This is what Etsy has become and it’s too bad too. The site was originally for selling hand crafted items crafted by the shop owner but then Etsy began allowing major manufacturing companies to sell their garbage on there.
As I stated above, there are companies in Hong Kong that saturate Etsy with pages and pages of their items. It’s so frustrating having to wade through a zillion pages of beads just to find something I need.
I have a store on Etsy and in the past couple of years have only sold three or four pieces. I finally opened up a store on Storenvy.com. Maybe between the two I can sell enough items to take myself out to dinner.”
–Sandie Johnson, commenter on the FastCompany article published last week, “How One Knitter Makes Almost $1 Million a Year on Etsy” about the shop, Three Bird Nest
The outrage in Sandie Johnson’s comment is representative of the online craft community’s reaction to the recent press coverage of Three Bird Nest. Articles from FastCompany, The Huffington Post, The Daily Mail, and Yahoo! Makers have all expressed awe at what one stay-at-home mom has been able to earn with her craft hobby. These articles have generated a slew of critical comments like Sandie’s.
Three Bird Nest is an online business run by Livermore, California resident, Alicia Shaffer. Although she has her own ecommerce site, the press coverage has focused on her Etsy shop which features trendy, bohemian chic merchandise similar in style to what you might find in a brand like Free People. The most popular items are knit headbands, scarves, leg warmers, and boot cuffs.
At first glance none of this seems particularly remarkable or newsworthy. But then you look closer.
Three Bird Nest’s sales volume is enormous. 98,000 Etsy sales which, combined with her stand-alone online shop, brings in $960,000 a year according to what she told Fast Company. Selling anything labeled as handmade in that kind of volume attracts a good deal of attention.
These numbers beg questions. How can you have 182 pairs of hand knit legwarmers in stock, while also stocking hundreds of other products labelled as handmade?
Alicia Shaffer is a 38-year-old serial entrepreneur. She graduated from California State University in Sacramento in 1997 with a BA in Communications and Public Relations. In 2004, after the birth of her first child, she and her husband founded Goo-Ga Style, Inc. Their main product was the Peanut Shell Baby Sling. Here’s Alicia in the introduction of the instructional video for the sling and here she is doing a TV interview about the product.
At a time when baby products were just beginning to transition from traditional pink and blue fabrics into a modern style, the Peanut Shell was on the cutting edge. “My husband and I cut out some newspaper and made a pattern. We took that to a seamstress and asked, ‘Could you make this out of this fabric and add a pocket here?'” Shaffer said.
Alicia demonstrates how to use a Peanut Shell sling.
The product took off and the company grew to have five full-time employees and $2 million in annual revenue. The Peanut Shell sling was sold at Nordstrom, Target, and Babies R Us and Alicia contracted with a PR firm to helped her to get slings into the hands of celebrities including Baby Spice and Brooke Shields who were photographed using it. She ran the company until 2010, eventually handing it over to the Farallon Brands.
Toward the end of the time that she owned Go-Gaa Style, Alicia founded a new company, Wink Shapeware, based on another product for new moms: the Wink Belly Band. She owned Wink from 2009-2011. Here she is modeling one of the Wink styles.
And in 2011, she founded a third business – a brick-and-mortar women’s boutique called Prim with two retail branches in the Bay Area.
Alicia Shaffer at Prim.
Alicia did the merchandising for the shop and it was there, she says, that she started selling the headbands that later became her first successful product on Etsy.
One aspect of Alicia’s story that is repeated over and over again in all of the press coverage is that she started her incredibly successful Etsy shop “on a whim.” This is a phrase Alicia uses when she tells her own story to the press. She also explains that she was just trying earn a little spending money. “I opened an Etsy shop, figuring I’d help pay for my kids’ soccer and dance lessons to supplement the boutique’s sales,” she told Fast Company. This spin helps to create a dramatic arc in her story, painting the picture of an overnight and accidental success.
Clearly, though, Alicia Shaffer knows a lot about selling products to women. She has a decade’s worth of experience developing products, sourcing, manufacturing, and marketing women’s soft good products in different forms with four businesses. It’s safe to say that Three Bird Nest’s success is carefully calculated, worked on, and managed.
Three Bird Nest has 10,7000 Instagram followers and 160,000 Facebook fans. The shop’s aesthetic is expertly carried through on all of these sites, including their newsletter and stand-alone website. None of this is effortless or accidental.
The first products Alicia listed on Etsy in the Three Bird Nest shop were, at least in part, handmade. We see legwarmers and cowls upcycled from vintage sweaters, for example. This was the winter of 2011 and Etsy was standing behind a policy that all items for sale on the site be handmade by the shop owner.
A year or so in Alicia hired a professional model, Alexa Gill, to model her products and a professional photographer to shoot her listing photos. We start to see the impeccably styled photos and slightly sexy product shots that are Three Bird Nest’s signature look. Here you can see a behind-the-scenes video of a product shoot.
Gray lace headband for sale by Three Bird Nest.
By the fall of 2013 the products are clearly no longer made by Alicia, a fact that Alicia doesn’t hide. She told Fast Company that her products are sourced in India. “We finish them here, adding lace trimmings and buttons,” she said.
The amount of hand finishing could be called into question.
Three Birds Nest has 95 of these American flag infinity scarves in stock for $38 a piece. “Thus (sic) is our exclusive own print and fabric!!” the listing states. They’re marked as a handmade item. On the right are what look to be very similar scarves on Alibaba for sale 100 units at a time.
Here we have a set of boot cuffs from the brand PeekABoot Socks for sale on Zulily for $14.99, replete with buttons and lace. On the right seemingly identical boot cuffs sold by Three Bird Nest on Etsy for $28 where the listing states, “Three Bird Nest headbands, scarves & leg warmers are creatively designed, uniquely crafted, carefully measured, cut and made by hand.” On Zulily there’s is no implication that the cuffs are handmade.
In October of 2013 Esty made a significant policy shift in what they allow on the site. Instead of a “we’ll know it when we see it” definition of handmade which was difficult to enforce, Etsy chose to allow sellers to employ manufacturing partners to help them produce goods with the caveat that they’d have to disclose the existence of these partnerships to Etsy and to the buying public.
It seems Alicia has disclosed the factories she works with to Etsy, although it would be difficult for the general public to fully understand this from the language in the listings. That being said, Alicia Shaffer’s shop is no secret to Etsy. In fact, they embrace it. Three Bird Nest was featured in a January “Etsy Finds” email the site sent out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Alicia Shaffer is the new Etsy success story. And that story is not the same as it once was.
The Etsy success story of 2009 was Yokoo Gibran whose Etsy shop went viral when her super-chunky crochet scarves were featured in the Fashion and Style Section of the New York Times. Her merchandise was unique and ahead of the curve. Yokoo crocheted every single item, working 13 hours a day to earn $140,000 a year.
A year and a half later, the Etsy success story is Alicia Shaffer, a savvy online retailer who sources products from overseas factories, styles them, and sells them as handmade with Etsy’s blessing. And by blessing Alicia, Etsy benefits from her press coverage, her social media savvy, and her tens of thousands of dollars in monthly fees.
The relationship is symbiotic. By invoking Etsy, which she enthusiastically does in every interview, Alicia benefits from the status of being a handmade brand. Take Etsy out of the equation and Three Bird Nest is less newsworthy. Alicia’s story goes from, “Look at this stay-at-home mom with a passion for knitting who accidentally made it big,” to, “Here’s an entrepreneurial woman with a serious work ethic who sources merchandise from overseas factories and sells them successfully online.” Still worthy of admiration, but not nearly as remarkable.
Alicia Shaffer is a perfect match for Etsy today. She’s mastered the art of standing out in a crowded marketplace. She’s taken Etsy’s revised policies and pushed them to the limit. And she’s working the handmade ethos of Etsy’s brand into her own business to maximize publicity. It feels outrageous and aggravating, and it’s working brilliantly.
*I originally wrote that Three Bird Nest model, Alexa Gill, was Alicia Shaffer’s sister. Although Alicia Shaffer has stated in multiple places that Alexa Gill is her sister, and on Sunday Feb. 22 Alexa Gill added Alicia Shaffer as her sister on Facebook, she is in fact of no relation.
**Here is the record of the shipping container imported from China with the acrylic leg warmers, hats, headbands and scarves Three Bird Nest sells in their Etsy shop as handmade.
***August 26, 2015 Three Bird Nest has left Etsy claiming that Etsy has not been supportive. Etsy released the following statement to Yahoo Makers: “At Etsy, we work with our sellers to help them grow their businesses and uphold our policies, which are vital to the integrity of our marketplace. If an Etsy seller still cannot live up to her responsibilities, provide the level of customer service our buyers expect or comply with our handmade policy, we may take appropriate action. While we generally don’t comment on specific sellers, Three Bird Nest was unable to demonstrate sufficient compliance with our policies.”
Abby:
Thank you for your perspective on this curious situation. I wonder what it would be like to have a podcast conversation with Alicia. I’am a Fast Company magazine subscriber and had seen the original article circulated in Twitter so many times —I had wondered if people were circulating it before reading it.
Your post also reminds me of a recent chain of events that led to podcast interview with CEO of Automattic (this is the company behind WordPress). If you want to listen to the interview and read the background here is the link http://mattreport.com/interview-matt-mullenweg/.
Selling on Etsy might not initially seem to have any real parallels to selling products and services in the WordPress “ecosystem’ but after reading your redefined story it to feels to me like a similar theme.
(Although I have a personal sewing studio, I am not in the craft business. Instead I work with websites powered by WordPress. While I am the executive producer for the Matt Report, unfortunately I cannot any take credit for the wonderful podcast interview. between Matt and Matt. )
Keep publishing your business insights!
I have to say and loudly I might add that this company is the worst company I have ever dealt with. From my very 1st order this company has failed miserably and everything that followed has pretty much been the same. 1st they did not apply a 15% coupon that was on their site to my order and then when I received my order one of my items was missing so since there is no phone number to reach anyone at I had to send an e-mail to let them know about it and it was over 3 days before I got a response and when I finally got the e-mail they asked for more information, like they did not understand what a missing item meant so I sent them another one stating the same thing as the 1st so they finally sent me an e-mail saying they would refund me within 2 days but nothing was done and still after several e-mails and 2 months later I had to file a claim with PAYPAL to try and get my refund and also in the order was a dress that had a broken zipper which I had repaired and they said they would reimburse me for which they have not and then to make it all worse everything I bought went on clearance the next day and up to 5 days later so I e-mailed them about that and said, We do not give any discounts back once you place an order even though they have no policy that states that and to top it off 2 of the items were from Wet Seal and 3 were from China(NO HANDMADE ITEMS FROM THEM AT ALL). They have been lying to PAYPAL and only respond on the last day they are allowed saying things that don’t make since like they will refund me 1/2 of the price of the Tunic that I did not receive (IF) I return it. I DIDN’T RECEIVE IT SO HOW CAN I RETURN IT? This company is a fraud and overcharge and misrepresents everything they say they stand for. Do not order from this company it is a sham!!!!
I agree with you. this company is scamming people out of their money. I was scammed too. Here is a link to my blog piece that explains what happened to me. I am still trying to get my money back and I am focusing more of my energy getting the word out about how Alicia does business.
http://thecutecountrychick.com/2015/07/31/buyers-beware/
I agree with the crowd- Three Bird Nest is just a horribly run company!!!! I returned an order about 6 months ago and STILL have not received my refund. I have emailed maybe a hundred times and still NOTHING. About a month ago, someone there told me they didn’t receive my return but i have the tracking info so they are LYING. I will NEVER buy from them again and I would not suggest it to anyone!!!!
Always the best advice when dealing with any retailer that is not responding to repeated attempts at communication is to get in touch with your credit card company or Paypal. Best to call, it avoids misunderstandings brought about by an email query. Just explain that you either have not received the product that you ordered or that it was not as described.
Your payment processor will ask you to return the product (if this is a “not as described” situation) and ask that you include tracking. Make sure to **always** include tracking on any return.
Generally if you are within the payment processor’s time frame (usually 60 days for credit cards and 180 days for Paypal) they will credit your account.
If they ask for additional information – **do not* send the info in a casual email. Make sure to add the information using whatever case tracking system the payment processor uses. Best to get them on the phone again, refer to the case, and tell them you are sending right now. Wait until their representative has confirmed receiving.
Absolutely stunned by the horrible customer service. I will never order from this company and will also make sure I warn others of the particularly sassy, unethical and lazy way they handle their customers. Alicia had the nerve to send me an email explaining she was unable to help me because “the holiday season means lots of rapid sales” for their company. Ha. What a great policy to share with customers. I think that about sums up how mush they value their customers.
It appears your poorly worded rant was intended for Yelp, and somehow ended up here…..
Right. Lol
Great article and well timed. I’ll be sharing with our audience since this topic has inspired and outraged so many crafters and makers.
I’m always on the gender track, but it bugs me to no end that, as you said, the spin is a “stay at home mom starting something on a whim, TEEHEE, look at the success, wow!”. That would totally not fly if she was a man. But I guess maybe it’s indicative of her clear business savvy, because it’s working.
It’s not the story I would wish to tell about my business, but it’s a very effective one for sure.
I agree with the point Stephanie brought up, and I wonder… We all know how everyone in America hates to see strong, successful women who achieve through brains, hard work, and planning (uh, Martha Stewart, anyone? Hillary Rodham Clinton?). I think Alicia knows that, too, and that’s why she’s deliberately playing the sweet, innocent stay-home mom who tripped into success accidentally.
It doesn’t even make good business sense. Why would anyone pay 10 grand in fees to a venue? It seems to me that 10 grand could be better spent hiring a webmaster and going solo.
This is an important point, Brenda. If Alicia were just not associated with Etsy none of this negative attention would be poured upon her. She would save tens of thousands of dollars in monthly fees as well. But at the same time without an association with Etsy none of the positive attention would be poured upon her either. A woman importing products from overseas suppliers and selling them successfully online is simply not a news story. Etsy is vital to Alicia’s marketing success and clearly worth every single penny.
It’s the whole integrity thing – it bothers me. So, Alicia was outsourcing manufacturing before Etsy publicly OK’d it. Etsy knew she was but they would gain nothing (and would lose a lot) by outing her.
And as you pointed out, the persona of “look what I made from home while trying to scrape together a few extra dollars for my family” is really just a lie.
OK, I am going to go have my morning coffee and cheer up now!
She wasn’t “outsourcing before etsy ok’d it”. She was reselling these products from the very beginning, something Etsy has ALWAYS disallowed. To continue to say that she designed any of these products herself and simply had them made elsewhere to keep up with demand is perpetuating a lie.
It’s also a lie that she’s leaving Etsy voluntarily. I’m shocked she was able to stay open this long with all the bad reviews and opened cases.
ps. Someone said the phone app blocks bad reviews. Is this true?
Actually, at the very beginning the items in the Three Bird Nest shop were handmade. I linked to them in the article.
really only the headbands, from what I understand.
No. There were legwarmers and cowls and other handmade items at the start (they are linked to directly in the post, but here is one https://www.etsy.com/transaction/64542626).
cut off sweater sleeves? seriously?
Yep. Handmade.
Really interesting article, thanks Abby. Alicia is obviously a very clever businesswoman and is absolutely pushing Etsy’s policies to the limit, as you say. How sad that many other sellers who genuinely sell handmade items will be overshadowed by this, but it seems like Etsy isn’t the market for handmade any longer anyway.
