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Etsy, the startup headquartered in Brooklyn, is considering making a change to their policies to keep members of their community around longer. According to Wired, some of the changes in the policies include a proprietary payment system that works better on mobile, revisions to seller policies, and offering the option of integrating into the mainstream retail field. This will include a pilot program and selling certain Etsy goods at West Elm, a home design chain. Throughout all of these changes, people are worried about Etsy losing its unique feel.
Changes in the works are focused on keeping successful sellers on the site. The “community standards” on Etsy are vague, but the company plans to devote more time to judgment calls and resolutions to seller issues.
Matthew Stinchcomb, the company’s VP, said, “As we get bigger and have more awareness, that helps every seller. If we want to try to do something like change the economy, that takes scale.” Despite this reassurance, there are plenty of Etsy sellers who are worried about the policy changes on the site. Though there are sellers who are also encouraging of the changes. Dickerson has noted that although not all sellers will support the changes, the site is moving in a new direction and wants to encourage its sellers to grow.
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I’ve had an exceptionally positive experience with Etsy with very little exception, with receipts in excess of $59K last year – AND I make everything myself (except the vintage items, of course). I applaud their forward thinking on the issues of scale and growth BUT I feel extremely vulnerable when they, for example, change their search engine protocol and my views and sales suddenly plummet. This happened today, in fact, when they launched a new great-looking “browse” function. It ramps up the trendy look of the site for shoppers but absolutely killed my sales activity – and who knows for how long. I have a fairly loyal following on Etsy and many repeat buyers, but when things like this happen and there is no clear information given about how to compensate, I just fell, well, kind of used, rather than a valued “partner” or even a valued “component” of the Etsy success. Laurie at StoriesDivinations on Etsy.