Product Code Database
Etsy, Inc. is an American e-commerce company with an emphasis on the selling of handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home decor, religious items, furniture, toys, art, music and books as well as craft supplies and tools. Items described as vintage must be at least 20 years old. The site follows in the tradition of open craft fairs, giving sellers personal storefronts where they list their goods for a fee of US$0.20 per item. Beginning in 2013, Etsy allowed sellers to sell mass-manufactured items.
, Etsy had over 100 million items in its marketplace, and the online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods connected 8 million sellers with 96 million buyers. At the end of 2024, Etsy had 2,400 employees. In 2024, Etsy had total sales, or gross merchandise sales (GMS), of US$12.6 billion on the platform. That year, Etsy garnered a revenue of $2.81 billion and registered a net gain of $303 million. The platform generates revenue primarily from three streams: its Marketplace revenue, which includes a fee of 6.5% of the final sale value, a listing fee of 20 cents per item, and Seller Services, which includes fees for services such as "Promoted Listings", payment processing, and purchases of shipping labels through the platform. Other revenue includes fees received from third-party payment processors.
Additionally, Etsy has mandatory offsite ad fees of 12% or 15%. If a shop is selling less than $10K per year, they can opt out of offsite ad fees. However, once their sales reach $10K per year, offsite ad fees become mandatory and a shop cannot opt out. When a buyer clicks on an offsite ad and purchases from a shop, the seller is charged that fee on everything that is purchased, as well as any other purchases the same buyer may make within the next 30 days. This fee is in addition to the listing fees, credit card processing fees, and commissions that are charged on all sales. Only shops that met the $10K in the last year threshold when this fee was first implemented are charged the lower 12% fee. Currently, all shops that reach $10K in sales for a twelve month period are charged the higher fee of 15%. Shop owners are sent a bill at the end of every month detailing the fees Etsy has charged them, and they have until the 15th of the following month to pay the fees. Sellers can choose which payment options to offer buyers, including Credit card, debit cards, and PayPal, among others.
When a buyer views a product, they can choose to view the positive feedback of each seller to determine the reliability of the shop. Once a buyer finds a product they would like to buy, they click "Add to Cart", and that product is added to their virtual "Shopping Cart". The buyer may then either continue shopping or purchase the selected item. In order to purchase items, buyers do not have to have an account with Etsy and can instead register with Facebook, Google Account, Apple Account, or email.
Etsy has received criticism for its handling of customer data and Internet privacy. , the "Privacy Policy" section on the website reads: "By using Etsy, you authorise Etsy to use your information in the United States, Ireland and any other country where Etsy operates".
Most sellers are women, who tend to be college-educated and in their twenties and thirties. Individual Etsy sellers decide which payment options to offer buyers; these options may include credit card, cheque, money order, PayPal, bank transfer, and Etsy gift card.
Etsy sellers range from hobbyists to professional artists who use the site to make a living. According to artists who have developed their Etsy stores into their primary jobs, scaling up production of handmade items can require Overtime, especially during the holiday shopping season.
Etsy's main office is in Dumbo, Brooklyn, and it has hosted open crafting classes in the "Etsy Labs". The site's technology, customer support, marketing, PR, business, and communications teams operate out of this office. Etsy Labs has a workspace that provides equipment and donated materials, where members gather to make items, take and teach workshops, and attend special events. Etsy also has an office in Berlin. In April 2012 Etsy announced that it was taking steps to hire more women engineers to improve the gender balance of its team, as a website with majority women users but few women engineers. By 2019, 30 percent of Etsy's engineers identified as "women or non-binary", and over 30 percent were people of color.
Etsy was one of the main members of the Handmade Consortium, a 2007 effort to encourage buying handmade holiday gifts. Etsy has partnered with the retail chain West Elm to sell some Etsy products in its stores. In December 2012, Etsy opened a temporary holiday storefront in SoHo, New York City. In 2019 the UK's first Etsy store was opened in Didcot, Oxfordshire. The store features over 50 local makers & small businesses and an eco refill station, selling packaging free groceries including dry foods, toiletries, and cleaning products.
