Etsy Adds 'Designed by' Alongside Handmade, Vintage, Supplies

by: LDWCallsOut

This has been all over the news for a couple of days now.

Etsy changed their policies to allow reseller (made by and handpicked by) items 9 years ago this month in July 2015.  They are still very easy to find on the site, even with the wacky search algorithm, and sometimes included in promotional features linked on the home page.  Josh can just save all the hype about ''original items from real people'' since about half of the listings for made by and handpicked by items are products designed by corporate employees who do not have Etsy shops and then mass made by sweatshop workers in developing nations.

by: Montage Decor

Yes I watched announcement in pain. So much work by me, an Interior Designer, artist, contractor and lifelong talent. And very hard worker. I’ve been harassed over copyrights for one thrifted item, that I’ve owned for 30 years, the word “Velcro”, trademark, not allowed, on and on as though one person- me could take over an existing company or copy their merchandise.
Too bad they went public as that generated all this. There are wonderful creative shops with beautiful things made by individuals. I got a B&M Antique Vintage store same year I came to Etsy 14 yrs ago. I’m not in the category of individual creators as mentioned earlier but I know design and made a living at it for 35 yrs prior to Etsy and my store. All that work I put in to build up is now being threatened by this.  

by: rage_cat

WTG Josh. Designed by a seller and made by underage kids in a sweatshop. Yeah, I'm on board with that....

by: Flying Childers

Great comments all around- Etsy giveth and Etsy taketh away seems to be the theme for today.

Check out this great article / PR piece that was place in the NY Post style section.   I wonder how much Etsy had to pay for this placement.

Nevertheless- anything that brings attention to handmade items is a good thing.

https://nypost.com/2024/07/11/tech/how-etsy-bet-on-nyc-a
nd-against-fast-fashion-and-won/

As far as the other gaslighting- I agree with LDW that this is just another way for Josh & Co. to pretend that they are not really running a giant marketplace for goods that are made by what's considered  to be slave labor in many places.

There is no way that Etsy or the vintage and handmade sellers can compete with Temu, Ali Express, Shein, Walmart, etc. nor should they want to when they have such wonderful authentic sellers now as they are advertising!

What is wrong with these people who are all supposed to be such geniuses?  On the one hand they are saying how great handmade and vintage are while on the other, they are figuring out new ways to flood their marketplace with cheap machine made garbage from overseas.

All I can hope for is that I start making sales again in my vintage and handmade shops!

by: Tinysaur

Josh shakes his head "no" at the 9:00 minute mark when he says he wants to meet with sellers, and a moment later he looks excited when he says he wants to tell sellers what they have to do to compete.

Etsy stock hasn't been a great investment, but has on a steady decline since March when Elliott Investment Management joined the board. I'm not sure if they're trying to scare away handmade people so they can convert the site to a Temu competitor. I'm remembering the days when Amazon was a book seller, and then pivoted.  

by: BurglePork

Part of the problem is that Etsy's basic premise has been impossible to enforce from the start. Many things, maybe most things, that we buy in stores ARE handmade, but we are so divorced from the process that we are unaware. Clothing is a good example - that is a product that requires human hands at every step from beginning to end. Christmas decor, too, is often hand assembled and hand painted, even if the label doesn't mention it. How can they tell, from a distance, who is truly making everything themselves and who isn't?

That goes for vintage, too - if you are knowledgeable, you can usually tell whether an item is what the seller is presenting it as, but how is a platform to tell? Hire an army of experts? Unlikely under the best circumstances; impossible for a company with debt to venture capital and shareholders to please. And it can't be automated. You can't write an algorithm or use AI to authenticate vintage or identify manufactured goods. (Though they COULD write one that identifies stock photos lifted from sites like Alibaba... if they wanted to.)

That said, it never felt like they were really trying to begin with, even when Kalin was still in charge, and permitting creators to use 'manufacturing partners' was an admission that they were giving up entirely.

by: LDWCallsOut

Most of the violations of the 20+ year old rule for Vintage listings are what I've always called ''no brainers''.  It's not a matter of authentication, but of knowing what information in the listing -- in the photos or in the text -- plainly identifies an item as newer than 20 years old.  It's not the presence of newer items that is bad for Etsy's image.  The bad thing is how smoothly so many shop owners lie in their deceptive listings.  It's one thing to create a listing with a vague untruth like simply stating that an item is ''vintage''.  It's worse to backdate something from the decade just past to the 1960s so you can jack up the asking price.  Etsy has created a safe space for some of the most dishonest merchants currently selling online.

by: I_Fix_Dolls

There are tons of shops that sell clothing as handmade, which they source from manufacturers from some wholesale catalogue. All the room size rugs sold from India or Turkey are factory made and generally say something like "Traditional Designs" which means the shop owner didn't even design them. They say, Family owned business, it is still a factory. Nothing about Etsy is focused on "Handmade" or true Vintage, yet they take down REAL artist works because a Chinese store stole the shop owner's pictures.  Etsy is a mass of smoke & mirrors.

by: LDWCallsOut

The policy of deactivating listings by AI bot is whack.  It makes extra work for the staff to vet and reactivate listings taken down in error.  The bot should be generating a list of links to suspicious listings to be vetted by humans and only removed if warranted.

by: Sierra

3 days later and I still don't have the ''Made by'' designation on my listings. Based on what I've been reading in the Etsy forums since this launched, Etsy is getting the designation wrong more often than they're getting it right. SNAFU.

Other than that, it feels like Etsy has rolled out the red carpet for resellers. Simply ''handpick'' a group of themed items and call it a gift basket. Previously gift baskets were only allowed on Etsy if the contents were Etsy legal (i.e., handmade, vintage, or craft supplies). Now they only have to be themed!

by: LDWCallsOut

Resellers aren't going anywhere.  MLM products with bogus medical claims (usually about weight loss) have been moved into ''designed by''.  Counterfeit luxury fashion brand bags and accessories have been moved to ''handpicked by'' -- magically aged into Vintage.  Last I checked, counterfeit luxury fashion brand jewelry items are still ''made by''.