. . . ARTICLE . . . Etsy Takes on Craft Store Competitors . . .

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(source: http://www.pcmag.com/news/351752/etsy-takes-on-craft-store-competitors) BY CHANDRA STEELE FEBRUARY 14, 2017

Etsy today announced changes that will help its sellers get crafty with their businesses.

At its colorful company headquarters in DUMBO, Brooklyn, Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson announced Shop Manager, a hub for Etsy seller tools and services, and Etsy Studio, a crafting market designed to compete with big-box craft retailers.

Etsy has a host of services for sellers, including Pattern, which lets them set up websites with ease, and Etsy Wholesale, which connects them to over 25,000 boutiques that can carry their merchandise. But Etsy says many of its sellers don't know about these options or how to take advantage of them. Hence Shop Manager, which gives them an overview of their orders, listings, conversations, and stats, as well as access to Etsy's tools to help with things like Google AdWords.

Lane Huerta, owner of Etsy shop Lovelane, has been selling homemade superhero -and fairytale-themed playwear for kids on Etsy since 2014. It's been Huerta's full-time job since Etsy featured her store on its home page in September 2014, getting her mentions in publications like Harper's Bazaar and orders from boutiques. She's had so much business that she hired a team of nearly 10.

They've been using Shop Manager for over a week, and it has been a boon to communication for her team. She appreciates being able to use all its other features as well to run the back-end for her business. "I can toggle easily between my wholesale and retail accounts," Huerta says.

Shop Manager is available for all sellers starting today.

Etsy Studio, meanwhile, arrives in April and is designed to take on stores like Michael's. Tim Holley, director of product management, says it will be a storefront of 8 million items compared to the 30,000 or so found at a craft store. Though customers won't be able to touch and feel things like chunky yarn, Etsy said users can zoom in on items to get an idea of texture, color, and scale. Etsy has sold craft supplies but not in a cohesive way that let customers search with an abundance of filters, as well as a list of features that include whether the item is vintage, handmade, digital, organic, or recycled, which are of importance to many Etsy shop owners.

Etsy Studio is also intended to be a source of inspiration. Etsy users can scan projects that are presented a bit like Pinterest and then click on them for a full tutorial as well as the ability to add everything they need to complete it to a cart in one click.

One seller who took advantage of Etsy Studio is Seja Brumley, a jewelry designer wo runs Aura Supplies. Customers started asking her where they could get some elements of her designs. Brumley crafts these items for her customers and had been selling them on Etsy for some time but says Etsy Studio can expand her audience to "people who don't necessarily want to start a business but just want to make one thing."

Always good to see what the media has to say too.

Thank you,

Mike

[DecorDesignsAndMore]

https://img0.etsystatic.com/170/0/16560841/icm_fullxfull.112029898_fvav7biryg0kksosooow.jpg

Just Imagine!

On a small scale being able to compete against the GIANTS . . .

Michael's

Joann . . . fabric and craft store

Hobby Lobby

A. C. Moore . . . arts & crafts

[DecorDesignsAndMore]

Michael's

http://www.michaels.com/

Joann . . . fabric and craft store

http://www.joann.com/

Hobby Lobby

http://www.hobbylobby.com/

A. C. Moore . . . arts & crafts

http://www.acmoore.com/

[DecorDesignsAndMore]

For Online Shopping "Etsy Studio/your shop" will be competitive for small size in units as these big 4 brick and mortar retailers . . .

Now, just in my opinion, here's where offering "Free Domestic Shipping" will make Etsy Studio shops very competitive to these 4 giants.

Plus, besides "craft supplies" that can or cannot come with our own tutorials might just move on ahead of these 4 giants.

Plus, we can also offer our finished products too . . . and if we do vintage some vintage too . . .

Of course, nothing is more overwhelming than visiting a Michael's with their coupons galore as ways to getting one to buy more and more before leaving the store . . .

I believe it will be all about "positioning" well against these giants . . .

Thank you,

Mike

[DecorDesignsAndMore]

https://www.etsy.com/shop/lovelane?ref=shop_sugg

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https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/14/etsy-studio/

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CEO Chad Dickerson told me that while craft supplies were already available through the existing Etsy website, “It was a category that we didn’t focus on.” Then, about a year ago, the team started to work on the idea of creating a separate marketplace.