So glad you wrote this! Ever since the press on 3 Bird Nest people have been telling me all about “this amazing Etsy seller” and I kept saying that surely something was up. It’s nice to have that hunch confirmed and also a little sad. I’m happy for Alicia but it’s a loss for the broader hand making community.
I find this whole thing sad. Etsy being a place for handmade was awesome, but it’s no more. Here’s the thing, though, I would happily switch to Storenvy or any number of other type of shop hosting sites if they had phone apps available. As someone who has embraced the world of smart phones, I adore having the app for Etsy to photograph and write my listing all in one place. Luckily I sell to a niche market driven to my etsy shop via Twitter and Tumblr, not through Etsy itself. But the fees and general distaste of how it’s changed have disillusioned me. If only one of these other selling sites would give me an app… I’d jump ship in a second.
It’s great that she’s a successful businesswoman and I don’t begrudge her that at all. But she’s taking advantage of the handmade movement and abusing Etsy’s manufacturing policy. A lot of her items aren’t embellished by her (or her employees) at all; they’re just styled differently and popped onto the website. If she wants to resell stuff she bought on Alibaba, then she should do it in those brick and mortar stores she owns and not on Etsy.
Just to be clear, Alicia no longer owns Prim.
I generally agree with all of the above comments. I hate to begrudge anyone success, but as an actual HAND knitter selling on Etsy I had to roll my eyes hard when I saw the Fast Company article. I like to think that my target customer can tell the difference between my work and things that are “sourced from India.” While Three Bird Nest may be within the new rules of Etsy, her presentation is so deceptive I can’t help but look at it as a lie.
Well said.
I completely agree. Her listing descriptions and shop description are completely deceptive. If these articles about her shop weren’t circulating I would assume I was buying something handmade when in fact it’s not. I’ve read through some of the reviews on her shop and from what it appears she removes the tags within the items stating that it’s made in China, India, etc. but has forgotten to remove them from time to time and gets caught by her customers. Those customers that do find those Made in China tags are quite disappointed when they receive their items. The one review I read this about was for the very flag scarf pictured above. Being a seller on Etsy and working many long, hard hours on my items I find this quite sad. I’ve worked for 3 years to get my shop going and it just started to pick up after hours and hours of research. I wish Etsy would go back to being just handmade. I’m not sure that everyone that comes to Etsy to shop knows that they have changed their policy on what’s allowed so they think they’re getting something handmade when it could actually be something mass produced and at a lower quality.
The thing is, the marketing and presentation of EVERY successful company I can think of is just as much a deception as Alicia’s Etsy store. I used to work for Victoria’s Secret (owned by the very successful Limited Corporation) years ago and I was flabbergasted when I learned that the company was started by an American man in San Francisco before it was bought out by The Limited. There was no British connection whatsoever, there was no Victoria, and the No. 10 Margaret Street address on all of the store’s bags, gift boxes, and marketing materials was a fake address — Victoria’s Secret is run out of Columbus, Ohio. What’s more, they don’t even make their own merchandise. Victoria’s Secret bras are made (or at least they were in the early ’90s, when I worked there) by Maidenform, and Tricky Vicky’s just orders them in brighter colors and patterns with their own labels sewn in. All of the marketing images of models wearing the lingerie are seriously airbrushed and doctored, and the brilliance of the Victoria’s Secret success story is that people are not shopping there for underwear. It’s not about the product. People shop there to buy the fantasy, to feel like the supermodel in the photo, to buy the lie that sexy is for sale as long as it has a Victoria’s Secret label.
And really, that is why Alicia’s businesses are successful — branding and marketing, creating a fantasy that people want to buy into and appropriate for themselves. It’s just a different fantasy. I see shops and catalogs like Anthropologie and Robert Redford’s Sundance selling similar merchandise with a similar strategy. Whether she’s “abusing” Etsy’s policy change seems to be an unfair question, really. She’s playing the game by the rules, and Etsy has changed the rules for their marketplace. I think that Etsy, another business operating in hopes of maximizing profits, is also guilty of some of this deliberate deception — “handmade” is their sex appeal, if you will, but they are realizing that there is much more money to be made by opening up their marketplace to things that are produced on a larger scale. The thing that really concerns me is how “handmade” now may mean that the item was made in sweatshop conditions in a developing country by a child who should have been in school… Not what most Etsy consumers think they are supporting when they choose to buy handmade!
“The thing that really concerns me is how “handmade” now may mean that the item was made in sweatshop conditions in a developing country by a child who should have been in school… Not what most Etsy consumers think they are supporting when they choose to buy handmade!”
I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head! Exactly!
Yes, not so “all American Mom” when you think of child labor and sweatshops, now is it? Very deceptive.
Really good points! Very sad indeed about the changing meaning of “handmade” – but something that in general, all consumers in the US should be wary of, as we should be more wary of advertising in general, because as you said a lot of it is purposefully misleading. Similar to the “green-washing” that occurs with companies using “eco-friendly” and “green” and even “organic” to sell products that are none of those things.
Sad but true, first thing I thought: she lies. But who cares? She is still a success with her lies and they buy it up. I work hard and make unique items but I don’t have the brains to sell them. Perhaps I should do the same and be a reseller and lie that I handmake it….
Debbie…, I totally get where you are coming from. It’s quite discouraging when all of time and effort spent on creating something unique doesn’t market as well as a porly made, cheap, slave labor item.
Unless you’re culling the wool yourself and spinning it into the yarn, you’ve no business calling your dowdy creations “handmade”…
Pretty moms who stay at home can have questionable ethics too. Business to some is often the long con. And in our quick social media world its what they let you see over what they actrually are that many only care about.
Etsy is not Etsy anymore. The minute they started allowing stuff like this they basically thumbed their noses at all of their loyal handmade sellers and buyers. They built their business on handmade only and I’m curious why they really started to allow resellers. Is this how they are now able to turn a profit? If so it makes me sad for the handmade movement. Are we not viable anymore?
It’s because they are going public.
Etsy has raised millions of dollars (20 million in 2010 and 40 million in 2012) in venture capital. Those investors want to see a return on their investment, a big return. And the bigger the IPO is, the more money they will make. No matter how many sellers you have actually handmaking items, there is a limit on what those people can make and sell, which places a limit on the amount of profit the site can make, which limits the ROI for the investors. So, what do you do about that? You change the rules for the site to allow sellers like Three Birds Nest not because it’s the only way to be profitable at all but because it’s the fastest way to be HUGELY profitable. I think this is why Etsy never seriously tried to get rid of resellers, why they kicked off sellers who “called out” resellers, etc. They WANT those sellers there because those sellers bring in the most money. They capitalize on people who are either fooled into thinking the items are actually handmade and people who know or suspect the items aren’t but who don’t care.
When I read about the $40 million in venture capital raised in 2012, I knew they would be going public and kept waiting for the announcement (I haven’t really sold anything on Etsy since 2012 or 2013). Well, they finally announced it a few months ago (I can’t find the article from then, but if you Google “Etsy IPO” you will find lots of articles from last month about it). It also makes me seriously suspicious about the timing of all the press that Three Birds Nest is getting right now. Hmmm…you are about to go public and trying to raise $300 million in your IPO. What’s a good way to get people to feel good about investing in your business? A story like this, that’s what.
When a company goes public, their legal obligation is to their shareholders. That obligation is to maximize profits to make a return on the shareholders’ investments. They have no choice in the matter. So from that perspective, I understand the reasoning. It’s a conundrum–without the investment, Etsy stays relatively small but stay true to its roots and maybe fizzles and dies. The handmade/craft movement has always been cyclical. I’m sure that their theory is the more traffic they generate for one person makes more traffic for all. Not sure I agree with it…but there you go.
Remember: shop owners are not their customers. They are giving us permission to have shops on their site and the thing they are giving us in return is the hope (not guarantee) of more built-in traffic and therefore more possibility of people finding you. However, you can and should open a shop off etsy. I’m making that one of my goals this year!
Shop owners are Etsy’s customers, though. Etsy makes money from listing fees and transaction fees that they get from shop owners.
Saying shop owners are their customers implies that they actually view us in that way.
If they did, they would never allow a reseller like this to continue.
They are paying lip-service to “Handmade” and allowing a few major sellers to dilute the market because it makes them a lot of money.
Therefore, I think they consider us their “revenue stream”
That’s the same argument that was made on eBay a thousand times. The SELLERS are their customers!!! Many of us fled to Etsy because eBay was allowing the buyers (OUR CUSTOMERS) to run rampant over us sellers.
Now Etsy has lost sight of who their customers really are – the sellers who have tired, torn up, abused hands from making all these things ourselves. 🙁
There was talk at one time about taking eBay back to auctions only, and there is talk of taking Etsy back to handmade only, or having a separate “side” of those sites. It’s not going to happen, though.
I wonder if everyone who is upset with these last changes would put their shops on vacation for the first week in March if Etsy would pay attention.
Actually, it’s worth noting that Etsy went public as a B Corporation. This is quite notable because unlike regular corporations it frees Etsy from only being answerable to it’s shareholders. This means their primary goal does NOT have to be maximizing profits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/dealbook/etsy-ipo-tests-pledge-to-emphasize-social-mission-over-profit.html?_r=0
One of the main reasons they went public to expand internationalization which is insanely expensive. Among other things, this will conceivably give women in many more countries access to selling on the internet and to the American market. Through my interactions with Etsy here in Europe and Germany I’ve met many women from places like Greece, who only managed to get by in the midst of financial crisis due to their Etsy shops.
Stories like this are frustrating, but as far as companies go (and I worked in corporate setting for over 10 years) I still believe Etsy is well intended and they are guided by a greater mission than just profits. Yes, it’s big and when things get big they get less pure, but I think the net-net is still pretty good.
Just my .02
Spot on!
One could have a “handmade” wardrobe purchased at a big box store using her standards. Etsy doesn’t want to reject this–they make revenue on each sale. Great for her for being so clever, but those of us who make things by our own hands suffer by comparison. (“Why should I pay $60 for handknit boot cuffs from X when ThreeBirdNest is selling boot cuffs for $29.”) It’s a shame she couldn’t find her own sandbox when she morphed from handmade to sourced and imported., and it’s a bigger shame that Etsy wasn’t more stringent about oversight.
This hits the nail on it’s sad little head. Please, by all means sell things made by others, large and small stores around the world do this every day.
But when you intentionally mislead buyers about your production practices and you skew the buyer perceptions about what handmade should cost, it’s not victimless. Doing it on a site that is explicitly marketed as a handmade marketplace is pretty much intentionally lying in order to turn a profit. I don’t know how to candy coat that.
As they say “money changes everything” even integrity.
Intentionality misleading the buyer is ILLEGAL in CA where she operates her store from. And what she sells isn’t “hand made” as the public expects so it is misleading. She would have to have TONS of disclaimers on each page to not be considered deceptive. Everyone else on etsy who is playing by the rules as well as every customer who has ever purchased from her has a sound cause of action for deception and unfair business practice under California law. A class action would kill her store and make etsy either stop this practice or change how they market themselves.
If such a suit could be filed before the IPO hits it could destroy the IPO.
There are probably laws about removing manufacturing tags too. Something for California’s Attorney General to check out, if they were even interested.
I would assume that all states have laws preventing misleading sales tactics of this sort, yes? Also, to the best of my knowledge 3 Bird Nest is alive and well on Etsy, still, under different shop names. They are just maintaining a somewhat lower profile while they attempt to dump excess inventory. Imported items in many different categories can still be found there, using the same model! Not too smart…
So, there is no reason for this discussion to ‘die’ in 2015. Especially as many more sellers – seemingly more every day – are doing the same thing, if only on a smaller scale. The ‘cancer’ has not been excised. It has merely metastasized. And Etsy continues to look the other way…
TRUE. Not trying to be mean, but yes I agree. She bent the rules. Yes she is savy, clever etc. etc. – kudos to her. So now we reward people who brake the rules because they make us money? What is wrong with people today? What if this was an unattractive lady who had poor photos and someone “snitched” on her to Etsy. Would they have told her she had to stop and put only handmade items as this was a clear breach of their policies? So this lady was rewarded for being crafty, clearly braking rules and was lucky she made a lot of money before being discovered and it was only this “making lots of money” that got Etsy to change it’s policy. Once again, this is a story about how most everyone has a price where they will bend, break etc. What are we teaching our kids? She could have gone to any playground, but she found this one appetizing, she found a loop hole, she found an opportunity and leaped on it like a leopard on a gazelle.
Just to be clear, Etsy’s decision to allow sellers to have manufacturing partners came before Three Bird Nest’s surge in media attention.
I find it sad that Etsy has allowed itself to be distorted to this point.
The only reason they allow her and the like of her to operate such business on Etsy, is because they make good money from these stores. This business should definitely not be categorized as a handmade store.
They also make a lot of money from other people inspired to start their own stores by the sales figures of the most successful stores, that fantasy is their product in many ways.
Great article Abby, as usual you are right on point. I wish there was an alternative to Etsy. I feel so direspected by them in so many ways. This kind of blatant misrepresentation and then logging in yesterday to find their new category mess. It’s very discouraging.
Shophandmade.com is an alternative that is still all handmade, and they don’t charge fees! I would love to see more people switch and bring some traffic with them.
Thanks for sharing about Shophandmade.com! I was just about to ask where to shop instead of Etsy. I was browsing there (Etsy) last night after following a search link for a Lego table, only to find that there are several Etsy sellers buying kids’ tables from IKEA for $30, gluing some Lego boards to the top and re-selling them as custom handcrafted tables for over $200. Crazy!
I just took a quick glance over to shophandmade.com. I did a search for ‘toy’… and found a beanie baby – for $90. I’m pretty sure that’s not handmade… maybe the seller should try ebay.
hmmm … beanie babies probably quality as ‘vintage’ items now, and shophandmade does allow vintage, so maybe that’s how it ended up there.
Technically, that’s Etsy acceptable as handmade since they’ve taken a product and altered it. I don’t see any problem with that as long as they don’t claim they made the table too.
Now, Three Bird Nest, they’re just crooks. And apparently people are so lulled by the fantasy of the story and also the one woven by the photos, that they don’t care that there are page after page of 1-star reviews. Wish I could spin a tale for my shop that made people want to buy it by the fistful.
Really Disappointing!! If I want to buy multiple Nike Sneakers from the seller, ‘my love store’…no problem. I’m sure that she made them in the United States like she claims and they are obviously handmade.
Oops…. Forgot to mention I checked out the site, shophandmade.com.
Hi Domi,
Are you saying that the shoes from MyLoveStore are not legit? Do they even look like the original??
Thanks
There are many sites but most have adapted their policies to keep up with Etsy. A few : artfire, zibbit, folksy, dawanda.
Zibbet and Artfire have gone through new site roll outs in the past year. They look real pretty, but neither roll outs were thoroughly tested and implementation was horrid. It’s normal to have glitches in these cases, but many issues still exist on both sites and communication from admins is sporadic, and at times has been nil.
Some of the things that have gone on there make me think that both are both financially strapped and devoid of decent programming talent, most especially at Zibbet. If they continue in the same manner as they have over the course of the past year, I don’t expect them to be around much past the end of this one and, frankly don’t deserve to.
And here’s the thing. Etsy’s user interface is so easy. You can set up a shop with no expertise at all. Everything works and when something’s broken, they fix it right away. And to me what Etsy has that none of these other marketplaces have is traffic, and that’s an incredibly valuable commodity in the today’s internet landscape.
