Who Is Looking to Replace Etsy?

by: Tinker Belle

Well, at least the forums are THERE so you can figure out what some of the pitfalls afflicting sellers may be !!?

Because if you didn't know about some of these things that management might not want you to know, you might open a store and then regret it after you experienced some of the problems.  Or, forum discussions might help you make the decision to close your store and go somewhere else, if Etsy is changing the rules and you no longer want to stick with them.

On the surface it looks like it is just too bad that Etsy could not have stayed the way it was in the beginning.... I have no clue why people in power seem to never be content to just enjoy the operation, but are bound and determined to make changes they ''think'' are improvements !!!!!!!

by: epuise

Etsy is still a good venue for me.

by: Tinker Belle

My experience with PINTEREST is they are picture collectors! They want to collect pictures - NOT BUY the items shown in the pictures !!

Even if you DO want to buy, it is difficult to find the original listing! pictures are pinned and re-pinned and re-re-pinned ad nauseam !! I finally just gave up.

There REALLY SHOULD be a great site for OOAK and OAAT items. When Etsy first started it looked great, then in came the deluge of Asian behemoths with their ''hand made'' by child labor items!

Indeed, stores need to be vetted and strict standards upheld including questionable listings to be flagged for review.

A new venture, strictly OOAK-OAAT (maybe called ''A-OK'' ?)
should arise somehow but be aware it will NOT be cheap. You get what you pay for.  

by: Chicago48

Everyone who is advocating Ecrater is advocating a loser site, the same as Bonanza. Loser sites.  The problem is every etailer is looking to/at Amazon and wondering how they can get the traffic AMZ has.  And by changing policies and restricting goods, they're losing.

by: iheartjacksparrow

@Chicago48 - I know you have a grudge against eCrater, but some of us are doing great there. I know Moonwishes sells a lot, and I sell at least one item every day (which is much more than I sold during my last year on eBay). I don't know of any policy changes they've made outside of having everyone conform to Google's photo size and attributes requirement, and I don't know of any restrictions on goods, other than what all other ecommerce sites prohibit you from selling.

And to everyone that hates the name eCrater: That's certainly no worse than the other sites. What's an Etsy? Amazon is a river, right? An an eBay is a place where you dock your boats, isn't it?
 

by: DingDong

Iheartjacksparrow  LOL

I love selling on eCrater. Doesn't have all the disruptions like other sites when they do upgrades.

Etsy? Hmm What is that?
Amazon is river
Ebay is a place to sail eboats ;-)
Bonanza is a ranch full of manure.

Webstore is a good site if you are looking at parking your items and just need a secured site to receive payments while you promote yourself.

 

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

@Tinker Belle:

You NAILED Pinterest.  That site has nothing to do with ANYTHING!!!

@funkygrrl:

I don't like to be a tattle tale.  But EARLY ON, on both Ebay, AND Etsy, I DID report NUMEROUS Ebay sellers who were listing in the wrong categories, ON PURPOSE.  Flooding them with FAKE vintage.  And I reported DOZENS of Etsy resellers disguised as Handmade.  NEVER EVEN ONE TIME, did either Ebay or Etsy take even one of them down.   THEY ARE ALL THERE TODAY!!!!!

I reported them because both companies purported to care about honest sellers, and a fair & honest platform.  And because of those claims I invested ENORMOUS amounts of work, and also MONEY in the form of inventory.  THEY said, “Report these problems”.  They never meant it.  They never did anything about it.

The sellers I reported were NOT small time.  They were HUGE, they were meant to be FAKES from the start, and they DESTROYED my chances of being seen.

IMHO, in terms of Vintage, Etsy was gone YEARS BEFORE the Venture Capital infusion.  Everyone of course has different experiences and takes on that particular issue.........  But I won't ever put my faith in another listing site, until I see a change in the Management, Capital, and Legal structure of that site.

The American Corporation is destined to repeat AGAIN & AGAIN, the mess that these 2 have left us.

by: Rexford

DingDong says "I love selling on eCrater. Doesn't have all the disruptions like other sites when they do upgrades."

In my many years of selling there, I don't know of one instance where the site was down or I had a technical issue. That's quite amazing.

by: horsewhistles

For those selling vintage/antique or hand made home décor Chairish has been a great juried venue for us. No up front fees, they handle customer service, simple to load items, they will handle shipping if you like, even for furniture. They have been great to deal with and sales are good. They do not accept every listing, and charge 20% when the item is sold (adjust your prices accordingly).  Your items stay active until sold or you remove them.

by: Twiganne

I am trying that Artyah right now.  It is exactly the same as Etsy used to be before they changed their rules and sold us all down the river.  Whether it will get the recognition of the other sites is debatable.  The thing I don't like about Bonanza is that their photo's stink and you have to get the attention of the buyer with the photo.

by: JQ

Hi C., We sell very different items (I sell used scholarly books, comics and magazines) so I do not know how much my experience will help you, but FWIW:

I've been selling on Amazon for 16 years, eBay for 15, Bonanza for 5 years and Etsy for three.

Until 2014 eBay accounted for 85% of my sales, but when they (secretly) moved away from a more or less level selling field for all sellers my sales collapsed. I used to make more than $1,000 a month selling on eBay, today it is about $100 a month. Granted I list much less now. It simply is not worth the time or money.

After eBay my next most active site has been Amazon, which has always been a solid 2% sell-through rate for me for more than a decade. The fees kill me, and Amazon couldn't give a crap about small sellers like me, but I still make about half on Amazon as I do on eBay now.

Etsy was going pretty strong for me last year, it had passed Amazon, but things have dropped off this year. I make about $25 a month there now, which is borderline worthwhile for me.

My favorite site, management wise, is Bonanza. No fees until you sell. The site is very solid and easy to use. My inventory is automatically updated through a sync with my eBay account. The only problem is low traffic. Sometimes I go a whole month without a sale. What others say, that you have to create your own traffic there, rings completely true to me. However, given how little time the site requires, and also given that the managements seems to be both honest and moral, I'm very happy there.

I looked into eCrater but decided against investing the time. It looked to me that creating a listing there would take more than a few minutes, and given the low traffic I figured that site would more or less duplicate what I was trying to do at Bonanza, so decided to save the time.