“It’s one of the most natural things we’ve ever done,” Dickerson said. “We saw a market that was really lacking in joy and inspiration, and we feel like we’re really uniquely qualified to bring that.”

Plus, it’s another way for Etsy to make money. The company will charge for Etsy Studio listings just like any other listing on the service.

Director of Product Management Tim Holley said Etsy Studio was designed with three broad principles in mind — selection, ease and inspiration. For starters, the selection should be dramatically improved compared to a normal craft supply store. The goal is to have 8 million products at launch, compared to 33,000 at your typical big box.

Holley also demonstrated how someone can search for a product in Etsy Studio. The supplies are divided into different categories like knitting, and then there are a bunch of additional category-specific filters. (They’re specific enough that the knitting-related filters that Holley mentioned went completely over my head.) The listings should also include up-close photos of the product and details about how it was made.

Finally, when it comes to inspiration, Holley said that many Etsy sellers read crafting websites and blogs, then they have to “hunt to find the supplies they need.” With Etsy Studio, there’s a whole “projects” section that includes detailed tutorials, which then connect directly to the supply shopping experience.

Over the next few weeks, Etsy plans to bring select supply sellers into Studio to get them ready for the full launch in April.

The company announced Etsy Studio as part of larger event that also included the unveiling of Shop Manager, a unified interface for all the different products and services that Etsy has created for sellers.

Chief Operating Officer Linda Findley Kozlowski described this as “one of the biggest, most significant improvements to the seller experience that we’ve ever launched,” because it means there’s “no more clicking from menu to menu” to get all the data they need. It also includes notifications that make it easier to stay on top of how your business in doing.

Dickerson used the event to highlight what he called “the Etsy economy” of 1.7 million sellers, 87 percent of whom are female. There have been sellers in 99.9 percent of U.S. counties, he said. Looking ahead, he suggested that the company has “an important role” to play in a future where creative entrepreneurs can “make a living and a life built around human connection and creativity.”

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https://www.fastcompany.com/3068180/innovation-agents/etsy-studio-is-ready-to-turn-your-side-hustle-...

Seja Brumley first started selling on Etsy in 2009. "At the time, I worked in corporate America but had a lot of creative desires, I guess you could say," Brumley told me. Her first outing was a handmade jewelry shop. But she soon realized that sourcing and creating supplies for her peers would be an even more fruitful venture.

"I opened up a supply shop for other people who make jewelry—other jewelry designers—in 2011, and that’s really what took off," she said. Cut to 2015: Brumley quit her day job as a pharmaceutical sales rep at Merck to go all in on what started out as her side hustle.

For Etsy, which is transforming itself from a niche craft-seller website into a launching pad for at-home entrepreneurs, Brumley and her customers are the future of the business. That's why they've spent the past year creating Etsy Studio, a marketplace launching this April that is dedicated to selling craft supplies, and DIY tutorials. At the same time, Etsy is adding a new service called Shop Manager that will improve the seller experience.

It's the company's largest expansion ever. And while Etsy is still dwarfed by the likes of eBay and Amazon Marketplace, the Dumbo, Brooklyn-based company attracts a loyal following of 1.7 million active sellers who reaped $2.3 billion in sales in 2015.

"In terms of numbers, it’s a $40 billion market opportunity," says Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson. "We really believe that we at Etsy are perfectly positioned to take advantage of that opportunity and really add something to craft supplies buying that we see is really missing—and that's a sense of joy and inspiration."

Etsy Studio will launch with 8 million items, and is optimized to assist makers in tracking down any supply they need—beads, yarn, cut metal—using search functionality that can sort by size, color, material, shape, weight, length, or width depending on the medium. Each listing also estimates preparation time, tells you where the product is shipping from, and offers additional information about whether the supply is handmade or recycled.

"With Etsy Studio, what we really want to focus on is giving people the ability to find exactly what they need," product management director Tim Holley explained. "This is different from the behavior or the needs that we see on Etsy.com today. If you're making a necklace [with wood beads], you probably need to know exactly how big [each bead] is—meaning, down to the millimeter, because you probably got some thread that needs to go through it."

According to Brumley, who has been beta testing the search capabilities on Etsy Studio, the results are superior to those she has used on other retail and wholesale sites. "I'll type in something like 'gold-filled clasp,' and 68 pages will come up," she said, "when really there's only four gold-filled clasps that they sell."

