but not really enough to make up for the flat stock price.</comment></comment>


Show HN: List of coworking spaces in Berlin (and other cities) - <AUTHOR> https://listmap.io/coworking-spaces/berlin-germany/ <comment><AUTHOR> Details:

I wanted to have a nice way to compare the different coworking spaces in Berlin, so I've created this.

The purpose was to be able to see them on a map and to have a quick access to their pricing information.

If people like it I'll add a more natural way to make edits (as well as to add new coworking spaces / open new cities).

Technical details:

No backend, purely static hosting (with client-side rendering through React), no hosting cost so far.

Stack: TypeScript, React, static pages generation through ReactDOMServer for SEO purposes, hosted on github pages, SSL through CloudFlare.

Map tiles:

\- Currently using Leaflet / Mapbox (50,000 map views a month for free).

\- Considering eventually switching to Google Maps if reaching the threshold (25,000 map views a day for free).

\- In the future, looking forward to see the work of the Wikimedia Discovery team as it looks very promising: [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps) / [https://maps.wikimedia.org](https://maps.wikimedia.org)

First website I am making since 2006, feedback is welcome :)</comment>


Introducing a new robot prototyping platform (SUS'17) - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/husarion/core2 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm Dominik, co-founder of Husarion.

Together with my team, we have been developing a fast prototyping platform for robots, for almost 4 years. There are many generic prototyping platforms for hardware projects like Arduino, or RaspberryPi, but we think that by focusing on robotics, we can deliver a product that will allow our clients to iterate their ideas much faster.

We are very excited because we have launched the second generation of our product at Crowd Supply.

It would be great if you could tell us what you think. Thanks!</comment>


Business error leads entrepreneur in new direction - <AUTHOR> http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gala-24486-software-restaurant.html <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the Paypal story, in which the original plan was to build a secure way to transfer money between handheld devices. They realized their destiny was on the Internet after a demo web page started gaining serious traction among users.</comment>


Shipwreck on Nile vindicates Greek historian's account after 2500 years - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/shipwreck-on-nile-vindicates-greek-historians-account-after-2500-years/ <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19414019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19414019)

The paper upon which this article is based on is MUCH more interesting and quite awesome: [https://www.um.es/cepoat/arqueologiasubacuatica/wp- content/u...](https://www.um.es/cepoat/arqueologiasubacuatica/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/A_new_type_of_construction_evidenced_by.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Greek Historian" being, uh, Herodotus, the "Father of History".</comment>


Why don't we use HTTP for email? - <AUTHOR>

When accessed from a mail client, mail servers expect connections by IMAP, POP, and SMTP. The back-end inter-server comms use SMTP. But HTTP requests are standard for many non-web internet apps. Aside from historical reasons (the mail protocols predate HTTP and are well-established) why have mail providers not moved towards HTTP (or HTTPS) as a well-supported, flexible standard for client communication? If the mail protocols continue to evolve, what are the arguments for keeping them separate? <comment><USER2> If rms can use SMTP for web pages, we might as well do the opposite. ;-)

Email has different needs than do web pages, thus the protocols are different. _Could_ one implement email over HTTP? Sure! But what, exactly, will be the benefits and costs? And then there _is_ history. Unless the benefits are extremely compelling it will never be worthwhile to upset the entire email infrastructure.

<comment><USER3> Depending on your point of view, you might say we are already moving in this direction. :-)

A large number of people consume e-mail using HTTP, so it has in many cases replaced IMAP and POP. We also send e-mail using HTTP, both through web-mail systems and ad-hoc forms. This replaces SMTP-for-sending.

All that's left really is the server-to-server SMTP, and if the distributed social networking protocols (OStatus etc) take off, then SMTP will have been partially replaced as well.

The main issue is that aside from OStatus, none of these are remotely close to being standardized. So automation is hard. This is good for preventing spam but bad for many legitimate things.

<comment><USER4> Well - as for people using HTTP to browse e-mail... People never used SMTP to send mail, they used software (sendmail/pine in the earliest days iirc). So this argument is invalid :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's an old saying "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." A saying that often fits those enamored of HTTP tools....

Why do we have Spanish? Or English? Or any other language? Can't it all be said in one?

Similarly there are some things that get handled in one protocol that can't be as readily executed in others. Yes, you could do mail using HTTP transactions, but then you'd have to add all the layers that make up IMAP and SMTP actions. Wheel, meet your reinvention.

</comment><comment><USER6> An old thread about designing a replacement for IMAP:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1101693>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really good thread, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can you provide reasons why you think this is a good idea? How it would make your life easier? Or what is broken with the current protocols?

I think a stronger argument would be for moving from MIME to XML, I can envision some advantages there, but I don't think that will happen anytime due to inertia.

<comment><USER8> Replacing the convoluted multi-party email forward with a dynamic document would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> We barely hear of Google's SPDY, I bet they are secretly working on something like this. They aren't the type to unnecessarly bundle it in with http in SPDY, but maybe they found a reason.</comment>