Kalin explained why he named the site Etsy in a 2010 interview with Reader's Digest, saying, "I wanted a nonsense word because I wanted to build the brand from scratch. I was watching Fellini's 8 ½ and writing down what I was hearing. In Italian, you say etsi a lot. It means 'oh, yes'. And in Latin and French, it means 'what if'."
In Etsy's first year, it attracted attention for frequently adding new tools and functionality to the site to help sellers gain exposure and traffic, including Adobe Flash-based visualizations and a taxonomy of categories with tags. Etsy passed $1.7 million in sales in May 2007. On July 29, Etsy had its one-millionth sale and anticipated its two-millionth sale would occur mid-December 2007. In November 2007, buyers spent $4.3 million purchasing 300,000 items for sale on Etsy, an increase of 43 percent from October 2007. In June 2007, it expected to be profitable by the fall, but in December 2007 it was not a profitable company. In January 2008, Etsy received an additional $27 million in funding from Union Square Ventures, Hubert Burda Media, and Jim Breyer.
In February 2008, trouble at eBay, including a strike by some dissatisfied sellers, brought speculation that Etsy could be an increasing competitor. At the same time, however, some Etsy sellers expressed discontentment with how Etsy was handling complaints about stores. At the time, a comparison of the two websites included complaints that on Etsy, items are difficult to find, the interface "feels slow", and the buying and selling process is United States-centric. Other reviewers enjoyed using Etsy's specialized search options, including the "Shop Local" tool.
In July 2008, Rob Kalin ceded the position of CEO to Maria Thomas. Some longtime Etsy employees left the company in August 2008, including founders Haim Schoppik and Chris Maguire. In September 2008, Etsy hired Chad Dickerson, who formerly worked at Yahoo!, as Chief Technology Officer. The company acknowledged concerns about vendors selling other people's work as their own.
In April 2009, users organized an "etsyday" promotion on Twitter that brought extra attention to the site. As of May 2009, it had approximately 60 employees and sales of $10 to 13 million per month, possibly boosted by consumer interest in cheaper and more personalized goods due to the United States recession.
In March 2010, Kalin said that the company is profitable and "plans to go public, though not until at least next year". Financial statements required to be filed by Etsy in order to go public show that due to reinvestment of annually increasing gross profits in marketing, Web development, and management, the company has not reported a net profit as of 2015.
In December 2010, Etsy said it had seven million registered users, and that it would continue to focus on a personal community feel as it grows larger, as that is part of what distinguishes it from eBay.
In March 2011, Etsy "introduced a Facebook-style social networking system called People Search...to help buyers and sellers connect with each other and become friends". By doing so, Etsy made any past purchase with feedback easily searchable, which caused many complaints. Etsy then made changes to the site to better guard information regarding users' purchases.
In July 2011, Chad Dickerson, CTO since September 2008, became CEO, upon the firing of Rob Kalin. Later CTOs were Kellan Elliot-McCrea and John Allspaw.
In April 2012, a newspaper article about Etsy covered its fraud detection efforts; Etsy had been criticized in the past for inconsistently applying its rules about items having to be handmade. Later in April 2012, the writer of Regretsy, a popular blog, did independent research into a specific featured vendor, Ecologica Malibu, and found evidence to accuse the vendor of being a reseller, which would be against the Etsy Terms of Service. The vendor asserted that it was in line with the Terms of Service, stating that the shop had simply failed to identify itself as a "collective" that included the work of several individuals, and many Etsy community members posted on the Etsy forum expressing unhappiness with the action (or lack of action) taken by Etsy. As of June 2012, the vendor's account is no longer active on Etsy.
In May 2012, Etsy raised $40 million in Series F funding, and announced the company had become a B Corp. This B Lab certification lapsed in 2017. Etsy's 2012 funds went towards expanding Etsy in international markets, including France, Germany, and Australia.