The simplified search results should help Etsy attract more creators to the platform. And if they still need a bit of inspiration, Etsy Studio will launch with 60 tutorials on everything from customizing a cutting board to creating a bezel setting for a ring. Each tutorial links to all the supplies required to complete it, giving users the option of buying all the products at once or picking and choosing which ones they need. Holley says that new tutorials will be published weekly, and that Etsy is planning to partner with bloggers and influencers to supplement their in-house writing team.

Ultimately, Etsy Studio aims to attract someone like me—an avid browser of Etsy who has long enjoyed making things, but isn’t intrepid (or patient) enough to gather supplies from Michael’s or Alibaba and pair them with a tutorial sourced from Instructables. For everyone who enjoys buying handmade wares, Etsy Studio offers an easy way to begin making them as well.

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http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/etsy-studio-crafts-diy/

Etsy has long been a favorite with crafting enthusiasts, but mostly as a hub for either hawking or buying homemade goods. Now the digital marketplace is positioning itself as a one-stop shop from the supply chain to the customer.

Etsy Studio was unveiled this week as online market that will be available worldwide this spring to craft suppliers, online vendors, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) practitioners.

Beyond just selling the basics such as spools of yarn, beads in bulk, and other materials, Etsy Studio will also try to woo customers into staying around longer through its own DIY tutorials developed in-house. Thus, customers can buy the products on the same page as the lesson for a new project.

This latter point could be key for Etsy's long-term success as the company started seeing a majority of its revenue start to come from just seller services last year. That's quite the contrast to when Etsy went public on the Nasdaq in spring 2015, when marketplace revenues were the dominant source of income as Etsy takes a cut from product sales.

Etsy Studio reflects some more proactive moves on the Brooklyn-based company's part to challenges from a number of other e-commerce brands looking to compete in the artisan goods market—namely Amazon's Handmade (amzn). It's also important to get ahead in this game as Etsy cited the craft supply market is worth approximately $44 billion in the U.S. alone, according to a 2016 study from the Association of Creative Industries.

Last spring, Etsy (etsy) rolled out Pattern, a platform for developing custom websites—essentially another way to tie vendors closer to the Etsy ecosystem. Etsy has also forged alliances with established retail giants, such as Macy's and Martha Stewart.

Etsy counted approximately 1.7 million active sellers and 27 million active buyers as of September 30, 2016.

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https://thenextweb.com/creativity/2017/02/15/etsy-targets-diy-addicts-new-etsy-studio/#.tnw_lfVRjkuB

Etsy is becoming its own middleman with the launch of Etsy Studio, a craft-supply spin-off store where Etsy’s sellers can buy their raw materials.

Etsy sellers won’t notice much of a change, the site itself insists. They can manage all sales via the Shop Manager, and Etsy Studio listings will also be available on the vanilla site.

The new site will roll out in April. Etsy users can sign into the fledgling site now to get updates.

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http://www.refinery29.com/2017/02/140951/etsy-studio-launch

Have you ever seen an item on Etsy and thought, I could make that myself...if only I had the right supplies? This is exactly why Etsy is launching a new initiative called Etsy Studio. Through the new craft marketplace, you'll be able to browse DIY projects and tutorials and shop all the supplies you need to bring them to life. And if you're a craft-supply seller, the site will automatically set up your listings.

"Creativity has always been at the heart of Etsy, and through Etsy Studio we will bring joy and inspiration to more makers and DIYers around the world," said Etsy CEO and chairman Chad Dickerson. "Craft supplies is an enormous market and we’re excited to bring a fresh, innovative experience along with an unparalleled range of unexpected items to this industry."

Etsy Studio will launch in April; sellers will get early access in March. You can sign up on the website to stay updated. Keep on craftin'.

[DecorDesignsAndMore]

ME: Will Etsy Studio grow to be more popular than Etsy itself? Perhaps?

Etsy Studio will offer more products than the giant brick and mortar craft stores . . .

Will Etsy Studio become an Amazon like place for craft supplies . . . and, will Amazon join in too . . .

There really is a online marketplace for craft supplies!

What do you think?

Thank you,

Mike

[DecorDesignsAndMore]

If you are considered a craft supply seller, then we'll migrate your craft supply listings for you over to Etsy Studio (they'll of course also stay listed on Etsy.com). So, no work is needed on your end to add your supply items to the new marketplace. Thanks for the question!