Etsy tries to protect its handcrafted charm against mass-production marketplaces

Hand-crocheted cat beanie… Etsy is the go-to online marketplace for handmade and curated goods. Yesterday it updated its policies to clarify its focus on unique items in an era of mega-marketplaces like Amazon. Sellers’ wares now have to fit into one of four categories: “made by” for handcrafted items; “designed by” for digital art; “handpicked by” for vintage goods; and “sourced by” for materials like beads and clay. A new ad promoting the policy shows ceramicists and other artisans doin’ their thing, followed by a robotic arm getting crushed (point taken).

• Unravel: Etsy’s biz boomed during the pandemic, fueled by mask sales and home decor, but last quarter merch sales fell 4% from a year ago. The crafty co’s stock is down nearly 30% this year, and in December it laid off 11% of its staff.

“Amazonification” problem… Etsy’s struggled to keep mass-produced (and, more recently, AI-designed) knickknacks off its platform. When it started allowing sellers to outsource some of their work in 2013 (like: send a custom shirt design to a factory for production), it opened the door to “drop shippers”: people who upsell items from suppliers like AliExpress without ever touching the product. It’s long been Etsy’s policy that humans need to have a (literal) hand in making the products they list, but thousands of Etsy sellers who went on strike in 2022 said mass-produced items have been crowding out artisan goods.