The latest debacle at Artfire was the placement last month of 3ed party Google Adsense ads in everyone’s shops, not in the shop fronts, but on every single listing page. The ads number nearly a dozen on each listing, many of them directly compete with the item in the listing, and were programmed to appear to be a part of the sellers listing. Large ones are placed directly between the item photos and the item description, making it nearly impossible for mobile users to miss them or miss hitting them. If a shopper clicks on one, they are taken off site in the same tab or window, which has to be specifically programmed to occur (even though the owner stated when confronted about it in a recent ecommercebytes.com article that they open in a separate tab or window.)
The worse part of the whole thing is the way in which it was very underhandedly implemented. The majority of sellers aren’t even aware their listings are compromised, and still aren’t, because they were programmed to be invisible to the seller when logged into their account. (I don’t know of many sellers who don’t first log in upon accessing any of their marketplace sites.) And it was only announced in the forums, rather than sending an email to all sellers to make them aware. All of these marketplace venues owners/admins are fully aware that few view their own shops without first signing in, and that an incredibly miniscule number of sellers even look at the forums, let alone actively participate. New sellers signing up for an account for the first time, at a much higher rate, were also not told that these ads were a part of the package. Many people, both long time members with low locked in rates for life and new ones alike, are leaving.
Yesterday, they have announced they’re offering to allow sellers to pay an FVF to remove the ads from their shops. Yes, if you pay us even more for the poor service we have been providing now for more than a year (the site is so glitching with programming and support so poor as to be incredibly frustrating and ridiculous), we’ll at least correct our latest bad behavior and remove the ads we sneakily planted in your shop a few months ago! (FVF will also be applied to the shipping in the same way Ebay and PayPal does.)
If it weren’t hurting so many who need the income this truly bizarre situation would all be laughable. Can’t wait to see what happens when they roll this out to everyone this summer (has only been announced in the forum, once again) and so many shop owners become aware these ads have been present in their shops for many months. I’m guessing they’re working on a way around that as we speak. I wonder what obfuscation they’ll cook up this time to get around admitting what they’ve done?
I saw the headlines for this shop and I knew there was no way that the items she was selling were handmade.. The sales numbers are way too high for that. I had an Etsy shop that I disbanded and I do not want to go back on Etsy. They are moving farther and farther away from who they were when they started out. They used to be a company that championed and sold handmade; not anymore. I would not be surprised to see them completely move away from handmade. It makes me sad. I don’t even want to shop on Etsy anymore. I am not sure what I would be buying.
Thank you, Abby for this thought provoking blog post. I’ll have to ruminate on the topic a while but, one thing I know for sure, your blog and web presence inspires me every day. Thank you for all of the thought and work you put into your web presence.
Best wishes,
Kim
As an artist who makes a living selling my truly handmade items Alicia and her story is degrading to those of us in the handmade world. I think it’s wonderful that she’s been able to make another successful business, but unfortunately it’s based on many half truths and complete lies – she should have moved her shop from etsy a few years ago. I may not be taking in millions of dollars (ha, FAR from it!) but at least I can sleep well at night knowing that I’ve done an honest days work and my customers appreciate what I do.
Thank you for telling it like it truly is. I too have an Etsy shop. And I’m wondering now if the manufacturing changes Etsy implemented recently weren’t done specifically for Alicia’s shop. My bigger worry is for Etsy itself and what will become of the rest of us once re-sellers take over peddling their cheap merchandise. What happens when buyers discover the “handmade” leather band watch, they paid $300 for, was purchased on Albia for $4.00? If Etsy goes public, would anyone invest in a company where the bottom could fall out? I think Etsy made a big mistake going in this direction and I hope there’s another viable handmade selling site to jump to when this all falls apart.
Ooops that should read Aliexpress not Albia.
I was thinking the same thing! Imagine that you were a typical buyer on Etsy (someone who doesn’t spend ever waking second there like us) and you purchased a pair of boot socks from 3 bird nest. Then after you’ve been wearing them for a while, bragging to all your friends about this great handmade find, you happen to find the same pair on Ali Express for a fraction of the price. How stupid you’d feel!
The odds are this happens with the volume of sales she has. Makes me wonder how often. Probably feels no shame.
Just a note to those who buy leather and fur stuff coming out of China and Korea…
The animals are skinned alive, to make cheap stuff for resellers to make a few bucks.
Thank you for this background information about this store. I figured her items were no longer handmade in USA. If you click on her Etsy store’s about page, it lists a dozen employees. So, it was obvious she is a business first and not a crafter. And that is okay. But, it is sad, to many of us, that Etsy is no longer exclusively about hand made. I enjoyed that aspect of that site greatly and will miss it. I won’t shop as much from Etsy for this reason. It just seems a lot like any other store now.
Etsy is still the place for handmade items. I have a shop on Etsy that could do much better if I put more time into it. I don’t really mind if a seller has gotten so big that they need help creating their items, but Etsy should not allow resellers and I don’t really think they do. But also, how are they supposed to know who is reselling and who isn’t? There are millions of shops on Etsy and probably that many popping up everyday. I can tell you for sure there are many stone sellers on Etsy who do not cut and polish their own rocks. I generally try to stay away from those. Most times, you can tell who is making their stuff and who isn’t. I’m just not sure how Etsy could police a thing like not making your own product. I’m sure there have long been sellers on Etsy reselling items.
Sounds like they flat out lied. About their exclusive prints, careful handcrafting, etc.
Why sugar-coat the truth?
‘Three Birds Nest has 95 of these American flag infinity scarves in stock for $38 a piece. “Thus (sic) is our exclusive own print and fabric!!” the listing states. They’re marked as a handmade item. On the right are what look to be very similar scarves on Alibaba for sale 100 units at a time.’
Thanks Abby for doing the research and telling the story. A part of me is annoyed that this is seen as a great Etsy Handmade story and part of me thinks well done to her for making a success of this business and several other businesses. I wonder how she would of done if she acknowledged that she does source stuff overseas and if she made sure that the people making it were well paid and worked in good conditions and used that as selling points.
My favorite bit of this is that many of their reviews feature four or five stars, but the text reads something “it’s different than pictured, but okay!” or “it fell apart when I put it on, but I’ll be careful.” I find it amazing that their customer accepts these issues blindly (probably because of the prices) but I’ve been really burned by customers asking for refunds after experiencing an issue much smaller like that. For a company that can afford to replace or refund, it seems crazy that most customers don’t ask for that. I find their high rating to be deceiving because the number is very high despite having very obvious issues with their inventory.
Me too can’t understand why some people can get away with unethical stuff unscathed.
Actually, it appears that they have enough bad 1 and 2-star reviews that would concern me as a buyer. Maybe I was wrong–maybe people don’t read reviews. From what I gather of my brief reading of reviews, probably the photography and photoshopping makes the products look far better than they are.
Good marketing though with the pretty model.
If there’s anything good and hopeful that can be gleaned from this for all of us Etsy sellers–take better pictures! Be creative and make your products look like they belong in a high-end catalog!!!
They pulled everything below 3 stars and a number of comments appear fake.
the low reviews are still there, not sure what you mean by this.
(altho why people give 4 or 5 stars and then talk about how the item fell apart the first time they wore it is beyond me)
The success story would be fine, just so long as it wasn’t on etsy – the apparent home of handmade. I find it disingenuous and actually downright lying of the company to keep the story going that handmade is what they are all about. It is dishonest to the customer and disloyal to their genuine handmade sellers. They made their name of the back of handmade and now have moved on. That is bad enough in itself, but the worst thing is that they don’t openly admit this. In fact they go out of their way to hide it. I mostly buy patterns on etsy and some supplies too. I do buy the odd bit of jewellery or art as well. I am certainly not sure that all the jewellery I ever bought is hand made. At the time of purchase I certainly did think so, as I was naïve enough to be trusting. Now I know better and am very careful. I choose to buy elsewhere if there is an alternative. I know some buyers use etsy to redirect you once you have made a purchase, to their own shop. I really am only interested in handmade. If I want an alternative, I will buy on the high street. Handmade can do without etsy, I know the people I admire either sell really well from their own shops exclusively and seem to do pretty well, or they have a combination of sales outlets.
Ebay isn’t for me as I don’t like the bidding format. Etsy now is basically ebay in terms of much of what’s for sale, just with upfront pricing. I would be okay with that had they been honest, but they have shown me their distain by treating their customers like idiots. That shows me that I owe them no loyalty whatsoever.
And the biggest shame on etsy has to be the way they mute people who speak out.
I’ve brought this issue up on Etsy several times and am always rebuffed with the idiotic statement that the sweatshop workers in China ARE actually handmaking items, albeit in a factory. SO infuriating! Ms. ThreeBirdShop’s story seems to be spreading.
Read some of the comments – priceless and sadly, true.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042352/how-one-knitter-makes-almost-1-million-a-year-on-etsy
I believe the owner of Etsy now is not the one who started Etsy years ago. So don’t be surprised that the direction has changed.
Whilst I don’t begrudge anyone their success (but do envy it!) the methods used here get me so mad. The terminology suggesting that she is a mum who sits at home knitting is so misleading – I knit at home for my Etsy shop and private commissions and there is no way I could amass that much profit even if I gave up sleeping! Commandeering Etsy and representing her products as hand made is unfair to the rest of us who struggle to make a living from our craft, and Etsy is just as much to blame. But what can you do? I noticed my sales dropped considerably after the changes on Etsy, and I don’t get as many visits to my shop as I used to by a long way – thank goodness I don’t rely on it completely, as most of my work is now privately commissioned, but I really feel for those for whom it is a major source of income who actually physically make what they sell and can’t compete with companies like this. I’m very pleased you took the time to research this, it is very enlightening – depressing but enlightening! Hopefully your article will get a very wide audience – it’s fine for someone’s business to be a huge success but do it honestly & ethically!
Dear Abby: As usual, your post is spot on. You have a way of getting precisely to the truth and you make us all think. That’s why I love following you. This brand is capitalizing on a false narrative, no doubt, but they are not alone. We fall for these narratives all the time and believe these ‘come from nothing’ and ‘built it on a whim’ stories all the time… or as consumers, some people don’t care about the story and just buy. For the rest of us on Etsy, it ruins what we set out to be a part of. Sadly, homemade is once again bypassed by capitialism. As for this narrative, I recommend Malcom Gladwell’s book “Outliers” where he dispels the ‘instant success’ narrative of so many people we know – Steve Jobs, the Beatles, etc. It is a great read and reminds us that success is rarely unplanned and genius is quite rare.
It appears Alicia enjoys embellishing more than her sourced goods; she also embellishes the truth.
Excellent post as always, Abby!
While I’m a writer not an Etsy seller, what I see here is the opportunity for sellers/makers to seek out Etsy alternatives and rely less on Etsy itself.
If people jump ship so to speak to other platforms it may not make a big dent in Etsy’s bottom line, but it will make waves nonetheless. I do shop on Etsy occasionally, but would love to see other platforms grow and support their championing of homemade. Does anyone know if any of them come from that specific standpoint?
I also see this as a call for people to think about where they’re going with their businesses, outside of relying on Etsy’s momentum/search functions. Kudos, Abby, for once again shedding light on something that needs to be looked at, in this case, Etsy’s current storyline and where it might be headed…
We etsy shop owners should come together and pick a day to close up shop and move on. It’ll be much more noticeable and newsworthy if we all bail at once.
As for alternatives, I have a shop on shophandmade.com, which is still for handmade items, and doesn’t charge their sellers fees (though they appreciate donations!)
There are others also. I’m probably going to set up an account with storenvy.
Here’s an article I found with alternatives.
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5287-etsy-alternatives-handmade-sites.html
I’m with you shannon – I think we should start a movement to all leave etsy on a particular day and move on. My etsy shop has been on ‘vacation’ for quite awhile now and I direct potential customers to my own web site (with shopping cart). I’ve directed my potential etsy shoppers to my web site for more than 2 years now.
This attempt has been made before, years ago during the Baligate scandal there (Google Baligate Etsy for an interesting read.) A good number of shops went into vacation mode (mine among them) for a single day in September 2012 over that one. It wasn’t enough to make an impact, even though a number of us who participated also ended up just leaving out of principle. That also didn’t make an impact, because as you can see Etsy toddles along just fine, and always has with any subsequent missteps (and there have been many) that have caused sellers to leave the site. There are simply too many others coming behind to replace us, who are either unaware of the history or don’t care about it because they’re just looking to make money.
True there are still many honest handmade artisans at Etsy because for now they’re basically the biggest game in town, but one is hard pressed these days to find many of them that were a part of Etsy from the beginning. I still have an account there to by my supplies in support of those supplies who also became dear friends along the way. When I look at my list of favorite shops, which once included so many true artisans in many genre, jewelry, painting, clothing, ceramics, etc., the blanks on that list I now see are staggering and very sad.
There are no other really strong competitors for Etsy, with the kind of traffic they draw. So if one wishes to continue to sell online, the best option is to don another hat, research, study and learn SEO and open a stand alone, also learning to effectively market and promote in order to drive your own traffic.
If one decides on giving another marketplace venue a shot, go out and do the legwork to seek out and read reviews first rather than believing what their mission statement says or the vision they’re trying to sell. Don’t just read one or two reviews, but as many as you have time for and take them in the aggregate when making your decision. Most times the vision of a marketplace site, won’t match up to reality their former, and sometimes current, users have to report, because as someone else mentioned, they’re all trying to position themselves as the next Etsy and following their lead in everything. But know that you’re still going to have to from now on *completely* drive your own traffic because none of these sites come even close to being the destination site Etsy maneuvered itself to become. And that’s fine if you go in accepting that is going to be the case going forward and have the wherewithal to actually do it.
thank you for sharing. i have been so frustrated this year. debating whether or not to sacrifice my “handmade ethic” to make more money. i have decided to continue being small. continue making each item myself. but i’ve suffered. tremendously. i can’t compete against resellers. and it’s disheartening to watch etsy embrace and promote them. the same ones…over and over. i wish i knew what steps to take next. i have a family of 6 to care for.
Great article. This lady definitely has a great head for business, if you leave out ethics. Gotta hand it to her. Pretending that her Etsy shop was to pay for her kids’ soccer lessons is a bit over the top, since I’m sure she’s banked quite a load already from the sale of her first successful company and the sale of her boutiques. She could purchase a professional soccer team to teach her kids. I think you are right, she’s leveraging Etsy and Etsy is leveraging her. I can’t think she’s the only one doing this. I’m afraid it will eventually be the end of Etsy. They should be doing all they can to protect their handmade culture — it’s the thing that brought them success. But money talks, I guess.
This article is so refreshing after reading so many others about this shop absolutely glorifying a falsehood. As an etsy shop owner who actually makes my own items in my home it’s so disheartening to be placed in the same category as a mass production shop like this. It sometimes makes me want to scream and or cry!
Thank you for shining some light of truth on this shop. I hope more buyers will get wise to the lies and search out for us true handcrafters.
Etsy does a GRAVE disservice to handmakers everywhere by not only allowing this, but encouraging it. Why? Profit, profit, profit. Everyone who struggles to understand the Etsy search algorithm and labors under the delusion that if only their photographs were just a little bit better, or they could really nail those key words, their business could flourish, needs to wake up and get real. Why are we giving away our power to that big, orange, behemoth?
“Everyone who struggles to understand the Etsy search algorithm and labors under the delusion that if only their photographs were just a little bit better, or they could really nail those key words, their business could flourish, needs to wake up and get real.”
