
Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff - luu
https://www.recode.net/2017/5/2/15522672/etsy-ceo-change-josh-silverman-chad-dickerson-layoffs
======
mustacheemperor
The conversion problem on mobile does seem like an issue, but speaking as a
former customer of Etsy what drove me away was the selection. Not that it's
too small - rather, Etsy is now flooded with thousands of storefronts selling
"artisan" pieces that are actually bought on AliExpress or similar and marked
up. If they're trying to apply ML to managing customer recommendations, they
should figure out how to identify who's actually selling legitimate wares.

I stopped buying from Etsy a couple years ago - I purchased my SO what I
thought was a unique, interesting "handcrafted" necklace. I thought it looked
a little factory-made when it arrived, but it wasn't anything too expensive so
I didn't sweat it...then she found it on AliExpress for $5. I then realized
the six week lead time for "hand crafting" was actually the time for
international shipping and domestic re-packaging.

~~~
blhack
This is tougher than it seems on the surface.

A few years ago, I was involved in planning and running a maker "fest". We
invited makers, and artists to the festival to show off their projects, and
some of them wanted to sell things.

A not-insignificant number of participants who wanted to sell things were just
reselling things you could buy at Michaels, or buy online (in bulk) for cheap.

Sometimes with just a little modification, or maybe a creative recombination,
or repackaging.

The problem is that you basically have to examine _every_ single item, and
then personally decide if it qualifies as art or not.

That's a lot harder than it sounds, and can quickly devolve into a judgemental
mess that nobody wants to participate in (we wanted to encourage makers, not
subject them to some "must be at least this cool" test, which is scary for
people).

Imagine the PR fallout for etsy the first time they tell somebody that their
handmade widgets look like mass produced junk.

I think they're in a really tough spot. When they weighed the options, my
guess is that they realized that it would be best to let the consumers just
decide what they want to buy.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> I think they're in a really tough spot. When they weighed the options, my
> guess is that they realized that it would be best to let the consumers just
> decide what they want to buy.

...but then the problem is, what makes them better or different from any other
storefront? If there's a ton of mass-produced product on Etsy, why would I
want to shop there rather than on Amazon?

~~~
Opalhart
Maybe if there was a system where consumers could identify the wares as
manufactured themselves. Like a "legitimacy" rating system

~~~
Meai
They should really just add a rating system, I dont know anything about etsy
but if customers say that they found it on alibaba with a given link then the
seller would probably lose all future sales. Sounds like a very easy problem
to solve...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
But then Etsy lose all those sales, which presumably is why they don't do
that.

Are they more committed to their morals or their profit?

~~~
fireflash38
That would be a very short-term perspective of them to take. If it becomes
common knowledge that it's mostly repackaged chinese goods, then the
storefront as a whole would collapse. In this case, preserving their morals I
believe is very important to their business as a whole.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
They probably only need to maintain the perception to keep most of the profits
though, so look like your trying but don't do all you can.

~~~
penguat
They need to maintain their customers' perception, which is not so much about
trying as actually having an effect...

------
eliudnir
I ordered a rustic pipe desk from Etsy a while back and the seller was not
able to deliver the item on time. He/she communicated the issue so it wasn't
that big of a deal for me. I had a prearranged vacation coming up while
waiting for the item to be finished and sent, so things took a little bit
longer then expected on both ends.

When I finally got back home and put the desk together, I noticed that there
were items missing and some things had not been packaged well so they were
damaged/scuffed in shipping. Most of the issues were minor and I decided to
not make a stink about it with the seller as I could easily work around and
fix the problems. I did however want to leave a review of my experience for
the seller to be made aware and future buyers to be warned.

Etsy's policy was however to deny me to review an item outside of a certain
time window. I emailed Etsy's customer service to petition that I should be
allowed to leave a review even though my window had passed given that the
seller could not deliver in the time he/she had promised. Etsy's replies and
refusal to allow this left a permanent impression on me and I will never spend
another dollar there as a result of this ordeal.

