Etsy

Etsy is a website which focuses primarily on providing the general public with a way to buy and sell handmade items. Many have compared the site to a wide open craft fair, because it grants sellers their own personal storefronts where they may list items for a small fee and showcase their handcrafted goods.

History

The site was launched in June of 2005 by iospace, a small company composed of Robert Kalin, Chris Maguire and Haim Schoppik. Later on Jared Tarbell joined the team, followed by Matthew Stinchcomb (formerly of the French Kicks), Jay Nuzzolillo, Simon Forman, and Alex Somma. Etsy continues to hire more employees, see their About page [1].

Since its launch on June 18, 2005, Etsy has grown significantly to tens of thousands of sellers and five times that in buyer accounts. The engineers frequently add new tools and functionality to the site to help sellers gain exposure and traffic.

Etsy passed $1M in sales on June 15th, 2006.

The administrators recently upgraded the site from "Etsy beta" to "Etsy v.2", which contains many site improvements such as categories within shops and a sitewide shopping cart. Etsy is no longer in beta, and most of the initial v.2 bugs have been worked out.

Etsy now has permanent offices called the "Etsy Labs" in Brooklyn, NY. The site's customer support, marketing/PR, business and communications teams run out of these office. Additionally, the Etsy Labs have a community workspace where Labs members can gather to make items, take and teach workshops, and attend special events.

Flash Tools

The Flash Team, Jared, Drew Trujillo and Marcos Weskamp work to develop new visualizations and communications tools for buyers and sellers.

Browsing

One of Etsy's primary draws is its Macromedia Flash tools for browsing products, which were created by generative artist Jared Tarbell. These tools include:

• Treasury: handpicked lists by Etsy members. These curated collections are often along a theme, pun, or visual style.
• Geolocator: allows users to choose locations on the world map by which to find sellers and browse products.
• Shop By Color: a tool where users choose a particular color and the closest matching items are displayed to the user.
• Time Machine: shows the most recent additions to Etsy in reverse chronological order. There are now two different versions this module.
• Sampler: always displays the top sellers, top items, most recent 100 sales, 100 random sellers, and 100 random items.
• Hearts/Favorites: the system of tracking favorites has several flash modules
  • Hearts Me: an interactive way to view the list of people who have marked a particular seller as a favorite seller. This module can be found in the side bar on a seller's store.
  • Favorite Connections: a tool that picks a random sampling of items from a specific user's list of favorite items. Once one of these items is clicked on by the user, a sample is done of 2 other users who have marked the same item as a favorite, and five of their favorited items are displayed as well. Thus, this module can be used to 'jump' to the favorite connections of other sellers. This module can be found in the side bar on a seller's store.
  • Suggestions: a tool that generates a list of product recommendations based on a random sampling of items a user has added to his own favorites list. This module can be found in the 'Favorites' section under "Your Account" when logged in.

These tools are unique and very new to online shopping, but prove to be very useful when shoppers just want to browse seemingly at random based on a few ideas, colors, or thoughts. They provide an alternative means of browsing than the typical text-based searches found in most online shopping sites.

Multi-user Spaces

The Workshop and Townhall are multi-user spaces built for the Flash media server. Members enter the Workshop as avatars and are able to interact with each other through streaming video, text-based chat, as well as "gift-giving" whereby tiny icons (hearts, stars, paper airplanes) can be thrown about. These allow real time and immersive community spaces, building from the forums, which are more traditional bulletin board style tools.

Alchemy

Alchemy is a feature that allows users to request made-to-order items from the Etsy sellers. Once an Alchemy listing has been created, any seller on the site can bid on the job. The buyer picks a winning bid, and a conversation is automatically created between the two parties so they can handle the particulars of the transaction.

There is a subsection of alchemy that allows you to request custom items from one specific seller rather than from the entire Etsy community. This part of alchemy is found on individual Etsy seller pages through a link that reads 'request an item from this seller through Alchemy'.

Alchemy is a fairly new addition to the site, and is still seen by some as a buggy and over-complicated process. Others work with it and make a large percentage of their sales through it.

Currently, this feature is being refurbished. See note on the site's Alchemy page.