Preach! If I have to read another “helpful” forum post about how to increase sales by understanding SEO or improving product photography, I’m going to scream. There is so much more to it than that, especially when shops like this are part of the Etsy marketplace.
I am not surprised at all by the discovery of this shop’s business practices. I had a shop on Etsy for 3 years, some of my items (headbands), were in competition with this shop. All of my items were completely handmade. It was very frustrating to be, in a sense, competing with a shop that claimed their items were handmade, when they clearly were not. To top off all my frustration, my shop was unexpectedly shutdown (they will give a shop absolutely no notice of being closed), I was literally on my shop posting items and the next, my shop was gone! From the cowardly email they sent, it seems I had used “zumba” as one of my keywords, and that is not allowed. Etsy does not provide a customer service phone number, again, a cowardly way out for them! I know I am not alone in the frustration of shop closure, but how is it justified to close a shop for a minor infraction, when a large shop like this one is allowed to continue with their unethical practices? Come on Etsy…..your ruining your site by allowing this to take place!!!
Under the laws of CA, where this fraudster operates, you have a SLAM DUNK unfair business practices lawsuit just waiting to be filed. EVERYONE who sells on etsy in competition with this “lady” needs to be looking for a good “17200” attorney in CA. False advertising is illegal in CA(and selling th epublic items identified as “home made” or “hand crafted” when they are nothing more than resells of cheep imports is illegal. The consequences is 100% disgorgement of all monies earned through the falsity and potentially double or triple damages.
Etsy takes in over a billion a year. By knowingly allowing this woman to use their site AND in taking a profit from it, etsy is also subject to this litigation (and they do NOT have protection under federal laws because they are not simply passively providing the site, they earn income from each sale she makes.
Just the threat of a 17200/17500 lawsuit should be enough to get etsy to shut her down. She can throw a hissy fit all she wants, but she is lying and unfairly competing with crafters WHO ARE hand making each and every item in their stores. If she wants to sell her garbage, she can move to eBay, she just cannot claim hand made anymore.
Elspeth,
Thank you. I wondered about the legalities of portraying something as handmade when it’s clearly imported. I remembered something about “truth in advertising.”
What a fantastic article. It neither vilifies her nor holds her up as a role model to be emulated, but it doesn’t put a sugar-coated spin on her shop, either. I have read other blog posts about Three Bird Nest, and the tone of (and the response from) the blog writer was definitely, “Do not question her, do not question me, she is a successful Etsy business person, and it’s not for us to question how she does it.” That is a disingenuous take on it, and it sets the stage for the “average” small-time Etsy shop owner to think, “What am I doing wrong? Why am I not making $96,000 out of my dining room every month?” Thank you for such an honest write-up of this situation.
Reading the story about Etsy’s Top Seller made me sick to my stomach. I understand that Etsy has allowed people to use manufacturers now to make their product so it really is not her fault but she is mis-representing her items as being handmade. I have two Etsy stores and I do quite well on Etsy with my products. I do not make my picture frames, cutting boards, etc. but I personalize every item and make it unique for my customers. There is a huge difference between having a factory make your items and then shipping them out just like that. I hope that she feels embarrassed at this being brought out to the public and will put something in her listings that tells people that this is manufactured in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.
True crafters are rare out there and Etsy has the perfect spot for us to shine and share our talent with the world. It has changed in the past few years and is more competitive we have to pay for advertising to get our products noticed. Sad that we have to compete with factories.
Apparently she does customize each product. She cuts out the tag that says “Made in India.” At least most of the time….
I am an Etsy seller selling handmade knit items, and I have been well aware of Three Bird Nest’s non-handmade items for a couple years now. The part that is frustrating to me is that a delicate lace headband that would take me hours to knit, not to mention the cost of the yarn, is being sold in their shop for $15. Handmade or not, it those prices I cannot compete with. I don’t mind competition but I think this really ruins other seller’s chances at sales.
That being said, I completely understand why Etsy now “allows” outside manufacturers and I don’t think this is a bad thing AT ALL. People were using outside manufacturers before that announcement was made, all Etsy was trying to do was make a better definition of what is allowed. And I think this is something that is really difficult to draw a line on. If you’re making a beaded necklace, are you making all the beads by hand? Most people are probably purchasing their beads from a bead or craft store, meaning an “outside manufacturer” made those beads. Now, if I were to design my own beads and hire a responsible, eco-friendly, fare trade factory to make them, I am definitely using an outside manufacturer if I do so – the only difference is I would have actually designed those beads and sourced them from a good place, which to me is a better picture of handmade than me buying cheap beads from a craft store that are most definitely produced in China or India. To me this is a much better choice, but it means that if Etsy did not allow outside manufacturers, I would not have that opportunity. Being able to disclose your practices and manufacturers on your Etsy about page and in your listings is a great thing, because it allows customers to learn these things. The problem is the policing of people like Three Bird Nest (and trust me, there are a lot of them, TBN is just one example) that take advantage of this, but I don’t know what the solution would be as they cannot run background checks on every seller and do random house visits to check up on them. Hopefully customers are responsible and smart enough to see through these cheap shops. Although with TBN’s sales volume it looks like that is not the case …
Years ago I closed my etsy shop because I felt that etsy had lost its way. I have successfully managed to create my own website, with my own branding etc to market my handmade work. Reading up on Three Birds Nest has left such a bad taste in my mouth, the same bad taste I had that prompted me to close my etsy shop years ago. She is clearly a liar, using the handmade movement to her advantage and lying to her customers and the public. Good business woman or not, she is not trustworthy because of what she is doing on Etsy. I hope that the news organizations that published her success story will follow up with another article about her lies. I hope they highlight some true handmade businesses instead and give them the attention they deserve. Thanks for bringing the bs about her shop to light.
The real problem with shops like Three Bird Nest is something you have touched on in previous posts. Many people view Etsy as an entity. They bought something on Etsy, instead of from xyz seller in Ohio.
What this translates to is that when people who purchase one of TBN’s “handmade” items realize they’ve been duped into paying a 400% markup for a made-in-china scarf, they become suspicious of every other seller on Etsy. This is what should infuriate people, and this is why Etsy needs to step up here and at least pretend to care about resellers.
Thank you for the background on this ‘handmade’ seller on Etsy. Her shop has been in many discussions held privately by sellers who actually make their own work and sell on Etsy. You described her best as a ‘serial entrepreneur,’ a very savvy business person indeed. Etsy is responsible for this type of seller or actually a reseller, of goods that just so happens to make a lot of money for Etsy. These types of high volume sellers often have individual, one on one help from Etsy staff for their shop.
What angers us the most is that this seller is selling under the guise of handmade when it is clear to anyone who actually does the research that she is simply purchasing and reselling as handmade by her and her ‘staff,’ which is clearly not the case. The handmade sellers are very tired of the resellers that stand on the backs of actual handmade and getting squashed in the process. Many handmade sellers have been made to document and prove that our work is actually handmade by us within 5 days or Etsy shuts down your shop. These handmade sellers are long time, dedicated sellers who work very hard at what they do and are proud of it.
Welcome to Etsy’s new and improved definition of ‘handmade.’
Well oh well, here it is all laid out in writing, what so many of us Etsy sellers have known and been disappointed by for several years now. I am so glad a light is being shined upon these practices, as I had my shop on “vacation” mode for a very long time and have just recently returned with very limited inventory. I used to be pretty prolific, stocking almost 300 separate handmade items at any given time. TRUE handmade items that are handmade by me from start to finish and which are the result of a very arduous and laborious process. What really infuriated me was finding counterfeiters knocking off my own handmade designs and selling them for (are you ready for this?!) about 98% of what I was charging. In several cases even my descriptions were copy/pasted. And they were very unique items, which contributed to the shock I felt and spoke volumes about the absolute audacity of the copycats: they were unabashedly copying and mass producing MY designs, and I wasn’t even a “famous” Etsy seller like Three Bird Nest, Yokoo, or The Black Apple or anything! It was so disgusting. Someone in China was selling one of my designs (that just so happened to be published in a trade magazine) for $14.00 and mine, made of SOLID fine silver (.999 silver) was priced at an incomparable $68. And the $68 was a sacrifice because I had lowered my prices the year before (despite a wildly rising silver market) in an effort to boost sales that had recently plummeted. Of course these knockoffs were reported, and of course Etsy did nothing to intervene. I don’t understand such blatant disregard for the “little guy” trying to do the right thing. It’s like a hyperbolic fable, except as of yet there has been no happy ending for the underdog and no tough lesson taught to or learned by the protagonist.
I just listened to your podcast #8, where you interview Vanessa. The contrast between what she says in the interview and the policies apparently being openly advocated by Etsy in allowing this shop to operate is striking.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-8-etsys-new-definition/id643885946?i=318983395&mt=2
One of the reasons I wanted to write this post was to reflect on where that change in policy has taken us.
Once again thank you Abby for posting a great article about what’s happening behind the scenes in our handmade world. While I don’t begrudge Alicia’s success, I am a bit disheartened with Etsy’s new direction. Alicia is working hard at PR, marketing, etc but it’s not easy to find out that she’s not sitting at her kitchen table working on these “handknit” items. It would be nice if Etsy had some way of listing where items were manufactured by percentage. So if the little knit boot cuff were made in China and only a button were sewn on in the USA, then it should say something like Country of Manufacture – 99% China, 1% USA. Or maybe the truly handmade items can have a different colored frame around the pictures so that you know the difference while searching?
In response to the person who said that they’ve had to decide whether to continue handmaking their items versus sourcing it overseas, I would say do both if you can. The other day I was looking for an easier way to knot/bury my threads on the longarm and found Spiral Needles. Apparently the inventor of this sells two versions on her website. The first version is the higher quality (higher priced) American made one. But she also sells the mass manufactured, lower quality and cheaper version that’s made in China. Doesn’t this seem like a win-win to you? Everything’s out in the open and the buyer is informed and can decide which product to make without being deceived.
When the articles about Three Bird Nest started appearing all over, I went and checked out the shop and it was immediately obvious to me that all the stuff was not getting made by them. Even though there are about 10 people on their team on the about page and maybe there are more makers, too, there are definitely not enough people to make all those items that seem to be flying off their shop, at a crazy rate.
True her marketing and photography and presentation is fantastic, and that seems to be a major part of the appeal, but the question really is why are people buying the stuff when it is so obviously not handmade? I do not live in the United States but feedback from a whole lot of her buyers shows that this kind of stuff is available in the big box stores over there for a fraction of the price, and people are openly disappointed by the quality and customer service on products. Many have even found the Made in China tags on their products which they bought from her shop!
This gives the sellers who are really putting in a lot of effort in making their products with their own hands a very short shrift. Both from the etsy customers and from etsy, too. I was asked to photograph and document my entire making process by etsy in order to prove that my stuff was really hand made by me!!
Thank you so much for this very very good article. I looked at this shop for an essay I wrote for uni two years ago and from that moment I knew that the best thing for a business is having a good team + help with products. The mistakes most crafty businesses do is being a one woman operation. When I had my Asoratti Etsy shop, I did everything myself from products, photography, website design and shipping. At some point I went for a professional photographer and models, but I was still doing so much on my own. I was passionate about it obviously, but I was always drained and exhausted afterwards. I think the uniqueness of the product is also crucial. I was doing knits and everyone did them. I tried to style them up, but at the end of the day it was too hard to compete with low prices, huge volumes and a big marketing budget. Three Bird Nest is a great business model, not very ethical though. It will be great if Etsy take another look at their manufacturing rules and regulate them some more. I think the thing that gets us crafters is how vague everything is. They need to be clear where things are made, like the percentage idea above is actually good. Crafters and buyers need to know these details. Honesty should be on the top of the list for Etsy, otherwise they will just be a more expensive Ebay.
It depends what you are looking for with regards to having a business. Some of want to keep things small while doing everything ourselves. It is seriously not possible for me to have a large income doing what I do, as I can make one small item every day or every 2-3 or even 4 days. That is working flat out, and then the value is not so much for all my work. Admittedly it’s a poor business model but at this stage it is what I want to do, I might diversify later. Many crafters though, are able to make a living as they have a better time and production ratio and their items a good perceived value. Jewellery is a case in point.
Some people want to expand and start employing people, outsourcing some of the work to enable them to grow their profit. Both can be done while having a handmade business. To me manufacturing is not handmade (and yes I know there is plenty of grey, although the dictionary is very clear about it!) The issue here is that this is obviously not a business that sells handmade, you can see that because unless she has a very large staff indeed working for her, hand-making those items, all of which would be labour intensive, the numbers of sales are simply impossible to be handmade laboriously. I don’t think not wanting to expand or employ people is a mistake, it’s a valid choice and it used to be one endorsed by etsy. If you want a normal manufactured business, then have one but don’t pretend it is other than that, sadly those are what are now suffocating the unique etsy shops.
Seriously as a buyer, if I want branding, life-style and overt styling then I don’t look on etsy, it is all around me and it makes me want to scream sometimes. I tend not to like it much and I don’t want that from etsy, so I look for the individual seller there. It’s become harder for me to find. Etsy has joined main-stream selling. Not a big deal for some, but a huge issue for others because the level playing field for the seller has got very bumpy and the choice for the buyer much reduced despite the ever increasing number of shops.
Handmade was fun, but I don’t think it will be around in such a big way as we began to take for granted for much longer. Sad. It must be said however, that for some handmade was the starting point, the means to an end. The end being manufacturing and big profits.
I just feel very disheartened reading this. I crochet all my items myself that I sell. I have perfect reviews. I pay to promote my items and literally have 4 views on my page. Now in the fall sales do pick up there’s no denying it, but in the off season sales have dropped drastically. I spend 4-5 hours on some hats and charge $15 plus shipping for them. I raised the price and they didn’t sell so I put it back. I am not begrudging her success she clearly is a business minded individual who is very successful, but her items are not handmade. I would feel guilty if I marketed a product I didn’t make like this. I tried to teach my mom how to make one piece of my hats but it wasnt exactly how I do it so I decided just to make them myself. Had she helped me I would have put that the features on this hat wrte made by my mom or employee or something. Anyways thanks for the article. Oh and I bought a scarf just like that one off a resell site for $8 shipped.
Many thanks for the insightful background on Ms. Shaffer’s entrepreneurial adventures. I’ve watched her Etsy shop for years with disbelief – disbelief that Etsy could even in the farthest stretches of imagination consider her wares to be handmade, and, disbelief and a fair amount of envy at her extraordinary business sense. I only wish.
It’s unfortunate that much of Ms. Shaffer’s success comes at the cost of squeezing out the less savvy true handcrafters. Sadly Etsy has transformed from a handcraft site for small businesses to a business site with a slant on a handcrafted look.
Abby, I also wanted to add to my previous comment. I posted a link to this article in a thread on the Etsy forum where they were discussing Three Bird Nest. As you can see, Etsy removed my post with the link. So much for freedom of speech. https://www.etsy.com/teams/21913/chitchat/discuss/15968746/page/3
Umm I was wondering when this would come to Etsy. I have done craft shows for 37 years. Yeah I’m old. I was escorted out of a very large show in Heber City Utah called “Swiss Days”. I had participated in that show for 25 years. There were several people complaining about all of the imported products selling there, as their contract states “Must be handmade or hand embellished” Well one lady yelled at the volunteer’s wife and he came after me. I complained about the Chinese made Minky Quilts coming right out of the box stamped made in China. He told me she designed that SQUARE. Really I didn’t know you could design a SQUARE. Needless to say I will never participate in Swiss Days again. So my point is that this has been going on for the last 10 years. I hate that people are running on the coat tails of handmade. You want to sell your products tell it like it is. I designed this but I have China make it for me and please be honest. There is no INTEGRITY LEFT! THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE ! They are all smiling as they run to the bank. I have not sold on line as I have the fear of China copying my products. I was going to sell on Etsy but I will not especially if they are going to support people like Three Birds, it makes me sick! I have seen those peek a boo socks at shows and people are lined up to buy them. Yuk! Am I jealous umm maybe but at least I can sleep at night! Shame on those who continue to do this!!!! Just be honest people if you are so proud of your business be honest! It is all about the money!
