Etsy Manufacturing Opens to Designers | Hacker News Reader

Etsy Manufacturing Opens to Designers

blog.etsy.com

33 pointshownottowrite15 comments

This is a matching service (e.g. a 'market' in some sense) to find manufacturers. Note that manufacturers are not vetted by Etsy:

> Manufacturers on Etsy Manufacturing are not vetted, but we do individually screen applicants for their fit with the four production categories and for in-house production, to encourage a better experience as designers begin their search.

On the one hand, this is a great development for people who want to make more things, but don't have the bandwidth to do it all themselves.

On the other hand, this seems to move away from the all-hand-crafted philosophy Etsy has had up to now.

I'm torn.

> all-hand-crafted philosophy

I write software for desktop CNC machines, and am a maker myself who periodically sells his work. I constantly am thinking about what it means to be 'hand-made'. The machines I write software for can only make one thing at a time, it isn't large scale manufacturing. The designs are hand-crafted, I suppose, but they are of course made digitally. The machine is controlled by the computer, so the process of carving doesn't involve any manual skill. However a piece is rarely 'finished' the moment it comes off the machine. An added level of complexity, for myself at least, is that I am writing the software that controls the machine. Does that make the things my machine creates any 'more hand-crafted'? I like to think it does, but I'm not sure!

I'd say the "source code" for your designs is hand-crafted, but the material coming off the CNC machine is not. It may not be mass manufacturing, but if additional copies are essentially a button-push away, I'd say that it wasn't hand crafted. Now if the setup time on the CNC machine took longer than making it on a manual mill/lathe, then we might have some grey area. BTW, what are you using for your "desktop CNC" machine? Do you have any recommendations? And what materials are you machining? Steel? Brass? Aluminum? Plastics?

Links to your work, please!

I have been hand-writing the code that generates my gcode. That counts too, right?

On top of that, Etsy will be/is facing extra pressure from companies like Amazon with their soon to be offered Marketplace (I think that's the name). My wife has an Etsy shop, and talks with a lot of other Etsy shop owners in her space, and Etsy is not well thought of in the handcrafted world. So far she's had nothing but nice things to say about the Amazon experience, and is eager for it to go live.

Couple that with Etsy's continued lack of support for sellers at some really basic levels... let's just say people are still on Etsy only because a good number of people still think Etsy means handmade.

This is on top of Etsy's complete lack of communication in allowing Etsy sellers get in early on Etsy stock despite the misinformation in suggesting that it had made it possible to do so.

This is the first I've ever heard this viewpoint! I'm surprised. Why is Etsy not well thought of in the handcrafted world?

My opinion, and this is after looking into it with my wife, is there are a large number of sellers, selling mass produced stuff. Etsy does nothing about it either.

Yeah, read an article about Etsy's #1 seller [0]. Her team makes some items, but a lot of what they sell is just stuff sourced in India that they embellish (or likely sell as sourced).

[0] http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042352/how-one-knitter-makes-al...

This seller is no longer on Etsy.

https://www.yahoo.com/makers/exclusiveetsys-richest-seller-e...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/business/media/etsys-succe...

The short answer is that Etsy started as a marketplace for purely handmade goods and then kept changing the definition of handmade till it ended up being flooded by cheap, counterfeit Chinese mass manufactured goods. Naturally, Etsy sellers who believed in the original indie creed felt betrayed.

This is the rough timeline over which events developed:

In October 2013 Etsy redefined handmade and allowed Etsy sellers to get help with making and shipping their items. [1] [2]

In early 2015 Etsy did an IPO as an effort to grow much faster.[3]

Over time, a lot of China-based sellers piled in and started selling counterfeit goods at low prices - something that Etsy chose to do nothing about.[4] Its stock price tanked and class-action lawsuit was filed.[5]

Sensing an opportunity, Amazon stepped in with its 'Handmade' category and lured in a lot of Etsy sellers for its launch on Oct 8, 2015. [6] Ironic, huh?

[1] https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/13091813...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/etsys-industrial-r...

[3] http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/29/unpacking-etsys-s1/

[4] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-15/etsy-count...

[5] http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/11/investing/etsy-stock-fall-co...

[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/business/amazon-challenges...

Wired has good coverage on how things evolved at Etsy over time:

http://www.wired.com/2012/09/etsy-goes-pro/

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/why-etsys-future-depends-on-lea...

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/etsy-not-good-for-crafters/ (Related HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9092872)

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/etsys-surging-ipo-shows-losing-...

http://www.wired.com/2015/09/etsy-embraces-mass-manufacturin...

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/amazon-takes-etsy-see-whos-auth...

Interesting development!

As an inventor aiming to build some prototypes, would it make sense to reach out to some of the 3D printing type companies for mock-ups?

I figure my ideas - consumer devices for home use - don't really fit the Etsy platform for sales. However, after a couple rejections from investor platforms, I'm definitely willing to strike out on my own with some patience. Does anybody think going to one of these entities might be a viable path?

Place like this are popping up all over: http://nydesigns.org/what-we-do/fablab/

You might reach out to the mechanical engineering department at a local university. Boise State University has some pretty nice equipment and they offer paid 3D printing services to the public. We have used their services multiple times for prototypes on products we are working on to pretty good success.

Thank you very much, I did not think of that avenue. Considering how many universities there are within an hour's drive (more than I have fingers!) I'm hoping one might do such things. Much appreciated.

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