~~~
contingencies
This is why centralized marketplaces in general are, in my opinion, on the way
out. In the future people with something to offer will be able to offer it
without being routed through one-size-fits-all platforms who want to control
your options for communication, payment, reputation, shipping, etc. in a "my
way or the highway" attitude. If one takes this perspective, then Ebay,
Taobao, and Etsy are all anachronisms, though Amazon has smartly enhanced
delivery speeds by focusing on logistics and will therefore maintain
relevance. Why can't I barter for goods? Why can't I route around Paypal,
credit cards, or USD? In the future, these will be normal consumer decisions.

~~~
throwaway61891
i dunno, people like those centralized solutions because managing
communication, payment, reputation, shipping, etc. are a huge pain in the ass.

i mean even if you look at major alternatives to etsy (like shopify), they
still are "centralized" in that regard.

buyers also need some sort of discovery platform - even if it's just google,
then google becomes the centralized platform, no?

~~~
subpixel
> buyers also need some sort of discovery platform

These platforms exist in all sorts of places outside of marketplaces.
Pinterest is essentially bookmarks for shopping. Ditto Wanelo (and other
similar sites for different demographics/verticals). Certain Instagram
networks are all about products. Babylist is to baby showers what The Knot is
to bridal showers. And these are just what I can think of off the top of my
head.

Greenhorn merchants love marketplaces b/c they want to market themselves at
any cost. But I'm close with several former Etsy sellers who, once they
achieved traction with their products, decided to build their brands on their
own and not compete toe-to-toe with copycat sellers (which drove them bezerk,
btw). Shopify + Facebook ads + Instagram can go a very long way.

~~~
throwaway61891
> Pinterest is essentially bookmarks for shopping

except they're trying to capitalize on the marketplace part too:
[https://about.pinterest.com/en/shopping-
pinterest](https://about.pinterest.com/en/shopping-pinterest)

> Certain Instagram networks are all about products

ditto:
[http://blog.business.instagram.com/post/152598788716/shoppin...](http://blog.business.instagram.com/post/152598788716/shopping-
coming-to-instagram)

> former Etsy sellers who, once they achieved traction with their products,
> decided to build their brands on their own and not compete toe-to-toe with
> copycat sellers

yeah, this is etsy's real problem - they do a bad job of keeping top sellers
on the platform. i haven't seen much attrition because of copycats, but more
that etsy is just a really bad platform for managing a big shop. the fact that
your sellers went to shopify is, to me, just evidence of that.

------
0xADADA
I looked into this, because a bracelet I bought for my wife looked great on
Etsy, but when it arrived, it was obviously shitty chinese-knock-off quality

Here is the bracelet I bought as a gift, $52

[https://www.etsy.com/transaction/1238204808](https://www.etsy.com/transaction/1238204808)

Here is the same fucking thing, on AliExpress for $6.52 a piece, or you can
buy them in lots of 6 for $20.

[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/24k-Gold-Electroplated-
Edge-...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/24k-Gold-Electroplated-Edge-Mixed-
Color-Bar-Quartz-Druzy-Bangle-
Bracelet/32765306497.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_2_10152_10065_10151_10130_10068_436_10136_10137_10157_10060_10138_10155_10062_10156_10154_10056_10055_10054_10059_10099_10103_10102_10096_10052_10053_10142_10107_10050_10051_10084_10083_10080_10082_10081_10178_10110_10111_10112_10113_10114_10181_10183_10182_10078_10079_10073_10070_10123,searchweb201603_16,ppcSwitch_5&btsid=d1696a11-7f72-4896-8629-496304840bb6&algo_expid=7cd84419-e60d-44b9-bce5-030e3106d0ab-11&algo_pvid=7cd84419-e60d-44b9-bce5-030e3106d0ab)

fucking fuck.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Your etsy link doesn't work for me

~~~
pja
It’s a transaction ID rather than a link to the actual seller’s page.