What a scam artist. All my quilts, signs and other items are handmade by me. I think Etsy made a huge mistake letting these manufacturers in. It seems it’s now about the almighty dollar. When I started selling on Etsy 5 years ago, nothing but the best handmade could be sold and vintage.
Thank you for this article. It’s an important topic for anyone currently (or considering) selling and/or buying on Etsy.
It’s also important, for me, to note: Etsy is only a platform. What a seller may chose to do, in his/her section of the platform, is his/her legal responsibility.
In this digital world of instant gratification, we occasionally forget we have laws protecting consumers against deceptive selling and advertising techniques. While Etsy has opened the door to allow (approved shop owners) the ability to hire and oversee outside manufactures, it’s up to the individual sellers to follow local, state, federal and international manufacturing, copyright, trademark & advertising laws.
According to various laws within the U.S. and individual states, it could be a crime, of description and fraud, to misrepresent your product. In the U.S., we have state and federal laws prohibiting deceptive and false advertising. IE – In some areas, if your company did not produce, manufacture, or directly oversee the outside manufacturing process of the final product, you should not advertise that your company was involved in the production and/or manufacturing of the final product.
For example: Let’s pretend a store owner purchases preprinted (uncommissioned) shirts from a commercial wholesaler; unaffiliated with their store. Beyond adding the brand shirt tag, on the inside collar, the store owner does not alter the wholesale shirts. If the store owner advertises the unaltered, ready-to-go, commercially produced, unaffiliated wholesale shirt as their own handmade product on Etsy – he/she might not only violate Etsy’s guidelines, but also local, state, federal or international laws.
It might be tempting to walk a fine line and push the boundaries of Etsy’s policies and guidelines. But: As you walk that fine line, you might cross over the legal median barrier.
If a consumer believes he/she was deceived by any business (on any platform), the Attorney General’s Office in your state (or the state where the business is located) and the FTC provide helpful tools to file a complaint.
Of course: this was just a general topic discussion — not directed at any specific store. None of this was intended for legal advice. It’s always best to consult with an attorney before starting a business and/or issuing a complaint against a business. But, it’s important for Etsy store owners to remember: Selling online is more than the platform’s guidelines and policies. Consumers are protected against anything you produce and advertise.
I’m going to okay devil’s advocate here, but first off, the model (Alexa) is not Alicia’s sister. She is an employee and friend. Second – wholesale sites like Ali Express and Alibaba troll sites like Etsy and recreate. They do it to big and small companies alike. I used to run a small store, and worked with several manufacturers within those two wholesale sites, and I remember a particular email conversation with an Alibaba shop owner – I was trying to describe something I was hoping he could create and he asked me if I could send an example. He specifically asked me to send links to etsy shops and he would recreate their products in bulk. (I didn’t)
I’m sure Alicia gets many things from wholesale sites, but it’s unfair to assume that she just gets everything from there and claims they’re handmade. When it comes down to it she is playing by etsy’s rules.
I can’t say for sure, but Alicia did indicate on her Facebook page that the model is her sister, although now I’m questioning whether that’s true. Here is Alexa Jean Gill’s Facebook page where she lists her family members. She lists a sister, but it isn’t Alicia: https://www.facebook.com/alexa.gill/about?section=relationship
The model is Alexa Jean Gill: http://www.modelmayhem.com/1629127
The photographer is Jennifer Skog, who also did the photography for Alicia’s shop, Prim: http://www.skogasinvogue.com/index.cfm?catID=36&StartRow=6
Alicia Shaffer seems to be listed as a sister now!
Yes, I posted on the Three Bird Nest Facebook page showing they although Alexa had listed other siblings, Alicia was not one of them. Hours later they’d deleted my post and added one another as sisters on Facebook, although if you look at Alexa’s parents’ pages you’ll see that Alicia is not listed as their child.
Shady!
That’s a lot of nerve. Think about the numbers. Also, I sell on amazon and this winter I was trying to get a particular article and the wholesaler told me that threebirdnest had purchased them all. So… don’t give me that kind of crap.
I hope you don’t all leave Etsy. It’s been a good platform for me on which to build my handmade business the last five years. I could never have grown the way I have without them bringing the traffic to me. Also, the handmade sellers still need you.
I do recognize that I am perilously reliant on my Etsy shop, so I’m currently building a better stand-alone site. But I think it is all what you make of it for yourself. There is no personal touch like the one you can make, and no transaction that can’t be strengthened by personal interaction. Some handmade sellers aren’t very skilled at their craft (nobody says it – but it’s true). Some are skilled with their hands but don’t know how to talk to a customer. These situations happen every day, independently of the goings-on of resellers. My point being that if we continue to develop our craft and elevate our service, the twisted hype that sometimes explodes in the media is not going to affect our lives or our businesses. It’s up to us.
First, I have to admit that I love Tamara’s stuff on Etsy! I am a proud owner of a few mugs and ALOT of magnets (for my daughter’s fridge art).
I agree with what you are saying Tamara, as Etsy is a platform to sell your item(s). It is also true that you will get out of Etsy the work and effort that you put in (through self promotion etc).
However, shops like this do crowd the search engines that Etsy uses when the random Etsy buyer goes to purchase something on Etsy. So, say they are looking for a scarf. They will probably see all of the scarves from this shop as well as other re-sellers before they actually see an item form an Etsy seller who works hard and does make their item handmade.
I also question the fact that this seller is actually listing their items under the ‘handmade’ category, where it clearly doesn’t belong. It is just questionable for a seller to have an item on their shop and then be able to go to Alibaba.com and find their shop photo advertising a bulk order/shipment of the same product. I highly doubt that if this was their true handmade design that the owner of this shop would be OK with a wholesaler from Alibaba.com using their photo to advertise. I would also think that they would have the money and the legal connections to ensure that this stopped immediately.
I certainly don’t mind sharing Etsy with these other folks, because Etsy has been a great tool to sell my items on as well. However, their items that are clearly not handmade should not be listed in the “handmade” category on Etsy AND they should not have item descriptions that include handmade etc. It should clearly state that the item is from China….. I do believe that it is a Federal Law that all clothing items must be labeled with the country of origin, and if she is removing tags and replacing them with hers….that is possibly a violation of that law. If it wasn’t the law, you would have all kinds of companies labeling their products with just their manufacturing labels etc.
Depending on the future of how Etsy plays this one will probably determine whether or not alot of handmade sellers stay with them. In fact, if something better happens to come along (or be found) I could potentially see alot of Etsy folks leaving due to these policy changes. I would honestly hope that Etsy considers this, because while they are making money off of this seller, they are also making money off of the millions of other sellers too….and I would venture to guess that a 20% – 30% drop in those other sellers would still affect their bottom line.
@LivyLynn
Thank you for the shout-out! It means a lot coming from another Etsy seller with a professional presence that I admire. Plus, I agree with everything else you said.
I admire you. What you just said is so true. Thank you.
I agree with you, Tamara. For a genuine handcrafter who has mastered her/his craft well AND knows how to market their items in an attractive way, ETSY still provides a good platform.
The success of ThreeBirdsNest tells me that there are different groups of people buying from ETSY, and that a significant portion are NOT the stereotypical discerning consumer of handcrafted goods. There is obviously a large portion of the “everyday” kind of shopper who likes the search functionality of ETSY to find inexpensive, trendy clothing and/or accessories. ETSY is also the “go to” shopping place for many brides-to-be, and not all of those brides are interested in handcrafted items. They just want to see a large variety of pretty items, and ETSY really delivers in this area. Ok, so now we know. ETSY attracts a wide variety of consumers.
Search for the successful shops selling genuine handmade, and notice what they are doing to promote their goods. And learn from the “Alibaba” shops as well. If any shop has the NUMBERS, what is it doing to get those numbers? ETSY has made it easy for us to determine how well a shop has done. SALES figures. Date Shop Opened. It is all there for us to use and learn, so use it well, I say!
My husband sent me the story (not this one) about this woman today. I was inspired and a bit awe-struck, as I used to sell my embroidery and applique on Etsy. After reading this, I am far less inspired and far more feeling duped.
Good luck to this savvy business woman. She’s got a good gig going for herself.
What a fabulously researched and written article! Sadly, this is the future of Etsy.
Hi, is not even sourced in India. her products come directly from China and the fashion wholesalers from who she gets the products from are now using her etsy pictures to feature the articles that she sells. ‘nough said.
I am in awe of what this lady has achieved which in the end could be her fall. The irony of this whole etsy thing might be that money talks although not everything that appears to have originated in other countries may be that country’s original design. What if they copied from an US designer? I have seen several US designs (patterns and goods) that have been copied by Asian companies and sold as theirs.
Here’s a link to the import records showing Three Bird Nest importing a 3,597 lb. container of hats, scarves, and leg warmers directly from China: https://www.importgenius.com/importers/three-bird-nest-brand-warehouse
So, here is the question. Why has nobody reported her to the FTC for not having her items labeled? It is clearly a violation of this law right?
The basic problem here is that of terminology. Every article that discusses the “success” of this business built on lies considers dollars the measure of success. But dollars are not the only, or the best, measure of success. Integrity is of much greater value than dollars. I wouldn’t trade places with her because I care far more about integrity than I do about money.
Etsy built its business on the backs of hand makers and now they’re selling the story that was written by those people in a new context–that of the exploitation of workers by big corporations. This is the very opposite of the ethic of many of the makers who helped build the Etsy brand. It’s unforgivable.
Hey Abby,
Thank you for your incredibly detailed article. It helped me better understand what is going on. I have often thought that Etsy is over-saturated. And with this latest change, I feel it has lost a lot of what made it unique. My question is: if this is the new face (future) for Etsy, where does that leave smaller crafters? Do you see genuine handmade artisans going elsewhere? And is there a better website for those of us just getting started?
I really don’t think I have a great answer for you, Amanda. There are certainly other handmade marketplaces, but they don’t have the traffic that Etsy has. There are also curated online and brick-and-mortar shops that sell handmade items. I sell my samples at Craftland in Providence, RI, for example. Those are terrific and everything is truly artisan made. I also think it’s easy now to set up a stand-along shop and website with Instagram and Pinterest as marketing tools. It’s hard work, but it’s possible to build your own following, too.
I have been researching a lot of options but sadly they just do not have the reach of etsy as yet. Stand alone shop + networking + social media is the way to go but even that will require quite a bit of work and resources, don’t you think?
Absolutely. If you want traffic without doing much, Etsy is the best site for sure. If you’re really serious about building an online business, though, you have to put in the work and resources to create that stand alone shop and do what it takes to build your own following and drive your own traffic.
This makes me really sad…I had high hopes for Etsy, but this is how things go apparently…
Thank you for having the courage to so thoughtfully speak up. While it is sad to me what has occurred to ETSY , it seems to be the corporate way. However Abby, have you considered starting a new site, modeled after Etsy that truly is only for selling hand made? The time for that is now!
No thank you! Creating an ecommerce marketplace for handmade is definitely not a task I’d like to take on.
I can certainly understand why you would not want to take on building an ecommerce marketplace! What deep and thoughtful responses this article is creating. Thank you!
My husband has a shop on Etsy under the name Fountainhead Woods. Every wood article listed is completely made by him, from shopping for the wood to the final article. He spends hours on his work. He loves doing it, but we are also trying to supplement our retirement income. It is very discouraging to us to see the amount of sales this person has on her site. She is blatantly reselling items and posting them as handmade. I realize that Etsy changed their rules, but in doing so this site has lost my respect. Maybe Etsy should consider a different site that only allows handmade items. I am sure there are several people who depend on income from their shops.
Thank you for this article. I enjoy your blogs and your weekly articles.
This switch to filing an application if you used a manufacturer for PART of your process was suppose to create more transparency in the Etsy marketplace. It doesn’t seem to have done the job. Now, if Alicia had come up with her own unique designs and had a manufacturer produce them for her and this product required additional fabrication by her and her friends to complete, that would be fine. It wasn’t well thought out and who is to judge what constitutes how much additional handwork is needed to be allowed on Ftsy. Some things on Etsy are sold as supplies and those don’t have to be handmade. Even though fabric can be resold as a supple, if I sold my Spoonflower printed fabric there I would have to file an application. I can sell fabric by another designer as supplies without the approved application.
If this is too off topic feel free to delete it.
There is always someone who has to stretch the rules as far as they can. It is discouraging to those who try to go by the rules. People have their own interpretation of everything.
While I agree with some of your points Kathy, I have to say that I disagree with her actually stretching the rules. This is honestly a blatant disregard for them on her part and on Etsy’s part.
It clearly states in the sellers handbook that while you can now sell items online that are imported, you are supposed to tell people in your listing that a certain part is imported (which is not stated in any of her listings). It also still states in the sellers guide that if you are listing your item as handmade and you are not making all of it, you need to clearly state which part is made by you and which is not. this is not done in any of her listings either.
So, the disregard by her for the rules and Etsy for not making her follow the rules (even after she has been reported by countless other Etsy sellers) is really ridiculous.
I have had personal contact with a few folks who I know locally who received her merchandise and were VERY displeased. First, because the quality is terrible, second, because it is clearly imported crap and not labeled with a country of origin, third because their complaints were ignored by both the shop and Etsy alike.
Now, if she was listing her item correctly and stating that the main item is imported from her supplier in China, this would be a totally different story. However, I get the feeling that if she actually shared this information with people who were shopping with her, they might decide not to pay the crazy prices she is charging etc….. She is basically charging handmade prices for items that you can buy at many retail stores around the country for 1/4 of the price…..and I doubt that the folks who buy from her would be ok with it if they actually knew.
I also still go back to the fact that she is ripping out country of origin labels in items and replacing them with her own label. I am serious about this possibly being illegal based on Federal labeling laws.
I think I have a new Etsy product tag – truly handmade. Perhaps that should be the distinguishing mark for those on Etsy that actually make their items by hand. Not that Three Bird Nest would not use it; seems they are quite willing to do whatever it takes to put more money in the bank, because in the end that is clearly what it’s all about for them. And sadly, Etsy now looks the other direction because they are reaping the same monetary and media benefit from large income producers like this. And so the story goes…so what are we to do?
I have owned an Etsy shop for 3 years now, with sales that have fluctuated over time. And like others I have to honestly say that there is no way I could ever make the products I create (pet products) and sell in large quantities unless they were manufactured by others. And by “others” I mean most likely a “made in China” label. I have made the decision, at this point in time, to keep my shop as it is because I don’t want to go that route. Besides, cutting out those labels is really hard work!
I have a perfect 5-star rating on Etsy, and take great pride, and satisfaction, in working directly with my customers to create their handmade products. In the past year I have created my own stand alone website, and am starting to generate some sales directly through that. And I know that with more efforts in marketing I could also find other revenue sources. Also, I always have the opportunity to develop patterns for my products and try my hand at digital sales. My point being that, though unfair, it looks like the policy changes Etsy has made are here to stay. Which simply means that true creators of handmade goods will have to continue to develop other ways of marketing their goods outside of Etsy.
