User talk:Mshimon2

Introduction

The Revolution of online shopping has taken off in the last 5 years. The convenience of being able to see a picture of a product, punch in some numbers and within three to five days the picture can show up on your doorstep, this idea has revolutionized the world. At the forefront of the handmade and vintage industry is Etsy.com. In this paper I will be talking about the founding of Etsy and how it was set up. I will also be talking about the potential benefits from a buyers and sellers prospective, along with the legal and ethical issues and security concerns that surround Etsy; furthermore, I will examine the social problems that Etsy has run into. Etsy has a strong emphasis on a buyer to seller connection that has created a worldwide online market place. Background of Etsy

Etsy’s Beginning Robert Kalin was an NYU graduate that was making furniture out of his Brooklyn apartment. He wanted to sell his work online and couldn’t find a good website o which to sell his work. That’s when Kalin had a vision of a utopian website where people could buy handmade items right from the producer. He teamed up with two techies he knew from NYU to make the website. He procured seed money in the sum of $50,000 from a previous customer to kick start the website. Kalin just 25 years old and his two partners launched the site in June 2005, and from there it has grown immensely. In 2008, three years after its launch, Etsy had made $87.5 million in gross merchandise sales, (Steiner, 2012). And by last year’s GMV Etsy made $537.6 million, a staggering 71 percent growth from the previous year. (Steiner, 2012) The handmade industry swept the world and less people are turning to mass produced companies such as Wal-Mart. How it is Set Up Founder Robert Kalin said “Etsy, the standard pitch, is an online marketplace for handmade goods. There are also pictures and supplies so it’s just basically a P2P marketplace. It’s really about the stories that the items tell that you buy,” (Kalin, 2009). Etsy is set up like any other buyer and seller website you have a username and a profile you can log into. Underneath that, Etsy has a different process then many other websites with home selling. When setting up an Etsy account you have to pay a one-time fee of $1.01, (Rose, 2012). Then after that every time you list a product to sell, you pay 20 cents to put it on Etsy. Then when you sell that product Etsy takes 3.5 percent of the sale. That beats eBay’s sales fee, where they take 9 percent of the sale, (Rose, 2012).

Benefits Seller’s Prospective Angie of Jellybeans one of the top shops on Etsy said, “wow, I can actually do this!” It made me eager to create more work to post, and to put greater effort into my store knowing that if I did that I’d then have my second item sold,” after her first sale, (Vandenbogaard, 2012). She also went on to talk about how Etsy is like having a store. The difference is, that now artists and craft workers can have a full-fledged store without the price of renting and finding a space. It also reaches a much larger audience than a simple store front. When selling on Etsy you have to keep up to date and fresh, just like a store. Also, being able to sell your products with a low sales fee is a benefit to the cost of products. If an artist or craft maker tried to sell their products in a gallery or store, they could take up to 50 percent of the sale price, (Rose, 2012). Etsy also strives for a very connected worldwide community. They have features such as forums where buyers and sellers can participate in conversation with others about anything they might have a question about. This has continued to build a tighter more intimate setting than other websites.

Buyers Prospective Etsy is like being let loose in a really cool art festival, in the comfort of my own house, where one has access to art from around the world. Etsy gives the buyers a unique shopping experience. Etsy has a “geolocater” that allows a buyer to locater sellers that are near them, (Seering, 2007). You can search products by supplies, vintage and/or handmade goods. You can also insert a color to narrow the search to best fit the product you want. Finally, one thing that Etsy has is “Alchemy” this is where buyers can go and propose a project that they want done, (Seering, 2007). Then artist and designers can come and bid on the project and the buyer picks the best designer fit for the job. Also, because of Etsy's small sale fee, artists and designers are able to sell products at cheap prices. You are able to find well-made products at a reasonable price, there is something for every budget. Blog writer Elizabeth Seering restates founder Robert Kalin "The connection between producer and consumer has been lost. We created Etsy to help them reconnect, and swing the pendulum back to a time when we bought our bread from the baker, food from the grocer, and shoes from the cobbler. Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice: Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade," (Seering, 2007). Legal and Ethical Issues As a marketplace venue, Etsy’s role is to connect shoppers (buyers) with independent shops (sellers). As a shopper, when you place an order on Etsy, you enter into a transaction with an independent shop, facilitated by Etsy, (Robert, 2009). There are many do’s and don’ts of Etsy because it offers such a unique process, since each person is a different shop with different rules. When using Etsy to conduct a conversation to communicate about things such as transactions between sellers and buyers. You cannot use it to request a donation or to communicate with someone that is under your Favorites list. In the event of a transaction each seller must meet a list of required items. Some things the seller must do are: accurately photograph and describe item, provide date item will be shipped, provide proof of shipping, and use trackable shipping method with items over $250 USD, (Robert, 2009). In the event of a dispute, Etsy encourages the buyer and seller to use Etsy Conversation to resolve the issue. Disputes can include things like non-delivery or if something is not sent within the time frame specified for shipping. In the end Etsy has a long list of rules that protect the buyer and the seller. If the buyer and seller cannot solve the problem, Etsy will step in to help resolve the issue. Social Problems In March, 2011 Etsy launched a new, “People Search” program. They were trying to make Etsy more like a social network such as Facebook. Due to this feature, when on Etsy one could search for a persons' name whether they were a buyer or a seller. When searching for a name, one could see that persons purchase history and what was in their favorites list. This program was to help users connect with each other and create “Circles” of friends, (Cheng, 2011). However, the problem was that Etsy did not notify any of their users of the change in privacy setting or policy, (Cheng, 2011). So, peoples' profiles and purchase information was showing up in Google searches and not all buyers want their purchase information to show up, become some purchases are more private than others. "I just found a woman who's Etsy profile comes up on Google as the 5th link. I was expecting 6 or 7 pages down, but it's on the very first page, right after her online resumes,"(Cheng, 2011). This customer hadn’t logged in for the last two years and some private purchases came up on Google that she bought on Etsy.

Further Required Research

Etsy was started by three guys in a Brooklyn apartment in 2005. Now Etsy has two office locations in both San Francisco and New York with 65 employees. 97% of the users on Etsy are women, (Kalin, 2009). Most transaction on Etsy are the amount of $30 USD and usually items purchased are around $15 per item, (Kalin, 2009). The most popular items sold on Etsy are jewelry, (Kalin, 2009). Today, after 6 years since they launched, Etsy now has 875,000 people selling merchandise and 15 million users worldwide, (Lynley, 2012). Etsy is worth almost $700 million and they just received a new $40 million investment, (Lynley, 2012) This past June a new CEO took over, Chad Dickerson, and the company continues to have record months, one after the other. Conclusion The Etsy revolution has taken off since they launched in 2005. The website has given the opportunity to small town artists and designers to sell their products on a worldwide market. Etsy is different than any other website because they strive to connect people in a one on one selling process. When you buy from a store on Etsy you aren’t just buying a product from Etsy, you are buying from a person with a dream. You are helping the everyday American make a living and making their dreams come true. And it all started with a furniture maker in a small Brooklyn apartment.