The New Etsy

A year and a half ago, four guys; Rob, Jared, Haim, and Chris, built a website called Etsy.

In the past year it has grown and grown, almost entirely by word of mouth, into the community for handmade goods on the web.

The website that the four of them built was popular beyond what they had imagined and it started to bog down under the load.

So at the beginning of this year, they started planning for V2 as they call it. It was a complete rebuild from scratch to the back end, the front end, and the middle layer.

This past weekend they shut down etsy.com and migrated the database and on Monday the new etsy.com was open for business. It hasn't been smooth and they are still squashing bugs and probably will be for another couple days.

But the new etsy is as beautiful as the old etsy (probably more so) and much faster and easier to use.

If you love crafts, artistic things, and buying handmade one of a kind items, then etsy is the place for you. I am going to try to buy as much of my holiday gifts as I can on etsy this year.

If you've never been to etsy, the new etsy is a great reason to do that today.

Full disclosure: Union Square Ventures is proud to be an investor in etsy.

Comments

[james governor]

would be great to know more about the whats, whys and wherefores - in terms of the infrastructure migration.

[Jay]

Hi Fred,

Thanks for using Compete.com's chart for Etsy.com.

Please do let me know if you have suggestions on how to make Compete.com more useful. We’re listening, and reacting.

Thanks again,
Jay

[erin]

I'm a big internet shopper--I probably make over 60% of my non-perishable purchases online. For gifts, the percentage is higher. I loathe holiday shopping.

So here's what I like about Etsy: it blends the ebay concept of individual sellers with more traditional web retailing. It reminds me of a hip arts/crafts section of a farmers' market-- on steroids.

I love the idea of supporting an individual seller/artist. The design of the site is easy on the eyes and the pictures helpful. (Although some artists really should select better views of their products such as the inside of the wallet...obviously that is what counts.)

Anyway, what I find daunting is that there are over 1000 products in some categories such as purses/bags. Yes, I know I can further refine my search, but there are still LOADS of products. It's a shopper turn-off for me.

Also, I played around with the other ways to shop, e.g., geolocator etc., and found all of them pretty useless. Maybe I'm missing something or didn't give it enough time...

All in all though, I'm pretty sure I'll be making some purchases on the site...just think too much product is not always a good thing.

[Regia]

I have been trying use etsy.com to sell paintings...I think etsy is better for lower prices pieces.

[MCaplan]

I am a fine artist selling on Etsy and have sold a few higher priced pieces on it. I think Etsy is what you make it. You have to be pro-active and drive trafic to your shop. The site and the traffic driven from Etsy should be your secondary trafiic. At least that is how I look at it, and I have to say that I am very happy with my sales!

[Yacine Diop]

Etsy is a great place for handcrafters like myself. Selling my handmade on etsy encourages me to be more creative because of the talented people there.