Three birds nests takes advantage of people and lies about the products. Its despicable.
Artist and crafters on Etsy working hard to hand make their items trying to compete with this “entrepreneur” who supposed to be so amazing!
if you go look at the feed back comments that are made about her items and her customer service people are saying how stuff doesn’t fit it’s not made right and that she sends broken items .. there was even a comment about her American flag scarf which was made in China.
The woman has no integrity and execute so there they have no integrity either.
Abby, thank you so much for working on this piece and bringing it to our attention! I’ve only ever shopped on Etsy. It seemed like a genius idea for many small creative businesses, and available at a time when the only other easy ecommerce option was Ebay. This change in business model has so many implications.
I’m old enough to remember when Amazon first went live… this fascinating shop to buy rare books, started by a guy who used to sell them out of the back of his truck. It was very romantic! However, it was never a secret about where Amazon was going, and that it would go public.
If, as the Fast Company article says, 65% of Etsy shop owners make less than $100 a month I can’t imagine how that works out to a sustainable long-term business model for Etsy itself, especially in the fast-changing world of ecommerce. It makes sense that Etsy would court larger manufacturing businesses but they really need to shift their narrative. Ethically, it would be the responsible thing to do. It might also be financially wise. The more concerns like this are raised, the more trust in Etsy erodes—from both customers and small businesses.
Thanks for an excellent piece that’s well-researched and thorough. I ran into this shop on Etsy a while ago and I naively wondered how one person could possibly be making all this stuff by hand. It’s sad that the story of a very savvy female entrepreneur isn’t newsworthy – and it’s also sad and shameful that the mainstream journalists who are reporting on the fictional narrative aren’t doing a little more research themselves. Clearly there are many people who value truly “handmade,” and I suppose that if a shop like this provides the revenue a site like Etsy needs to keep going, there could be some benefit to other sellers – as long items are clearly identified. Otherwise, as another commenter pointed out, there’s a risk of undermining buyers’ confidence in the site as a whole.
This is my first time reading this blog. Came across it in all of the hubbub over this shop. So many comments, but I only read half of them to this point (congrats to Abby on such a great following.) I used to sell on Etsy but left during the protest when the featured seller who was supposedly making home furnishings and decor from repurposed boat wood was unmasked as importing her goods, already fully constructed, from overseas.
(Google Baligate and Etsy for the details. Regretsy had copies of the bills of lading, but unfortunately the site is completely gone.)
One thing I noted, Abby is this:
“It seems Alicia has disclosed the factories she works with to Etsy, although it would be difficult for the general public to fully understand this from the language in the listings.”
There’s long been misunderstanding among many people, Etsy sellers included, about this policy that was announced in the October 2013 Town Hall meeting.
It’s always been my understanding of the whole ‘manufacturing partner’ allowance that, in order to be approved, the seller has to submit an application to Etsy disclosing this status, must show that they completely design the product (what Etsy refers to as ‘authorship’) AND it had to be mentioned in their shops. I’m not entirely clear on whether the seller is also required to disclose the name(s) of their manufacturing partner(s) or not on their About pages, but it does have to be made known. There is nothing I can locate in this shop even approximating this status.
She also doesn’t claim to be designing these items herself and having someone else manufacture them that I have seen. Instead, in interviews that I’ve seen she has said she imports the items, and she along with her team, who are listed as shop members (ala a cooperative) embellishes them. This all meets Etsy’s requirement to be handmade legal, even as little as adding buttons and/or lace, as there is no line drawn as to how substantial embellishments/alterations must be (the proverbial Etsy charm on a chain example.)
So the issue here is (and please do correct me if I’m wrong), according to her own words in interviews, she doesn’t fall into the first category (designing product and having it manufactured), but rather falls into the second. However, if this is the case, she is definitely not being upfront with shoppers, as she doesn’t mention even this much in her shop anywhere, and actually uses clever phrasing to lead them to believe that the items are either designed by her or that she is making them entirely from scratch.
In other words, she’s exploiting the huge Etsy handmade loophole, making her ‘handmade legal’ in their view and according to their TOU, but she’s demurring and obfuscating with customers, many of whom can’t discern the difference, on how her items are actually created. I definitely don’t begrudge her success; given her history, she’s obviously a savvy business woman. However, I believe there are first and foremost ethical issues with how she presents her shop and products; and second, she’s got the following, foundation, and marketing machine that she doesn’t need to be taking advantage of the Etsy loophole and in the process disadvantaging the actual handmakers who rely on the site for their much smaller incomes. That second part is just being greedy.
You put it so well. All I can say is yes.
Yes, I think that’s the whole point. Nobody is grudging her her success. She is obviously savvy. And she obviously has the wherewithal to put up a online shop and market it brilliantly. But the fact that she is piggybacking on the handmade bandwagon via etsy is what gets one’s goat, especially when she is doing it at the expense of the truly handmade stuff, made by people who bank on etsy to supplement their incomes.
I think banking on Etsy, or any third party platform, is a mistake. Etsy can supplement your online business, but it shouldn’t be banked on just like you shouldn’t bank on Facebook as a way to communicate with your customers.
This is so true. If you hang out on the Etsy forums they are rife with posts like “I used to make $XXX on Etsy and now I can’t feed my kids.”
Then the next topic will be “I don’t want to put any work into a website, what type of website should I get?”
To be fair, a lot of us are wearing too many hats trying to run our shops. Adding in the actual creation and running of a website is something I know I’ve put off for too long because I didn’t have time for that learning curve. I’m working on it now, but I also understand why people make those posts.
I can’t understand how this is allowed to continue. I’m all for free enterprise, but this is blatant deception. It matters little if Etsy have “redefined handmade” – you cannot simply change the definition of a commonly used word because it suits you! People are being mislead and paying top dollar for sweatshop produced items being marketed as something they are not. Factory manufactured goods are not handmade. To say otherwise is lying. It is that simple.
This is a fraudulent business practice. These vendors should not be allowed to continue making enormous profits by cheating their customers and Etsy has no more right to market themselves as a handmade site than ebay or alibaba (where quite a lot of the items for sale on Etsy appear to originate).
I want to cry when I see so many customers asking:
“Where is my product? I ordered weeks (or months ago). ”
If a business states “we strive to ship the same day of purchase”, it must notify the customer immediately if it won’t ship that day. If items are on backorder, the backorder notice must be clearly listed on each item listing and noted upon checkout.
If a business misses the deadline, it must immediately notify the customer with an explanation, a new ship date and the option for the buyer to cancel with a FULL refund. No questions asked.
Even if the shipping issue is with the fulfillment house or drop shipper, the seller is legally responsible.
Failure to notify of shipment delays and the option for a full refund, violates FTC rules. It can be HUGE fines for each offense.
Oh! On general topic of the FTC and shipping:
If a merchant preprints a USPS shipping label on the day promised – hoping to skirt FTC rules and ships later than promised (later than the date on the shipping notice) and failed to notify the customer (per FTC rules) …. Not only can the customer report the store to the FTC, but the USPS also has authority.
Per FTC website:
Why You Should Comply With The Rule
Merchants who violate the Rule can be sued by the FTC for injunctive relief, monetary civil penalties of up to $16,000 per violation (any time during the five years preceding the filing of the complaint), and consumer redress (any time during the three years preceding the filing of the complaint). When the mails are involved, the Postal Service also has authority to take action for problems such as non-delivery. State law enforcement agencies can take action for violating state consumer protection laws.
Good to know because I was never notified about ANYTHING with my products, in fact I paid 170 and never saw a thing. It’s been two months and I am so frustrated. I am a teacher and that is a lot of money to me for a company to just take. Who can I contact?
Heather, if you ordered through her Etsy shop, start here: https://www.etsy.com/help/article/35
If you ordered through her main website, you will have to call your credit card processor and report fraud.
It’s businesses like this that are killing real handmade shops on Etsy. But, clearly, she is quite the business woman, and I commend her for it!
It’s just too bad that there are so many real artists out there, struggling to make it work, competing with this! Thank you for covering it!
For those wondering about removing/replacing labels, this is from the FTC’s textile requirements doc:
An importer, distributor, or retailer may want to replace the original label on a textile product with a label showing its company or RN. This is legal as long as the new label lists the name or RN of the person or company making the change.
Note: If you remove a label that has required information, the label you substitute also must have the required information. Otherwise, you’re violating the Textile Act.
SPECIAL CAUTION TO RETAILERS:
Under the Textile Act, it is illegal for retailers to remove labels with required information from the garments they offer for sale without replacing them. If a retailer removes any label with required information, it must substitute another label with its own name or RN and the other required information that appeared on the original label. In addition, if you substitute a label, you are required to keep records for three years that show the information on the removed label and the company from which the product was received.
http://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/threading-your-way-through-labeling-requirements-under-textile
Thank you for writing this. I was so suspicious when all these stories were coming out about Three Bird Nest that I started Googling and luckily found your article. Your reporting is better than all these “respected” news outlets. Here’s another one http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-seller-on-etsy-alicia-shaffer-2015-2
It’s great she’s successful if only she could also be truthful that would be a better story.
Imagine is Alicia Shaffer were to launch a month-long blog series on the Three Bird Nest blog explaining and showing in detail how she and her team in Livermore make each product. If you are a handmade business you can do that. Have the professional photographer take some great photos and show the process of embellishing the leg warmers with lace. Show us how they come when you get them from China, and then show us what you do to alter them and transform them into a handmade object. That would incredible. Defensive, but incredible. Not going to happen, though.
And yet, this is exactly what Etsy asks many of us to do – show the work.
I had read the original article & it made me angry from the start. Not only I don’t consider what she sells as “handmade” (or at least not by her), but I do think that she’s making money on the back of the persons who actually made these items, for practically nothing. (I suppose) She’s not a maker, she’s only a business woman, her pleasure & goal are not making things, it’s making money !
This is one of the reasons why I left Etsy some years ago. Etsy & this woman profit from each other’s publicity.
Ethics are clearly none of both their principles.
Thanks for your thought provoking & documented article. It shall appeal to all *real* makers.
I have to say that I’m both a maker and a business woman and I love both sides of the equation. I’m not ashamed to say that one of my goals is making money. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in business.
I went back this morning and took a look at her recent reviews. While some customers are quite happy with their purchases, many have reported receiving the wrong product, a product that does not look like the listing photo, and many complaints about not receiving orders in a timely manner.
The worst part is the lack of communication when a customer shares a concern about the order in question. Either no response, a reassurance that the product was shipped (but no tracking to prove it), or at best a small credit toward a future purchase. No returns, no refunds – even if you didn’t get the right product or received it broken.
She may just be taking care of our problem herself.
LIke so many others have said, I’m totally impressed with her business skills and that she has been able to make such successful businesses in the past. But misrepresenting the handmade is wrong on so many levels, but especially to the real crafters and makers of handmade and especially the stay at home moms that really are just trying to make money for their kids soccer practice by actually spending their time Making something by hand. I don’t understand how she can sleep at night knowing how misrepresentative her shop is. And shame on etsy, too for allowing this!
We were looking for a Christmas present for our niece and found a very pretty ipod case that I loved. Until I realized there was no way that someone could source the leather and make, by hand, so many identical ipod cases for the extremely low price that it was! Even though it was pretty and a great deal, we passed it up, because it wasn’t handmade like things on etsy should be.
I think your experience on Etsy is an increasingly common one. Unless you’re a very savvy buyer it has become difficult to understand how what your buying was really produced. The line is very blurred.
Wow. I had no idea. I haven’t been to Etsy for a very long time, at least a couple of years. At that time, I was disappointed – hugely overpriced vintage sewing patterns & vintage sewing machines (definitely NOT handmade items) and badly done and tacky items by the thousands made it frustrating to find well-done items I was looking for.
After reading this, I think I can safely say Etsy is totally off my list. It’s just way too easy for sellers like TBN to slap on a button or bit of lace onto an imported item, call it hand made, and charge 2-3 times what the same item is sold for on other sites. And I don’t have the time or knowledge on some of the products to try and decipher who’s really doing hand made. Now to go back and read comments to look for sites with truly hand-made by seller items.
I knew your piece was going t be good when it hit my inbox. Which is why I waited to read it (wanyed no distractions). I have bought off of ETSY for alot of years .Even set up shop but it got hard to find focal beads for my bracelets. So I stopped trying and just shopped instead. 🙂 I realized the one and only time I bought beads from China (a good few years ago) to be careful and always check where the seller is located. Also I noticed not only toss pillows but when scarves became big again the American flag ones I figured had to be mass produced.I don’t know the ins and outs of buying fabrics from the manufacture but when you cannot find it online to purchase anywhere , a person starts to wonder. I have loved most everything bought off ETSY with only one or two not so much. Many sellers I have emailed back and forth with and these emails show nice accommedating people, with no hesitation to answer many questions in multiple emails. I have even had two itens of jewelry replaced because of not soldered enough and one blmished. Was not asked to return these items at all. I am glad they trust me in those instances as I trust . I am sorry that ETSY has gone big businees ,yes I understand that is what they are. Hoped it would stay uncorrupted, not to have to check so much before I buy. I thought it was for artists and crafters with some resell vintage was okay. I never expected deceit and millionaires.
I am not business oriented but I love reading your thoughts and insights on businesses .
Abby love your blog and patterns and softies.
Kind Regards
Lisa
I’m just sad,you know? I started my company on Etsy, and will forever be grateful for their role in our initial success, but now I have a new company in the works (serial entrepreneur here, too) and am feeling rather unsure about the Etsy route. Yes, 100% handmade products, small batches over here. I’m afraid I’ll be downed out by shops like this. I’m glad she is successful but I feel like the nerdy art student up against the cool cheerleader, whereas in the past, Etsy felt more like a level playing field. Oh sigh. I sure hope some savvy person will come up with whatever is next for us handmade kids.
Hi!
Did you see this?
https://www.yahoo.com/makers/diy-or-fake-diy-etsys-biggest-seller-takes-on-113971619180.html
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sona
I did. Alicia is so good at spin!
in my opinion. She would be a “perfect match for Etsy” if she cared enough about her customer experience. Just counting her 1 star feedback from April 7th 2015 back to January 1st 2015, she has a whopping 108 ONE star reviews! … If i had ONE one star review, I would be mortified…. as an etsy seller, we all used to pride ourselves on our handmade or lovely vintage finds. Etsy IS different now. Nothing different than Alibaba.com or Ebay.com. Wholesalers, resellers and manufacturers are all OK with Chad’s blessing!… Very sad for those of us who literally helped build the site. So many are jumping off the Etsy Bandwagon… but no matter, Manufactured and mass produced items will always fill in where we all left off. Sad statement… and kudos to this slick business woman. Making money, being touted as one of the best … while leaving very unhappy customers in her wake… the true american entrapenurial spirit i am afraid… (or should I say the “NEW” entrapenurial spirit)
so sad.
What I don’t understand is why Etsy allows hundreds of disgusted buyers and 1 star reviews. It’s pretty much theft to accept the money but not send the product for 3 months. I know that if a small shop did a millifraction of that with their shop, it would be BAM, shut down.
A friend of mine is also curious how she avoids her stars not going lower than 4 1/2. We were told that stars reset each year, so she really should be at least at a 3 star.