------
ahmeni
It's bizarre to see how Etsy went from producing a significant amount of
technical software and community engagement a few years ago and then suddenly
stopped. Their GitHub is a testament to this sudden dropoff. Was there
anything ever mentioned about why they went from super public about things
like dashboarding to nothing?

~~~
throwaway61891
former etsy employee here:

lots of reasons, but around that time etsy invested heavily in infrastructure
and tools like statsd resulted from it.

the last few years the focus has been mostly on product, and product teams
usually don't produce the kind of significant technology contributions you're
talking about (huge generalization there obviously).

this is more of a personal opinion, but my experience was that the last few
years etsy has focused less on technical solutions to problems and more on
"people solutions" \- if something is inefficient they look for non-technical
solutions to that problem, sometimes fruitlessly. as you can imagine in that
environment, things like statsd don't get made.

~~~
look_lookatme
I just assumed everyone booked it after the IPO.

~~~
throwaway61891
not really. some people, but very few all things considered.

------
DanBlake
I can only add my experience with etsy on the affiliate side. TheHunt.com
previously sent them significant traffic (as in, hundreds of thousands of
visitors) via their affiliate program. We then got a email that they were
going to change our rates to be something like 5x less than our current rates
because we were high volume. Needless to say we removed every etsy product on
our site and replaced them with amazon/farfetch/etc.. products within a week.
We actually ended up tripling our revenue off of the etsy traffic so I am glad
it happened.

It did show a lack of appreciation for traffic on their end they were so
willing to let us go without a fight. No room to budge on rates or even
suggest a alternative- Not sure if that was management or department based
decision but it was certainly enlightening.

~~~
TorKlingberg
Affiliate marketing involves so much scams and tricks that I can understand
they are limiting it.

------
jph
I spend a lot of time with Etsy sellers, all one-person micro-businesses
creating fully-handcraft items.

They tell me there are three major problems that are all interconnected: 1)
search is poor, 2) cheap knockoffs swamp the search results, 3) there's no
obvious way to emphasize truly handcraft items.

All the sellers are experimenting with alternate platforms, such as Shopify,
Wordpress, Wix, etc.

~~~
e15ctr0n
You have only half the picture because the three problems you've listed have
existed for quite some time.

Here are some new problems that are driving more sellers off Etsy:

4) October 2013: Etsy redefines "handcrafted" and allows Etsy sellers to get
"help" with making and shipping their items.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/etsys-
industrial-r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/etsys-industrial-
revolution.html)

5) September 2015: Etsy openly embraces mass manufacturing
[https://www.wired.com/2015/09/etsy-embraces-mass-
manufacturi...](https://www.wired.com/2015/09/etsy-embraces-mass-
manufacturing/)

6) October 2016: Etsy forces sellers to enroll in Google Shopping ads and
spend their own money promoting their items. On the surface it looks innocent
enough but most sellers are not sophisticated enough to run their own ad
campaigns. They expected Etsy to provide that service as a marketplace. With
no traffic coming in from Google any more, sales have tanked.
[https://blog.etsy.com/news/2016/introducing-google-
shopping-...](https://blog.etsy.com/news/2016/introducing-google-shopping-ads-
for-etsy-sellers/)

7) April 2017: Etsy forces sellers to direct all revenue to Etsy's own bank
account (no more Paypal), or the seller can't sell on Etsy any more.
[https://www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/183258...](https://www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/18325841/)
The deadline to comply is May 17 so expect many shops to die on May 18 because
shop owners are loath to turn over their bank account information and personal
identity proof to Etsy.
[https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18322006...](https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18322006/)

I can confirm that I know at least one seller who set up their shop on Shopify
in January this year.

Here are some current Etsy forum threads discussing the situation from the
point of view of the buyer as well as the seller:

Josh Silverman, Here's What You need to Know from Sellers
[https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18351569...](https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18351569/)

Out of curiosity... reasons you won't buy from etsy stores?
[https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18232946...](https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18232946/)

~~~
rixrax
And... 8) Artists and craftsmen creating legitimate handcrafted products are
under assault of [Chinease] mass manufacturers that appear to monitor
items/craftsmen whose items sell fairly well only to offer their el-cheapo
counterfeit / knock-off alternative of these same products. (*

This at least appears to be the case for a friend that is selling his
handcrafted stuff in Etsy. And at least his experience seems to be that Etsy
has done very little to curb this behavior even when reported to them.

