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Comment by tmountain | Hacker News Reader

Seems like there's an opportunity here for a smaller scale marketplace to move in and provide artisan makers what they actually want. One could build a business around "white glove" onboarding of sellers; meaning, you actually have a conversation with the seller and confirm they're producing authentic goods, build a profile for each seller letting folks know who they are, and base the entire marketplace around authenticity. Is this a crazy idea? The argument against it is likely, "it won't scale", but I think and argument could be made that it could.

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The main thing Etsy offers sellers is buyers' attention. My wife and I have sold on Etsy for almost 15 years (!!!), and she started selling from the first day she opened a shop selling bow ties. Over the years, it's very rare we'll open a shop offering something and not sell in the first day (and have never had a concept not have at least one sale in a week). It's hard to beat that kind of visibility with little to no investment honestly.

Even as our businesses have grown, the ease of use and convenience are hard to beat if you want to keep them to something casual. Sure, we could pop up a Shopify, ramp up advertising, really grind to get it "out there," but then we're spending more time and money to end up at the same spot.

A smaller marketplace won't have that sort of network effect. The only way I'd see it succeeding is if they really blitz on marketing and making themselves a real outlet for makers (and make sure they're perceived that way over Etsy). Their brand recognition and entrenchment would be super hard to overcome.

Have you written about your experience launching shops on Etsy? A friend and I have a few craft-style products we're itching to make as a side hustle and it sounds like you've figured out some of the tricks of the trade :)

Do you have a link to your wife's store on Etsy?

You're right. That's why they know the value they bring and are increasing fees - which is reasonable.

They aren't adding any more value by increasing the fees. And from the perspective of the seller, it got worse because now they have to compete with factories in China.

I didn't say that they are bringing "more value".

They know they provide value and that their fees can be higher.

If you think that the value of their service is too low - then you will leave. If you leave. - then they'll have to address it. Original Etsy sellers have the leverage.

They were just undercutting themselves previously in the pursuit of user numbers, aka the strategy of every b2c startup these days. Few companies will stick with this model for eternity, usually they either raise prices or start to rely on Ads (YouTube).

It's the circle of life for a startup chasing more fees. Older startups must die to fertilize the soil of younger sapling businesses:

small, handcrafted goods -> larger scale production -> mass-market aliexpress/ebay

There's no reason to do this as a startup. Someone could spin up an ecommerce site over a weekend and then put in the work to white glove onboard sellers without ever taking investment and turn this into a very nice business all without outside capital. As we're now seeing, outside capital which will want a large return doesn't jive with managing a business for artisanal/homemade sellers.

I had to read this three times before I realized that by "startup", you implied "taking on investment".

Fair for me and I think a lot of people a startup is a new business that attempts (and hopefully succeeds) to take on outside investment to grow rapidly -- otherwise you're just a new small business.

I think people use the terms "startup" and "new small business" interchangeably these days, regardless of investment. It's a buzzword

Any founder will explain that the ideal startup would take no investors at all.

I think the argument against it is that customers actually only care about price, despite the virtues they vomit all over the place about "supporting small business".

98/100 will support the idea. 2/100 will pay 2x for something because it isn't a Chinese knockoff.

They are not the same customers. The ones that pay 2x for something are eventually replaced by people who want cheap junk.

They aren't compatible markets, but a company who values profit above all else will start to cater to the lowest common denominator and push out people who care about quality, locally sourced, handcrafted etc. and become another generic retailer.

Juicero has proved to me that no idea is too stupid to win millions of usd in investment capital.

https://www.tellmemoregifts.com/ does this for the artists that make gifts for their customers.

That looks really odd. $155 (minimum) and they don't tell you what you will get.

"The artist and gift will be a surprise"

Hey, if it works for them, great. I just can't see using it.

> Seems like there's an opportunity here for a smaller scale marketplace to move in and provide artisan makers what they actually want.

There are two sites in the UK that do this, with slightly different emphasis on each:

https://folksy.com/

https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/

> it won't scale

I think that is sort of the point, if someone were to niche down to actual makers of things. One could make it an exclusive club and spend money to get exclusive items for launch, for example get specially made pieces from well known makers and they can number them if they want, like 1/100 special thing-a-mabob.

Have actual interviews with artisans/makers, slowly ramping up sellers. Take customer complaints seriously. Like if its reported that artisan_maker_27 started shipping cheapo shit from where-ever then they are kicked off the platform.

I think the idea is to do as much as you can without scaling. No AI. No ads on the platform (certainly advertise for it).

If the argument could be made that it could scale, why don't you make it? We've already got eBay and etsy as counterexamples showing that "smaller scale" marketplaces don't stay true to their initial visions, and I don't see this "white glove" onboarding being enough of a value proposition vs just setting up an eBay store, for instance.

> smaller scale marketplace

There were a bunch of them. Most failed...

> The argument against it is likely, "it won't scale", but I think and argument could be made that it could.

A curated and authenticated store is a very expensive endeavour. They're complaining about hike in fees now, imagine how many would be able to accept hundreds of dollars in standing fees and cut from sales on top of that.

>The argument against it is likely, "it won't scale", but I think and argument could be made that it could.

http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Market will just adapt. Resellers will just hire an actor to pretend to be a small 'maker'.

This is an aggressive moderation plan!

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