It’s AMAZING that people still buy from her. I mean, it’s like sheep. All for the dream to look like the lady in the picture.
Melissa, sheep is correct. I have an Etsy jewelry shop whose business has been getting progressively worse by the month. Lats year I made over $18,000.00 in sales with my handcrafted glow in the dark jewelry, all of it made by me with mainly US purchased jewelry components. This year my sales are 1/4th that. But when I look at favorited items it is usually an item that I have just sold. I have also seen competitors pieces where the purchaser gives 5 stars!!! for an item that doesn’t even glow, stating that it’s still nice. I would think that the “glow-in-the-dark” aspect of the piece is the whole point. I state that my pieces are available as non-glow and have only sold 2 pieces this way. I try to be truthful on the glow period and time my products to get this as accurate as possible but this other seller outsells my products probably 10-1. I have been an artist for almost 40 years and know when someone is listing 100’s of items in their shop as handmade they can’t possibly be handmade by the artist. December 2013 I had almost $4000. in sales and sold about 150 pieces. I literally worked around the clock to fill these orders. It is truly deceptive to list your items as hand made when they are commercially manufactured and it should be highly suspect when shop lists 100’s of hand made items. Do those who run Etsy truly believe that one person can fill that kind of inventory every month or even a small “team” of people? Especially something as labor intensive as knitting and sewing? Or could package and ship that amount of items in a cottage industry shop? I, too, am saddened by the direction Etsy is moving in and will probably be closing my shop. I have “met” some very wonderful customers through the 2 plus years and have enjoyed creating custom designs for some with their collaboration and input but it has become a frustrating experience since the new policies have gone into effect which virtually allow vendors to label products as handmade when there is nothing further from the truth.
Thank you Abby for this very enlightening article. I think I came across her shop due to a search and was immediately suspicious since I have vast experience in the creation of truly handcrafted items and know how much time it takes. It is sad that greed and an endless lust for money always seem to undermine integrity. Even sadder still is that Etsy not only lets this deceptive businesswoman get away with her dishonesty, they actually seem to encourage it.
In answer to some people questioning whether there is an alternative to Etsy, in Australia there is a similar marketplace called Madeit [www.madeit.com.au] for Australian suppliers – although it does not currently allow sellers from other countries.
Who’s ready for some GOOD news?
In the midst of my frustration and irritation over the dishonesty and blatant disregard for the meaning of the word “handmade” by shops like Tbree Birds Nest, I would like to mention a shop that exhibits the very essence of “hand crafted”.
If you have purchased an item from an Etsy shop and you feel that the item is high quality, unique and special, I encourage you to take a moment to post it here. Maybe it would make us all feel better to hear good news about some of the wonderful items still for sale on Etsy. And it would help those honest shop owners to get some good publicity for their wares.
In addition to operating three vibrant shops on Etsy, I am also a teacher at an elementary school.We were looking for a unique and thoughtful gift for our wonderful music teacher, Leah. Leah loves to bake, and when I stumbled across this gorgeous carved rolling pin on Etsy, I thought it would be the perfect gift for her.
Our staff collected the money, I bought the rolling pin and it arrived yesterday. It is WONDERFUL. It is clearly hand-crafted…it’s gorgeous and detailed and extremely heavy. It is quality, with a capital Q.
We will be proud to give Leah this thoughtful, special gift.
Here is the shop. They are in Poland, but they ship quickly, their shipping charges are not high and the item arrived in a reasonable amount of time: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HousemateArtist
The rolling pin we purchased is here: https://www.etsy.com/transaction/1017495482
Just wanted to share the joy!
Robin
Sweet Bee Cups on Etsy
I love this idea Robin!!!
I have purchased many times from this lovely and amazing soap shop on Etsy. The owner is wonderful, and her lovely children help in the photography, wrapping, and testing of all products. I haven’t found a soap in her shop yet that I haven’t liked, and she has always sent shipments quickly to us!!
I absolutely ADORE her Bay Rum soap, and always end up ordering a loaf of it when we need more!!
Artisan Bath & Body!! Amazing products!!!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtisanBathandBody
Thanks for coming up with this!!
Jen @LivyLynn
http://www.LivyLynn.com
http://www.LivyLynnVintique.Etsy.com
How am I just seeing this now?!
Thank you for your nice words, Jennifer! ♥
I’ve been selling on Etsy for five years and have found some wonderful folks selling beautiful handmade items.
Most recently I’ve been working on an embroidery project and found stunning hand dyed embroidery threads from Bathtub Studios (BathtubStudios.etsy.com)
And very hard to find organic darjeeling tea. Yes, I’m a tea snob ! Artful Teas has some very fine grade darjeeling and tasty herbal teas: ArtfulTea.etsy.com
Something else everyone should know about Three Bird Nest is that their shipping system is a nightmare. I’ve ordered from them 5 times, and 3 of those orders never arrived. They gave me store credit as reimbursement to reorder the items that didn’t arrive, and 2 of the items were no longer available. Only 1 order was perfect. Another order had 5 items, and only 4 arrived. I’ve now reordered from them to use my store credit, but once I HOPEFULLY receive those items, I can’t imagine ordering from them again, which is frustrating, since their clothes are so beautiful. I’m the first to acknowledge that their items are not handmade. Everything has tags that say made in China. But, as someone who lives in a tiny village with nowhere to purchase clothes besides Walmart, I do all my shopping online, and I try to find the best deals I can. However, for a company that’s received to much notoriety and praise, I’m extremely disappointed. I’ve never had any clothing site mess up this many times.
I normally dont complain about companies, but I recently made a purchase on Three Bird Nest. I spent $100 for a few items. It literally took one month to get them, one of the items was totally missing and one broken. I reached out to them several times, only to get short, curt answers from whoever it was that answered me. They never told me what happened to my missing item, all they kept saying was there are No Refunds. They dont even have a customer service number. My credit card company now has to deal with them, but Im so disappointed, and this was by far the WORST customer service experience I have ever had. HORRIBLE
I’m in the same boat!!!!! !70 spent and I never saw a thing!
Anyone see the streetinsider.com article on Etsy’s stock being downgraded due to counterfeit concerns?
http://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/Wedbush+Downgrades+Etsy+%28ETSY%29+to+Underperform%3B+More+than+5%25+of+Items+May+be+Counterfeit+or+Infringe+on+Rights/10543487.html
I would like to say this is very interesting and I hope it gets them in gear about the saturation of mass produced junk and counterfeits. As both a buyer and a seller it’s frustrating to weed through all of the irrelevant results when I’m searching for an item. You have to search for pages and pages to find something unique. Many stores are duplicates of each other and they take up 80% of each page with the same items listed over and over!
On top of that consumers can not tell the difference between a mass manufactured item selling for $20 and a handmade uniquely designed one for $100. And unless the design you offer is so unique they have no choice but to purchase from you once they’ve seen it and fallen in love (which is part of my business model) they will always choose the cheapest option. Having my products side by side with these shops is a disservice Etsy has brought unto the handmade community.
I am still waiting for my money to be refunded after I paid for $170 worth of merchandise that NEVER came. After 2 months I am still hounding them (they NEVER reply and if they do it is with some generic response). I have reported this to the BBB and ESTY. Not only do they deceive, but apparently they steal as well. I would NEVER buy from them…..so fishy!
Heather, if you want a refund, you have to go thru your payment processor (credit card company, etsy, or paypal, depending on who you used.) You should do it quickly, as your window is running out. I don’t know if you can still open a case on Etsy, but if you can do that as well. The seller HAS to respond to that.
Good luck,
Thanks for this article Abby! I am a new reader of While She Naps – just discovered you this week – and I am absolutely loving your posts!
Anyway….
As a teenager I wanted to sell knitted things – hoping I could make some money for college, etc. I began to realize the big problem with hand knitted goods – they take HOURS to make and most people I came across expected to pay dollars for your work. I guess they are so used to buying a $5 knit hat from Target (China) they don’t appreciate that for me to make a hat it would take many hours. (And that the quality of both the workmanship and yarn was much higher) A customer once asked if they could have a hat for $1!!
So when I came across 3 Birds Nest I was positively perplexed! How on earth does this lady knit so fast to charge so little? And how can she make so many of each? I wondered… Am I just not knitting fast enough? lol But now the mystery has been solved!
Funny thing is I took a business class in college and we did a case study about a lady who made hand knit headbands! We had to write a report about how she should expand her business. The “correct” answer was to increase volume, decrease prices (so $5 for each instead of $28), and she is not allowed to hire any new employees to help her make the stuff until she has grown to a certain point. I argued with my professor that this can’t possibly be the correct answer because the poor girl doesn’t have enough hours in the day to make so many knit headbands!!
To everyone that is sick of the fraud and Chad redefining handmade, here is a petition to sign. PLEASE
https://www.change.org/p/etsy-stop-overseas-importing-and-calling-it-handmade
something else you might find interesting !! About GRACEANDLACE being asked to leave Etsy
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102707325?__source=yahoo
Hmmm…it doesn’t look to me like they’ve been asked to leave Etsy. At least from this article it just looks like they’re interested in Amazon as a marketplace.
Barbara says it in the interview. She says they have been asked to leave because they don’t believe she is making (or designing ) the products . Then she defends them.
Did you watch the video?
Ah, I hadn’t watched the interview. And yet I just checked and they’re still on Etsy. What’s funny is that they’re importing the same exact book cuffs as Three Bird Nest!
I looked at their store and then looked at there feedback and they have horrible feedback and even the customers have complained that alot of the items they finally do receive say made in China. It is amazing with such bad feedback and blatant lying about items being handmade that they still continue to sell on Etsy. Etsy is loaded with made in China items. The same items you see on ebay from several different sellers. When I first started on Etsy it was an amazing place and i did very well but the last few years it has been horrible and I hate to say it but worse then ebay. The good ole days of Etsy are gone because it has lost its integrity!
3BN is no longer indexed in Etsy search. I guess bad feedback does eventually catch up with you.
Her shop is still there. Not in search but she’s still there.
You’re right, the shop is no longer indexed in search it seems. Why is that? I’m confused about how this happens to a shop.
I realize I’m commenting a year later, but I want to bring to everyone’s attention that her shop’s sales history is no longer visible. That’s weird since I’ve been able to view the sales history of other closed shops. I stumbled upon all this while researching online businesses.
The disappearance of her shop history indicates that someone wants to hide the proof of what happened. Since I’m not a seller on Etsy, I have no idea if Etsy shop owners can hide their sales history or not. Perhaps Etsy itself is trying to hide what happened. I’ll leave that for you to figure out. If anything I learned from this is that marketing does make a difference—even for handmade.
Of course, the biggest hurdle is coming up with a handmade product that can meet high demand if an online business takes off. In that regard, I think it’s humanly impossible and would require contracting a factory to produce products eventually There’s a big difference from having a factory manufacture your designs and reselling common goods though.
She should have left Etsy when she switched to resale. That’s the point where she became unethical. She had enough customers and followers to have easily left Etsy. I’ll bet she had JUST started getting publicity at that time period.
Anyways, my spending an evening researching this shop has been very educational. Thank you for providing one of the most informative articles on the matter.
It just occurred to me that her initial handmade stuff might have been made by local crafters or consigners that she sold at her brick and mortar store.
I think she did make the early stuff.
Etsy shop owners now have the option to hide their sales history. I’m thankful that this wasn’t the case when I wrote this piece because via the sales history I was able to confirm that Alicia did start out selling handmade leg warmers.
how does her shop have dozens and dozens of pages of 1 star reviews and still an overall rating of 4.5 stars?!
Very disappointed in the level of service I have received from three bird nest. I placed an order in Feb and received a partial order from the in April. Ordered again in April with the Im sorry credit and still havent received the order. They owe me a refund in full for items I have never received. Horrible service. Every time I email them I get the same response…” we are transitioning our fulfillment center again to bring everything under one roof as we attempted to outsource those services and it wasn’t to our level of expectations for our customers. Moving the entire warehouse caused issues with our systems and order fulfillment and those issues progressed beyond start up. We are confident that when we have this all in our own warehouse we will not have any further concerns with orders shipping.”
They fail!
What is it called when you take money from someone, use it to float yourself along, and put it back before they notice that it’s missing? Embezzling?
I know it’s not quite the same but she really is taking money from people, not providing them with the product they paid for, giving them the run around and holding onto their money for as long as possible, and then maybe or maybe not they get a STORE CREDIT not a refund. I wonder how much interest she’s profited from having peoples money in her account for months at a time? It also seems like she uses the “changing warehouses” excuse as a way of waiting out PayPal and credit cards’ dispute timeframe with the consumer being none the wiser.
Three Bird Nest has an interesting business practice of not providing shoppers with information on items they are buying such as if an item is on back order for several weeks. I shop a lot online and often see items listed as “back ordered” or “ships XXX date. I bought an item on Three Birds nest on April 1 2015, was never at any point advised it was on back order., I waited three weeks after ordering and paying for my item before I heard anything about my item being shipped. But turns out it wasn’t actually shipped, even though they sent me an official shipping confirmation email. I waited a month before I contacted them as it was long enough that I should have received my item. At that point I was told the item hadn’t actually shipped, and was promised it would be shipped right away. Well 9 days later (9 days after their promise it would ship immediately) I get another shipment confirmation, with USPS tracking info. So I wait over a week and decide to track the item, well what do you know? It hadn’t actually been shipped! So now I have received 2 fake shipment confirmations, its been over 2 months since I placed my order and paid them, but they have not shipped my item. I have requested a refund, but interestingly as soon as I asked for a refund they stopped communicating with me.
Very interesting business practices indeed…..
GRACE AND LACE have left the building!!! Now if they will kick out Three Bird nest, we can stand up and applaud !
I noticed that. I wonder what the full story is.
Wow!! Glad she’s such a success do to overseas sweatshops. And when I heard about her so-called “sister”!! Well, she’s just a LIAR all the way around isn’t she?! NOT IMPRESSED AT ALL!!
3BN is having an active sale at zulily (for a few days). The handmade Etsy products – like the boot cuffs, watches, beaded headbands, etc – are all listed as imported. The beaded headbands, on zulily, are listed: imported and beaded in India.
Between Etsy and zulily, the listings are conflicting.
There is absolutely zero mention, in the Etsy shop, that any of those products are imported; let alone made in India.
There is absolutely zero mention, in the zulily sale, that 3BN made any of the products.
Going back through previous zulily sales, (Google & Pinterest searches) I located many more products that are listed as handmade on Etsy, but imported, by 3BN, on zulily. Now, in previous zulily sales, 3BN does list a few items as handmade in the USA. The majority of the handmade products, however, are listed as imported.
It’s all baffling.
I came upon the sweet story of Alicia in a magazine about home business just as I wanted to start an etsy shop for my clothing line. I didn’t buy the magazine but came to my computer and researched and it lead me to this blog. When I read the “short-version” of the story in the magazine I was encouraged but not that I read this….I’m feeling a little discouraged by it. I am not a business woman, I have never own a business itself, what I do is I make clothes and I’m good at it. But I guess etsy is not the same anymore…..
Great article though, makes you come back to reality.
Interestingly, Amazon is stepping into the breach here. They are starting a new venture called Handmade. Go here if you want to find out more. It seems paradoxical that the behemoth Amazon would be the one to support handcrafters, but they have undoubtedly seen the income-generating potential of doing so. And they do not have to give up the income they generate from other sources, e.g. the huge importers, in order to do it. They already have a huge amount of traffic. So, even though Amazon as a whole clearly does not promote the ethic of hand crafted, they may be in a position to create a space within their empire that remains true to this ethic.