(* caveat emptor - hearsay

~~~
lightedman
Yup, I've had a lot of stuff I make by hand get copied. Now my store has only
a single listing up, and I use the Etsy app to show that item for sale and
then de-list it when I make the sale. No sales actually happen online through
Etsy. Makes my store stats look bad but I need to protect my designs.

~~~
e15ctr0n
So where do you actually make the sale? On your own website?

~~~
lightedman
I basically use Etsy as a mobile storefront so I can display wares to people
via my phone. Sale happens cash-in-hand, check, or credit card (I had to get
my own reader since Etsy would never send me my plug-in card reader) then I
just remove the listing on Etsy.

------
benwilber0
I browsed and bought a lot of stuff off Etsy about 5 years ago. Anymore it's
hard to find anything decent unless I discover someone's Etsy store by some
other means. Which is becoming less and less frequent. I don't think I've
purchased anything there for maybe a year.

~~~
wingworks
My sister sells handmade art on etsy and she's seen a big drop in sales
recently, and she's been looking at other places to sell on, where do you go
to buy these things these days?

------
mendelk
Not sure if it's related to this, but I was scheduled to have an interview
with them on 1/24/2017 for a Full Stack position, and an hour before our
scheduled time, they sent me an email that "due to some changes in hiring
priority this role is currently on hold", and cancelled the interview.

I wasn't too impressed :)

~~~
alexpetralia
I interviewed with them just a few months ago for an analytics role - very
friendly and intelligent people. I was impressed. #anecdotes

------
JohnnyConatus
This should have happened sooner but it took longer than they expected to knit
a pink slip.

------
pcurve
Based on reading through all the comments, it sounds like Etsy should've never
gone public. A lot of people saw this coming a mile away.

~~~
throwaway61891
eh, etsy should've never gone public because etsy was trying to be a company
that put "people above profits", which is extremely difficult to do as a
public company. market backlash against that kind of sentiment is severe. see
also: american airlines.

~~~
exclusiv
I scraped all the Etsy stores about 4 years ago and ~80% of stores had never
sold more than 20 items. Ever. In aggregate over several years for many
stores.

They started as "people above profits" but in reality it was all resellers
because that's what did volume. They turned the other cheek and allowed them
to take over. They eventually changed policies and alienated a lot of real
artisans. That strategy boosted revenue of course but removed their core
differentiator.

It's hard to turn down revenue and growth, even moreso when investors are
involved. But like most empires, you eventually fall from overextension.

------
badloginagain
What's the deal with the "Activist investor" that is forcing these changes? Is
this a common thing in the investment world? Does anyone have deeper insight
into this?

~~~
charlesdm
Yahoo is a basic example of activist investing. Activist investors try to
increase shareholder value in the companies they invest in, in any way
possible, to achieve above average returns for their investors.

If that means burning down the house (e.g. selling a company in bits and
pieces, or pushing certain strategic changes) then they will.

Apple has plenty of cash on their books. If an activist shareholder could
somehow force them to spend all that cash on buybacks (-> significant share
price increase), they can make a nice buck that way. That's actually what Carl
Icahn did, over the last few years.

~~~
bpodgursky
Yahoo was a bloated carcass by the time activist investors got involved.
Cutting the fat, selling off parts, and returning some value to investors was
the only fair outcome.

~~~
adrr
Yahoo stock price went up 400% in 5 years. Investors made out quite well.

~~~
gaius
... almost entirely off their stake in BABA. YHOO was effectively just an ETF
invested in just one stock, their actual business had negative value.

~~~
charlesdm
Meaning it was a good activist play? It was trading negatively because there
was a chance Yahoo management would sell that BABA stake, and use that money
to fund their operating business.

------
tedmiston
> "We are fully prepared to take any actions we believe are necessary to
> protect the best interests of all Etsy shareholders."

What exactly are they insinuating?

~~~
accountyaccount
fuck everyone else who isn't a shareholder, especially you

------
debacle
If Etsy can't fix discoverability it's dead. It's the only problem. There's so
much low quality, zero effort, dropshipped crap that there's no real value to
the platform anymore.

------
yalogin
On a related note, how is Pinterest doing? How long can it survive as an
independent social network. It focuses solely on one thing but how much is
that pie growing?