Privacy

Feedback Policy and Public Purchase History

Etsy users earn a feedback score based on their transactions. With each sale, both buyer and seller have the option to give an individual rating (+1, -1, or 0) combined with a textual comment. The purpose of this is to make public seller and buyer reputations.

When feedback is posted, it creates a permanent, publicly accessible record of that purchase. The only editing possible is to change negative feedback into positive feedback, through a custom support mediated negotiation called "kiss and make up."

The public record includes the following: individual rating (+, -, or 0); seller's username; buyer's username; date of purchase; item name; item description, including all associated images (up to 5); item price; textual comment; and Customer Appreciation Photo (optional).

Etsy does not explicitly inform users of all the information included in a feedback post.

• The General FAQ does not discuss feedback at all.
• The Buying FAQ and Selling FAQ do not list the full extent of publicly accessible information.
• The Privacy Policy (effective date: 09/21/2005) does not discuss feedback at all.
• According to the Terms of Use: "You acknowledge that your feedback consists of comments left by other users and a composite feedback number compiled by Etsy." There is no mention of item name, item description, or price.

Ramifications of Public Purchase History

Concerns for Buyers

Through feedback, a specific buyer's purchases can be tracked. There is no option to make any part of the feedback history private again. All items, with their full descriptions, are visible to the internet at large. Etsy errs on the site of an open marketplace in which item prices and other information becomes part of the public record.

Many items sold through Etsy are one-of-a-kind. If a buyer refers someone to a new artist, the feedback list can reveal that buyer's username. Clicking the username brings up a list of all items in that buyer's feedback history.

It is not permitted to seek privacy in a second account. Etsy policy requires disclosure of all related usernames in each account's profile. This policy exists because of customer support issues with dual accounts and "sock puppet" accounts created with the intent of abuse.

Concerns for Sellers

Many Etsy sellers are also buyers, therefore, the previous concerns also apply to them.

If they purchase supplies on Etsy, the feedback on those supplies will show who they bought from and how much they spent. The price of all previous sales is also permanently visible.

Etsicon (Popular Terminology)

Hearting

When a user marks a seller or a particular product as a "favorite." A list of users who "heart" an item can be viewed by clicking the "See who hearts this item" link on that item's page.

Etsyian

A citizen of the Etsy community, either seller or buyer.

Favorites

An Etsy member tool used for marking "favorite" sellers and items. The list of one's favorites can be found under "Your Account" when logged into Etsy.

Favoriting

The act of marking a seller or item as a "favorite" in one's account. To add a favorite item, click the link "Add item to favorites" when viewing that item's page. To mark a favorite seller, click the link "Add seller to favorites" when viewing any item page belonging to that seller, or when viewing their shop homepage.

Frell

A substitution made by the Etsy forum and chat filtering system, replacing the "F-word." Its usage has become popular in the forums and has also spawned products for sale on Etsy. "Frell" was originally used in the science fiction television show, Farscape.

PIF

Stands for Pay it forward--a seller-created program by which sellers post an item for $0.20 (minimum price) in order to build good "karma."

The program fell under scrutiny after some sellers adopted the practice of listing large numbers of PIF items in order to increase their feedback status and their standing on the "Top Sellers" list. This practice is largely regarded by the community as paid advertising, and is seen as going against the original intent of the program.

Pimp, Pimping

To promote an item from one's own shop (generally a newly-listed item) in the chatroom.

Convo

Short-hand text for "conversation," which is the name of a tool to send private messages (or site-based email) on Etsy.

Item of the Day

A specialty thread started by sellers in the "Sellers" forum, where shops can post one item that they flag as "special" for that day.

Street Team

The viral marketing program, organized by region and governed by Etsy sellers, to help promote Etsy at craft fairs and public events.

Manflesh

Term for a male significant other; can also refer to any man, particularly the male administrators of Etsy.

Minion

A young child.

NORM!!!

The greeting used in the Etsy Member chatrooms for regulars. Based on the television show Cheers

External links

• Etsy
• Etsy Garden (site blog)
• iospace
• Etsywiki
• Etsy Team Bios
• Etsy Labs