On October 1, 2013, Dickerson held an online Town Hall Meeting to announce that Etsy would now permit factory-made goods and drop shipping, provided the seller either designed or hired designers of the items, disclosed to Etsy their factory, disclosed that they used factories and took "ownership" of the process. In that meeting and afterward, Etsy claimed the meaning of the word "handmade" should be redefined to encompass factory made.
In June 2014, Etsy purchased A Little Market, a French e-commerce site for handmade goods, foods, and wine, for a mix of cash and stock valued at less than $100 million. At the time the acquisition was the company's largest.Telis Demos, "Etsy Acquires French Market in Biggest Deal Yet," The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2014.
Shortly after the IPO in 2015, a group of investors filed a class action lawsuit against Etsy claiming fraud. The suit claimed that Etsy's CEO and officers failed to disclose numerous problems with the site which could affect the stock price, among them that "more than 5 percent of all merchandise for sale on Etsy’s website may be either counterfeit or constitute trademark or copyright infringement" and that "brands are increasingly pursuing sellers on Etsy for trademark or copyright infringement, jeopardizing listing fees and commissions". The suit also claimed that Etsy management knew of the rampant trademark and copyright infringement but did little to stop it, and in fact worked to hide this information from potential investors.
In July 2019, Etsy acquired the music based marketplace Reverb for $275 million.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, shares in Etsy more than quadrupled, with the company's forward multiple going up around 90 times what analysts had expected from forward earning. Equity analyst at D.A. Davidson Tom Forte stated the pandemic gave customers incentive to return to the website multiple times, rather than the usual occasional purchase of a unique product. Non-medical face masks accounted for around 11% of gross-merchandise sales in the third quarter, selling roughly 24 million.
On June 2, 2021, Etsy announced that it had agreed to acquire shopping app Depop, the fashion resell marketplace for $1.63 billion.
In most locations where Etsy Payments is not available, new shops are unable to on board to Etsy. As of April 26, 2021, most sellers opening new shops on Etsy are required to on board with Etsy Payments, which brings limitations on creating new shops in some countries.
In June 2022, Etsy announced the August launch of a purchase protection program for buyers and sellers. The company stated that an item that arrives damaged, does not arrive or does not match a description, will be refunded in full for the buyer. Etsy also reported it would invest $25 million to cover the refunds for cases where the seller is not at fault for item damage or loss.
In December 2023, Etsy laid off approximately 225 employees, or 11% of its workforce.
In January 2024, Etsy introduced "Gift Mode", powered by OpenAI GPT-4, which allows users to generate gift guides based on survey questions related to the recipient's demographic and interests.
In 2018, nearly 98% of its carbon impact came from the delivery of goods sold on its platform. Recognizing this, Etsy became the first major e-commerce platform to offset 100% of its carbon emissions from shipping. These offsets support several verified carbon reduction projects through their partnerships. For example, Etsy helps fund the UPM Blandin Native American Hardwoods Conservation Project, which conserves over 187,000 acres of forest in Minnesota, absorbing CO2 and protecting biodiversity. Additionally, they invest in renewable energy initiatives like the Giriraj Wind Power Project in India and the Solar Grouped Project by ACME, which replace fossil fuel-based energy generation with wind and solar power. Etsy has also supported innovative projects such as the Meridian Magnesium SF6 Reduction in the automotive sector, which reduces the use of SF6, a greenhouse gas 22,800 times more potent than CO2.
Asked about competitors, Etsy's European CEO said, "As far as I am concerned, the more people highlighting the value of supporting micro-producers and buying handmade and vintage directly from them, the better."
The move has prompted at least one Etsy competitor to distinguish itself by committing never to sell manufactured items.
In September 2015, Etsy made further changes to its manufacturing policy with the launch of Etsy Manufacturing, a marketplace allowing sellers to connect with outside manufacturers to fabricate their products. Manufacturers must be reviewed and approved by Etsy to ensure they adhere to certain criteria, although Etsy will not conduct visits or in-person inspections. Sellers must apply and be approved to work with any partners listed on Etsy Manufacturing and are required to disclose their use of outside manufacturers on their pages.
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