MAKERS ON THE MOVE
Etsy Studio ‘revolutionizing the craft-supply space’
Can’t get out to that crafting class on Thursday night? You no longer need to. Apart from the (not insignificant) social benefits of joining a group of people to learn how to knit, sew, bead, paint a wall, build a bed — or whatever — you can now learn it all at home, online, through Etsy.com’s new sister site, Etsy Studio.
Etsy Studio is aimed more at craft-supply sellers than Etsy.com, says Erin Green, Etsy Canada’s managing director. She says that’s because the craft-supplies market is a huge space — a “$44-billion market in the U.S. alone” — and it’s an area that has been “growing organically on Etsy.com” since it launched 11 years ago.
Etsy Studio will launch with eight million listings, many of these sellers mirrored on Etsy.com, but will be more set up for craft-sellers’ intricate needs, such as managing inventory.
Also different will be the heavy focus on how-to tutorial content, so people can learn how to make something, have the materials listed out for them, and then order them all in one place. The site is set up to provide inspiration and make it easy for people to get on with the project, Green says.
“There really seems to be this need, or appetite, for combining inspiration as well as shopping in one place, and I think that Etsy Studio is the perfect platform to marry those two things,” she says.
The concept of going to online maker sites to learn how to build a bookcase, paint a room or make a cake, isn’t a new one, with the proven popularity of Pinterest and Instagram, but the shopping aspect of Etsy Studio sets it apart, Green says. And the advantage of buying craft supplies through them, as opposed to bricks-and-mortar retailers, is the amount of product you have access to, she says.
“Imagine being able to shop for eight million listings from all over the world,” says Green. (Etsy is now in more than 200 countries). “You’ll be able to find unique items, vintage items. Some of the popular categories on Etsy Studio will be jewelry, knitting, sewing, paper craft and home decor, whether or not those are trends is a bit unknown, but certainly those are the craft-supply categories that are already very, very popular on Etsy.com, and we imagine they’ll be popular on Etsy Studio, and the content we produce on launch will be very much DIY inspired by those categories.”
Traditionally, when people think of craft supplies it’s been an off-line space, says Green, whether it’s taking a craft course to learn how to do something, or buying the materials. In this respect, they see Etsy Studio as something of a game-changer.
“It’s really revolutionizing the craft-supply space,” she says.
Founders of online maker site Poppytalk, Jan Halvarson and Earl Einarson, who launched in 2005 before Etsy, say the landscape has changed vastly.
“It’s so much easier these days than back at the beginning, when Etsy first started,” Halvarson says.
“There was no Etsy blog, no Pinterest, no Instagram; it was just makers and a few of us bloggers getting the word out. Etsy eventually introduced a few fun sections on their site that helped in finding more makers’ work, like their Treasury and a Colours search, but one had to basically just search and search to find things they liked, it was very time consuming. We even had an Etsy Pick of the Day on our site (posting something every day for 365 days from 2006-07). And then we opened Poppytalk Handmade for a few years to help market makers’ work.”
When Instagram and Pinterest arrived, she says, the game changed entirely.
“Makers began to gain momentum and take more control of marketing their work individually. As the online landscape grew and developed, we also adapted and calibrated our position, moving with the changes of technology and online culture. With Etsy Studio coming into the scene, that too will change things for everyone, especially makers and suppliers. It will be interesting to see how it all develops.”
Video content is becoming the norm now too, says Halvarson, who adds that she and Einarson are being pulled in that direction, producing and creating their own video content for Poppytalk.
“Before you know it,” she says, “it will be something else, like virtual reality or some cool thing that’s just around the corner.”