Etsy

Etsy, Inc. is an American e-commerce company with an emphasis on the selling of handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home decor, religious items, furniture, toys, art, music and books as well as craft supplies and tools. Items described as vintage must be at least 20 years old. The site follows in the tradition of open craft fairs, giving sellers personal storefronts where they list their goods for a fee of US$0.20 per item. Beginning in 2013, Etsy allowed sellers to sell mass-manufactured items.

As of December 31, 2024^[update], Etsy had over 100 million items in its marketplace, and the online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods connected 8 million sellers with 96 million buyers. At the end of 2024, Etsy had 2,400 employees. In 2024, Etsy had total sales, or gross merchandise sales (GMS), of US$12.6 billion on the platform. That year, Etsy garnered a revenue of $2.81 billion and registered a net gain of $303 million. The platform generates revenue primarily from three streams: its Marketplace revenue, which includes a fee of 6.5% of the final sale value, a listing fee of 20 cents per item, and Seller Services, which includes fees for services such as "Promoted Listings", payment processing, and purchases of shipping labels through the platform. Other revenue includes fees received from third-party payment processors.

The site was launched in 2005 by iospace, a small company composed of Robert Kalin, Chris Maguire, and Haim Schoppik. The initial version had taken two and a half months to build. Later, Jared Tarbell joined the team. Former NPR executive Maria Thomas joined as COO in 2008; she was then promoted to CEO before departing from Etsy in December 2009. Robert Kalin resumed his role as CEO from December 2009 until July 2011. Investors included Sean Meenan, Albert Wenger, Spencer and Judson Ain, Union Square Ventures, and founders of Flickr and Delicious.

Kalin explained why he named the site Etsy in a 2010 interview with Reader's Digest, saying, "I wanted a nonsense word because I wanted to build the brand from scratch. I was watching Fellini's 8 ½ and writing down what I was hearing. In Italian, you say etsi a lot. It means 'oh, yes'. And in Latin and French, it means 'what if'."

In Etsy's first year, it attracted attention for frequently adding new tools and functionality to the site to help sellers gain exposure and traffic, including Adobe Flash-based visualizations and a taxonomy of categories with tags. Etsy passed $1.7 million in sales in May 2007. On July 29, Etsy had its one-millionth sale and anticipated its two-millionth sale would occur mid-December 2007. In November 2007, buyers spent $4.3 million purchasing 300,000 items for sale on Etsy, an increase of 43 percent from October 2007. In June 2007, it expected to be profitable by the fall, but in December 2007 it was not a profitable company. In January 2008, Etsy received an additional $27 million in funding from Union Square Ventures, Hubert Burda Media, and Jim Breyer.

In February 2008, trouble at eBay, including a strike by some dissatisfied sellers, brought speculation that Etsy could be an increasing competitor. At the same time, however, some Etsy sellers expressed discontentment with how Etsy was handling complaints about stores. At the time, a comparison of the two websites included complaints that on Etsy, items are difficult to find, the interface "feels slow", and the buying and selling process is United States-centric. Other reviewers enjoyed using Etsy's specialized search options, including the "Shop Local" tool.

In July 2008, Rob Kalin ceded the position of CEO to Maria Thomas. Some longtime Etsy employees left the company in August 2008, including founders Haim Schoppik and Chris Maguire. In September 2008, Etsy hired Chad Dickerson, who formerly worked at Yahoo!, as Chief Technology Officer. The company acknowledged concerns about vendors selling other people's work as their own.

In April 2009, users organized an "etsyday" promotion on Twitter that brought extra attention to the site. As of May 2009, it had approximately 60 employees and sales of $10 to 13 million per month, possibly boosted by consumer interest in cheaper and more personalized goods due to the United States recession.