Culturally aware, aesthetically appealing, and creativity driven. That’s just part of the experience that Etsy offers. Etsy; it’s an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of handmade and vintage goods. Its community is thriving; members are polite, vibrant, and the products they offer are both unique in their design and beautiful in their appeal. The community, in fact, is perhaps what sets Etsy aside from other online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon.
See, Etsy’s members aren’t overgrown children trying to sell their Xboxes or iPod Nanos or supposedly only-one-in-the-world cars. Etsy’s members are craftsmen, they’re creatives, and it is because of them that Etsy can bring to its buyers some of the most elegant, timeless, and affordable products on the Internet. Etsy realizes the value that this community holds — not only in their creativity but in their friendliness — and so the site also features a miniature social network for its buyers and sellers to converse upon. This cultivates not only an easy way but an enjoyable and casual way for customers to offer feedback on products they’ve purchased, feedback that is instantly available for other potential customers to see.
Another strength that Etsy boasts is its website’s interface. The design is simple, colorful, and the mood it sets aligns perfectly with the genres of Etsy’s products. This is especially desirable over eBay’s or Amazon’s clunky, crowded, and outdated interface. Etsy didn’t just stop there, though, but continued their push into the younger generation’s market by releasing their service to the app store. Their app is perhaps more appealing than their website yet just as functional and useful, featuring the website’s entire lineup of products that can, in fact, simply be browsed without buying or an intention other than the intention to pass time. Careful, though, for some of the products are so appealing that the phrase love at first sight could find validation in you.
And that is the beauty of Etsy. One can begin by just browsing the store, just browsing it without wanting to buy anything at all, but end up head-over-heels for something and buy it. That is when a store has succeeded, when it sells to customers who didn’t come looking to buy.
Etsy’s products fall within one of several different categories. Accessories, art, bags and purses, bath and beauty, books and zines, candles, ceramics and pottery, children, clothing, crochet, dolls and miniatures, furniture, geekery, glass, jewelry, knitting, music, needlecraft, paper goods, patterns, pets, plants and edibles, quilts, supplies, toys, vintage, weddings, woodworking, and a special section called ‘everything else’ completes the vast genres of products. All of these are handmade, not mass-produced in a factory run by Chinese children.
That’s obviously an overwhelming load of stuff, though, but Etsy has you covered. They feature short, thematic lists of products everyday for you to browse if the store’s entirety is too much for you to consider. This comes in handy especially during the chaos of last-minute gift shopping.
In short, Etsy is like the open-air market of the Internet. In place of a brand name warehouse’s formality, it offers vibrancy and a warm community. Instead of cliché and mass-produced products, Etsy offers handmade and unique gifts. All of this from the laptop at your couch or the iPhone in your pocket, instantly available and enjoyable to shop.