~~~
wingworks
I try to avoid Pinterest at all cost (as a user), it's filled with crap these
days.

------
chx
Thing is, even my favorite Etsy artists (I have bought five Unicorgis from
Squidbrains...) I have found via social media and not through Etsy. If they
were selling on their own website, Shopify or whatnot, my willingness to buy
and discovery process would be the same. I just do not see the value in Etsy.
I am sure there is some but I do not know what.

------
fujipadam
Maybe ignorant question. Why would one choose Etsy over Amazon

~~~
electricEmu
Well, a consumer generally visits Amazon for cheap, not quality, goods. Etsy
is supposed to be the place a consumer goes to purchase small batch, hand
made, custom items.

~~~
j-walker
Which, from my experience, isn't the case anymore. It's people selling cheap
Chinese charms on some string.

------
robattila128
I've put basically no work in marketing and no money in advertising yet I've
got a lot of sales already in the last few years. I really hope they stick
around a long time! eventually I want to take my shop seriously.

~~~
vincnetas
What are you selling?

------
mathattack
Is there any kind of conflict of interest when a board member names themselves
CEO? Or is this considered OK in corporate governance circles? (Or is just
"Beware when swimming with the sharks"?)

~~~
harryh
He is interim CEO. This is very common when a CEO is fired and there is no one
internal to the company who is appropriate to take over. Someone has to do the
job so the board member does it for a while while they look for someone to
hire.

------
jv0010
I really think the start of a lot of marketplaces closing down. Facebook has
become so easy to use and quick to list it will be dominant one

------
fffernan
Etsy alternative: [https://www.thegrommet.com/](https://www.thegrommet.com/)

------
perseusprime11
I moved away from Etsy once I started comparing prices to EBay . Products on
Etsy is overpriced for some reason.

------
throwit2mewillU
Always dreadful to hear this.

Years of best practices in product/engineering in blogs (DevOps, I also
remember their endless scrolling A/B tests!), youtube, conferences, then
product doesn't work, company fires people.

------
flukus
No monthly who's firing thread for may?

~~~
rajathagasthya
There was one today, but it seems to have disappeared.

~~~
vyrotek
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14247701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14247701)

------
artursapek
Wow, this has been a bad day for tech stocks.

------
dboreham
Interesting in that I came up with the idea that is basically etsy in 2000 (as
I'm sure thousands of others did), after noticing that various artist/artisan
friends I had made after moving to Montana had no viable way to sell their
work on the 'net. I still have the code for the site somewhere in my projects
directory, called "asite" for "Artists' Site".

Anyway, I got distracted by an influx of work, a new baby, and ultimately
other startup ideas.

Good to know I would have wasted my time trying to finish and launch that
company...

~~~
code_duck
Etsy is very successful overall. They've been dogged by poor management the
entire time... Especially the founder. He had very confused visions that were
wildly ambitious with ridiculous ideas, ignored the practicalities of the
actual business they were in, and regularly shot himself, his staff and his
customers in the foot.

I wish someone else had done it. The way this worked out has hurt the segment
they tried to serve - small business artists who want to bring their work to
the public.

------
baccheion
Etsy should just die. They've been in a perpetual state of "not quite making
it" for more than 10 years.

------
quotemstr
Welcome to the bursting of the second tech bubble. It's been slow so far, but
it'll accelerate soon. Hang on!

Why is it that on these threads, nobody seriously considers the possibility of
a secular decline? Fundraising, after all, has slowed, real estate in south
bay has softened, and interest rates are rising (making tech relatively less
attractive). Not to mention the scandals that have erased billions; see
Theranos. Look at Yik Yak collapsing. A few isolated incidents is to be
expected, but there seems to be an emerging pattern.

There's a real possibility that articles like this reflect a real bubble
bursting.

~~~
dkarapetyan
How is mismanagement and terrible user experience about the tech bubble
bursting? How are you making that leap?

~~~
andrewguenther
My guess is that the argument is because companies with mismanagement and
terrible user experiences are getting gobs of funding and going public. Not
that I necessarily agree, but I can see the argument.

