Re: Etsy... What do people sell? JUST homemade stuff, or imported?

[OhMyAndMe]

Just wondering what folks sell? JUST homemade stuff, or does anyone get away with Ali Express shipped items?

[agent006140]

There are many Alibaba stuff listed as handmade / antique.

[Life During Wartime]

It's not a matter of "getting away" with reselling stuff you didn't design and/or craft, that isn't 20+ year old vintage, or isn't a supply or tool for crafting. The majority of Etsy shops are retail boutiques entirely, or in part. Etsy hasn't bothered much with reports about reselling for about 6 years now.

Etsy is concerned with shops reselling items that are on their restricted items lists or anything that involves IP infringement, including counterfeiting. Otherwise, Etsy is the same kind of marketplace as Amazon and eBay -- except the typical Etsy female buyer doesn't comparison shop and so is willing to pay a much higher price for the same items that you can find for less on the other two sites.

You need to check out the Etsy "anchor shops" that have 500+ unique products listed, not one designed or crafted by the seller and all brand new.

[xb37x]

Originally Posted by Life During Wartime

It's not a matter of "getting away" with reselling stuff you didn't design and/or craft, that isn't 20+ year old vintage, or isn't a supply or tool for crafting. The majority of Etsy shops are retail boutiques entirely, or in part. Etsy hasn't bothered much with reports about reselling for about 6 years now.

Etsy is concerned with shops reselling items that are on their restricted items lists or anything that involves IP infringement, including counterfeiting. Otherwise, Etsy is the same kind of marketplace as Amazon and eBay -- except the typical Etsy female buyer doesn't comparison shop and so is willing to pay a much higher price for the same items that you can find for less on the other two sites.

You need to check out the Etsy "anchor shops" that have 500+ unique products listed, not one designed or crafted by the seller and all brand new.

well said. I would also like to add it is obvious the trends have changed and what they have focused on. what used to be dozens of high volume low value sales has changed as et $i has put the spotlight on them. plenty of accounts removed on a daily basis.

[wilburnet]

previous message deleted

[agent006140]

it is not that Etsy BUYERS DO not check and compare prices with Ebay,it is that Ebay is a fleamarket,lots of misrepresented items,poor pictures,dirty fingernails,cheap packing,bad spelling,incomplete descriptions,pages and pages of redundant listings from the same seller .
Not everyone has the bottomfeeding mentality

[Life During Wartime]

Originally Posted by agent006140

it is not that Etsy BUYERS DO not check and compare prices with Ebay,it is that Ebay is a fleamarket,lots of misrepresented items,poor pictures,dirty fingernails,cheap packing,bad spelling,incomplete descriptions,pages and pages of redundant listings from the same seller .
Not everyone has the bottomfeeding mentality

Comparison shopping isn't just looking at eBay and/or Amazon. Many items sold by multiple Etsy shops are sold by other merchants online, sometimes by dozens of other sites. The items I was thinking of are all sold with the same image(s) supplied by the wholesale source.

There are plenty of gross-out photos on Etsy, and many Etsy shop owners copy-and-paste their descriptions from their Chinese wholesale sources -- which are obviously translations (to English) to begin with. Lately I've seen more and more single word descriptions on Etsy, which can't possibly be considered complete.

I don't consider it "bottom feeding" to avoid overpaying for commonly found ordinary merchandise.

But I "get" the appreciation for willingness to overpay among the Etsy community, who see it as a casual statement of affluence. As if.

[agent006140]

Etsy has many resellers just copy and paste from Aliexpress,there are also many who source their goods from Ebay,what I am saying is that there are Etsy buyers who dont care to wade thru listings after listing on Ebay,there are some nice shops on Etsy,the Etsy shop format is not like Ebay,it is more like YAHOO,you enter a shop and browse just that shop items without all the annoying messages found on EBAY -LIKE REPORT THIS BUYER,REPORT this seller!
The pictures show up better on ETSY than EBay,I dont know how they did it,PNG vs JPG??

[Life During Wartime]

It's been a while since I had an active shop on Etsy, but I think Etsy accepts both PNG and JPG.

Totally agree about the overall appearance of item pages: much nicer on Etsy than on eBay. It is much easier to search for what I want on eBay, but the item pages are not designed to showcase what the seller (the person paying to be on that page) has to offer.

[bruh]

So there are dropshippers on etsy???

[oibruv]

Originally Posted by bruh

So there are dropshippers on etsy???

Of course. It's often quite easy to spot dropshippers.

[bruh]

Originally Posted by oibruv

Of course. It's often quite easy to spot dropshippers.

Do they even do sales?

[luverlyjuberly]

I was selling jewellery on Etsy that I bought off Aliexpress. I was Ok for a year (but sales were poor). Etsy then blocked my shop so I couldn't sell anymore because my items weren't handmade.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by luverlyjuberly

I was selling jewellery on Etsy that I bought off Aliexpress. I was Ok for a year (but sales were poor). Etsy then blocked my shop so I couldn't sell anymore because my items weren't handmade.

Rough to hear but makes sense that etsy would do this

[agent006140]

Originally Posted by luverlyjuberly

I was selling jewellery on Etsy that I bought off Aliexpress. I was Ok for a year (but sales were poor). Etsy then blocked my shop so I couldn't sell anymore because my items weren't handmade.

plenty of Etsy sellers sell jewelry made by someone else,you have to list them in the right category.

[bruh]

Originally Posted by agent006140

plenty of Etsy sellers sell jewelry made by someone else,you have to list them in the right category.

Out of curiosity - what is the right category?

[agent006140]

I just tried listing a pair of gold earrnings,prior to 2002,Etsy considered that as vintage so It does not ask for production partner.
it will be listed under jewelry

[agent006140]

i dont know if you can get away with Alibaba jewelry as vintage,but I have seen its jewelry sold as vintage on Etsy

[oibruv]

Originally Posted by bruh

Do they even do sales?

Absolutely but the risk of getting banned is high. Some get banned within a week, others may run their shops for a longer period of time.

[agent006140]

Take a look on Ebay, cheap costume jewelry is everywhere.Better find something else to sell.

[Life During Wartime]

Originally Posted by oibruv

Absolutely but the risk of getting banned is high. Some get banned within a week, others may run their shops for a longer period of time.

A much longer period of time. There are Etsy shops selling cheapie Ali fashion jewelry that have been at it for six years, or longer. It is generally safe to resell anything on Etsy that doesn't appear on Etsy's list of banned items, and doesn't involve any IP infringement.

[xb37x]

yeah and usually the inventory switches up pretty drastically and a ton of money is also put into r&d for new items and niches.