Marketplace Web site Etsy.com widens customer pool, simplifies running a business
By Kate Jonuska
In the current economic climate, starting your own business can be a risky and expensive affair, especially when dealing in so-called luxuries goods such as art, jewelry, clothing or accessories. But creative souls all over the world, including dozens in the Pikes Peak region, have found a way to make a full-time living or supplement their salaries through the online marketplace Etsy.com.
“I wanted to be part of a marketplace where I could get a lot more eyes on my work,” says local jewelry designer Jennifer Hunt, who owns Jennifer Hunt Designs and runs the store jacksoncreede on Etsy. While she’s offered her work in local stores and sold to wholesalers for many years, when she joined Etsy, “I went from, through my Web site I had up, getting five views a day and maybe one sale a week to, with Etsy, getting hundreds of views a day and one to five sales a day.”
Hunt is one of more than 250,000 sellers on the 2005-founded Web site, which boasts more than 2.5 million users/registered customers and clocked $87.5 million in sales in 2008. Through May, their 2009 gross sales total $58 million, putting them on track for significant growth in a challenging year.
“My business model had to change or it was going to die,” says graphic designer Brinda Hammel of Etsy shop Brinda Kay Design, who once worked solely in paper goods. Now she’s
shifted her business focus toward accessories and her marketing focus online, though she maintains a presence in one local brick-and-mortar store.
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Gazette Business section on July 23, 2009.
No Comments to Gazette: Where handmade gets a leg up so far. (RSS Feeds for comments in this post)
No one has commented so far, be the first one to comment!