I’m curious as to how other people feel about this new Amazon space as an alternative to Etsy.
Anonymous- I am an antique reproduction porcelain doll artist. I pour, clean, fire, paint and fire the porcelain heads, research, design and hand sew the costume, make the leather body, leathers shoes, pour and hand finish the composition body, make the leather shoes, hand weft and hand sew the mohair wig and make all the jewelry. However I don’t weave my own silk fabric, manufacture my own porcelain, hand blow the glass eyes, raise and slaughter the animals for the leather, tan the leather myself or raise and clip the angora goats for their fleece. However, I think that most would agree that my doll is HAND MADE. Most artists don’t grind their own paints nor weave the fabric their canvas is made from or grow the tree, harvest the wood, plane, dry the wood and then hand carve the frame. Any rational person would agree that the painting is hand painted. Jewelers don’t smelt the ore that their metal pieces are made of nor do they make the solder or the beads but rational people would label this hand made jewelry. Furniture craftsmen don’t grow the trees for their furniture either yet no rational person would argue that their furniture is not artisan crafted. The difference between these true artists and craftsmen is that a company is buying her products from commercial manufacturers in China, adding a bow or a button and deceptively calling the resulting product artisan crafted and Esty is turning a blind eye to this deception. Etsy’s policies are indeed hurting the true artists on their site by forcing us to compete with third world sweatshops and by allowing those who purchase manufactured FINISHED products to label them as artisan crafted. If you can’t see the difference you’re being willfully naive.
The store is an Uh Oh.
it’s back now. I also saw the uh oh earlier, I wonder what’s up.
It looks like she’s survived this because more and more raving reviews are showing up and her sales are back up.
sorry for the multiple posts. The page seemed to hiccup leading me to believe that my comments was lost.
Thank you for the research you put into this! I had heard about this, but you laid it out plain and simple and opened my eyes to how ridiculous Etsy has become. I think more are outraged than not about this new policy!
Thanks again!
I would suggest your followers read this article about my personal experience dealing with Three Bird Nest. They seem to make their money scamming customers, stealing money, and playing games. http://thecutecountrychick.com/2015/07/31/buyers-beware/
Thank you for writing this. Every time I have seen anything about Three Bird Nest a little piece of me dies. I gave up on Etsy because things were changing so fast, I didn’t understand the direction it was going, and financially I started struggling (just one year after my quit your day job interview). A few years later I came back and it is so much worse and these are the type of people that are getting all the attention and accolades when there are REAL and UNIQUE handmade sellers in abundance. There are even ones who are as well styled and photographed as Three Bird Nest that don’t get noticed. I don’t understand why after this shop has been outed time and time again as a fraud that they still keep getting press and that they are still successful at their scheme. I make every single book in my shop by hand personally. I have occasionally had my mother help me by sewing 1 part of the books, or hired a single helper to glue or cut fabric when I was busy, but not a single book has left my shop without my doing 98% of the work. I was so hopeful that a handmade revolution was running through the world and that I was lucky to be a part of it, and I don’t understand why Etsy has let that go. That was what made them special. If they only stuck to their principles I think everything would be working out better for them and I like to think for my shop as well. As it stands my products are drowning in a sea of mass produced and I can’t really see how to save them.
I feel confident that I can get my shop back up to some sort of snuff. I believe in my products and in my work ethic, but I don’t think that Etsy will ever be the same. A house cleaning is really in order. I am not against artists having their designs mass produced, but these are NOT the designs of Three Birds Nest, they are resellers that are celebrated as handmade. Everything in her shop I have seen on Alibaba. I have seen them in local shops with foreign languages all up and down the packaging.
I have an Etsy shop, but this article along with many of the comments seems like a lot of bashing from jealous people. The woman was within Etsy’s policies, disclosing her manufacturer, and neither her nor Etsy had a problem with their business decisions until others started putting their nose where it didn’t belong. I also find that it’s odd that those commenters who have Etsy shops are bashing the venue where they choose to sell their products. There are plenty of other venues to choose from if they are unhappy with Etsy.
Do you expose fraudulent handmade businesses? I have a person of interest that’s scamming thousands of people out of tons of money and this is her fifth time doing so, however she doesn’t ever get reprimanded for it. THIS NEEDS TO STOP. If interested, please email me I would love to help the handmade community in spreading the word to stay away from this woman. Thank you
Hmmm… I’m not sure. I’ll take a look if you’d like. My email is abbyglassenberg at comcast dot net.
This is my big problem with what Etsy has become. I still shop on there, but feel like I have to work a lot harder to filter through all the bigger, impersonal shops and find what I feel are real people making real items by hand. It makes me sad because I know that there are a lot of honest hardworking shop owners who joined Etsy for what I feel are the right reasons… only to be mixed in with those who don’t care as much for the craft and quality of the products they sell. Thanks for making others aware of this issue.
You were so fixated that you stalked her on Facebook about who she added as a sister??? That’s incredible…I understand your article, but think you are definitely crossing a line…
I’m not sure that’s fair. Part of doing research for an article is searching online for all mentions of the person I’m writing about. Facebook is certainly a site where I often go to learn more about someone. Alicia told the press right before this piece came out that the model she uses most often was her sister. To fact check this I looked into whether that was indeed true – something the mainstream press didn’t do. Right away I could see that they weren’t sisters – Alexa has different parents and only younger siblings. I felt like this was relevant because so much of this piece is about questioning Alicia’s truthfulness.
Its truly sad that it took Etsy so long to finally get rid of Three Bird’s Nest. I had complained about them to Etsy back in 2014, to what seemed to be deft ears. Sadly, over the years, others have followed in Alicia’s footsteps… creating a muddled market-place, with little vision and lack of original focus. Now, in order to clean up the mess (deception, mass-merchandising, non-compliance) that Alicia (in-part) created, Etsy will have to put forth a great amount of effort and time.
To Alicia…. I wonder how the heck you can sleep at night knowing you are a liar and cheat? Good luck in life. You obviously need it.
A while back there was the issue regarding the shop called Three Bird Nest that was getting cheap stuff from China and selling them in much higher price as handmade on Etsy. They are lost now, I mean not on Etsy any more.
There are now other stores that they are doing the same thing.
For example, a cat mug on Alibaba seen in the link, is sold by some stores for more than $20, as handmade. What is wrong with Etsy? It is just an insult to the real crafters.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/UCHOME-black-and-white-ceramic-cat_60303329462.html?spm=a2700.7724838.30.72.bM0niI
I found that listing here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/172817839/original-custom-text-cute-cat-mug-white?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=cat%20shaped%20mug&ref=sr_gallery_3 The seller is customizing the mug by writing a message or name on it by hand. This gets to the bigger question at hand – what is handmade? Is purchasing cat mugs wholesale from a factory and writing on them with a paint pen handmade? What about an American Apparel t-shirt with a freezer paper stencil on the front? Or an appliqued patch of fabric? It is impossible to be the handmade police. Everyone draws the line differently.
Three Bird Nest is now prominently being pushed on Poshmark as a ’boutique’. Very sad.
Well, it is a boutique, right? I’m not sure that’s sad.
I am late to this topic, but I had to laugh when I discovered from this post that 3BN’s founder also founded the “peanut shell” sling company. In 2007-8 after my second child was born, I purchased a sling from them since it had apparently been made with my favorite fabric, one which at the time was sold out everywhere. When I got the sling, it was clear to me the fabric was not the same as the FQ I had in my stash – it had a much lower thread count than the smooth, high quality quilt cotton of the original, and the borders of the design not as crisp. I scanned the fabric and emailed it to the fabric company, explaining that I had bought this product and it seemed the fabric print was a 100% knock-off, and the rep I emailed with agreed it was likely a counterfeit fabric. Interesting to see what this company has gone on to do. I have never sold anything on Etsy but I have bought hundreds of things over the years, and it is astounding how all my searches now bring up many pages of mass produced items compared to just a few years ago. It just takes a lot longer to find what I’m looking for, and sometimes I have to give up. The really good stuff is all still there though, and I can usually find it eventually – it’s still a hotbed of really amazing talented makers/artists /craftspeople, I just wish it were as easy to hone in on the actual “handmade”.
This makes me so mad! I wish I would have read the reviews before buying. They are heavily promoted on facebook and I fell for it!
I returned 3 items PLUS had to pay $18.00 to ship back myself
42.95
42.95
+38.95
124.85- 30% promo discount
= 87.39 Credit back
I paid for shipping MYSELF of $18 to ship it back. They gave a $59.09 credit back and refuse to credit back my card after numerous emails to them. It says NOWHERE as you are ordering about store credit only. This company should be shut down, they are stealing money from consumers.
I know that many people are upset with the “direction” Etsy has gone, but you really need to step back and look at the entire situation before making these judgement calls. Each year Etsy gets more and more saturated with people opening up shops and trying to join the bandwagon for the chance of success – THIS is the reason your sales are going down, not because Etsy now allows approved outside manufacturers. The marketplace is oversaturated in almost every category, so there is more competition and more options for the buyer. The more saturated it gets, the more Etsy has to grow with the times and develop ways to highlight the shops that stand out and nurture them to grow into successful businesses.
Also, I think that many people do not understand the logic behind these “outside manufacturers.” As someone who HAND knits everything I sell, I am buying the yarn (a supply) from a store. This yarn could have been produced in the USA, but it also could have been produced in China by tiny little fingers making pennies a week. With Etsy allowing outside manufacturing, I can now have my own yarn produced in mills that I’ve actually visited myself and have the opportunity to design this yarn down to the color, weight, and fiber. To me, that is a hell of a lot more responsible than buying anything from say, Hobby Lobby. What about the jewelry makers using beads in their jewelry? Are they making those beads or buying them from a store that probably had them produced in China or India? Open your eyes people. Outside manufacturers doesn’t mean the end of handmade at all. It is helping handmade and small businesses grow, which is the whole purpose of Etsy – to allow a small time artisan reach a much larger audience and prosper. In my experience, Etsy has done nothing but EXACTLY that. You think it would be ok for them to send out dozens of tips a week on how to take better photos, improve your SEO, choose clever descriptors, develop all these different tools for the sellers to use, pay for google advertising, help build up shop owners’ social media accounts, but then say “OH wait, nope, you’re never allowed to expand or hire help or have your own supplies produced. EVER.” That’s just ridiculous. They are trying to help your business, not hurt it! You think a person who screen prints on t-shirts is hand sewing those shirts after they’ve harvested the cotton and spun it into thread themselves? The word “handmade” can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and Etsy has done their best to define what that means to the majority of their buyers AND sellers.
It sounds like what a lot of you view as success is one person working their ass off 14+ hours a day with the skin peeling off their fingers to produce enough products to make ends meet. Sorry, but that doesn’t sound appealing to me. I am an artist and will never stop designing and making, but I also would like to lead a normal life and maybe have some employees and some of steps in the making process outsourced so that I can build my little company into something sustainable. Doing it all on your own and being stressed out constantly is NOT sustainable.
I don’t understand why people are so angry at this company. If they didn’t exist, then neither would your business. We should all be thankful that their 500+ employees are working every day to help little people like us. I know I am! And regarding the Amazon Handmade marketplace, I guarantee you they will allow some degree of outside manufacturing, as well as the hiring of employees. By the way, they charge sellers $40/month, 50 cents per listing, and 12% on each sale. Thats almost 4 TIMES what Etsy charges you.
I wish all of you the best of luck with your businesses, but I really encourage you to take advantage of what Etsy is offering you rather than bullying them and blaming them for everything.
Anonymous- there is a huge difference between buying your materials to put your product together and buying your product completely assembled, adding a bow or a button to it and calling it handmade. I am also an antique reproduction porcelain doll artist and I make 90% of the doll myself. However I don’t loom the silk fabric myself, I don’t glass blow the paperweight eyes, I don’t raise and skin the lambs for the leather shoes or bodies and I don’t raise the goats for the mohair that I use to make the wigs. I do, however, pour, clean, paint and fire the porcelain head, design and handsew the dress, make and handfinish the composition bodies, hand make the leather shoes and handweft and sew the mohair wig. I would think that MOST people would agree that this is an artisan, handcrafted doll. Most ARTISTS don’t make their paints from scratch nor do they weave the fabric for their canvases. Again NO RATIONAL person would argue that these paintings are not hand done. Does a furniture craftsmen grow, harvest , plane and dry the wood he uses? Of course not but none would argue that his finely crafted product is not hand made. No one is arguing that unless the artist makes every component of his product then it can’t be labeled hand made. This is about a vendor who DECEPTIVELY labels her product handcrafted when it is not and Etsy turns a blind eye to it. Their policies have hurt the artists and craftsmen who have stores on their site by allowing mass produced junk to be represented as artisan crafted many times at ridiculously low prices that no artist can compete with. They market themselves as a handcrafted and vintage site. One would think that the product you’re purchasing should have to be handcrafted and not mass produced in some sweatshop in China or India. And if it is then it should be labeled as such! If you can’t see the difference between the two then you’re just being naive.
Anonymous- I am an antique reproduction porcelain doll artist. I pour, clean, fire, paint and fire the porcelain heads, research, design and hand sew the costume, make the leather body, leathers shoes, pour and hand finish the composition body, make the leather shoes, hand weft and hand sew the mohair wig and make all the jewelry. However I don’t weave my own silk fabric, manufacture my own porcelain, hand blow the glass eyes, raise and slaughter the animals for the leather, tan the leather myself or raise and clip the angora goats for their fleece. However, I think that most would agree that my doll is HAND MADE. Most artists don’t grind their own paints nor weave the fabric their canvas is made from or grow the tree, harvest the wood, plane, dry the wood and then hand carve the frame. Any rational person would agree that the painting is hand painted. Jewelers don’t smelt the ore that their metal pieces are made of nor do they make the solder or the beads but rational people would label this hand made jewelry. Furniture craftsmen don’t grow the trees for their furniture either yet no rational person would argue that their furniture is not artisan crafted. The difference between these true artists and craftsmen is that a company is buying her products from commercial manufacturers in China, adding a bow or a button and deceptively calling the resulting product artisan crafted and Esty is turning a blind eye to this deception. Etsy’s policies are indeed hurting the true artists on their site by forcing us to compete with third world sweatshops and by allowing those who purchase manufactured FINISHED products to label them as artisan crafted. If you can’t see the difference you’re being willfully naive.
Actually, Etsy can do something about it. Apparently they have continued to grow and hire. They make a considerable amount of money and if they can’t manage their business, I’m guessing the rumored sale should be a good route. Maybe then there might be more concern for copyright and licensing issues that are rampant.
The idea of calling something handmade is that you made the end product. If I sell handmade scarves it means that I am knitting the scarf myself. If I am selling handmade yarn, it means that I made/spun the yarn myself. The ‘handmade scarf’ that is outsourced and knit on a machine is not actually handmade. Let’s be clear about the language, since it is a huge part of this discussion.
I think the concern about Three Bird Nest is that she had been ordering 100% manufactured items from outside manufacturers. Which would not be a problem, however Etsy still requires that you provide documentation showing your place in the design process at the very least and from what I’ve read she wasn’t able to comply with that policy. She evolved to the point she was ordering wholesale from exporters and still claiming on Etsy to be hand finished or handmade in the US.
With a lot of these manufacturers, in China especially, it’s possible to see something you like from another brand and track down their manufacturer and have that factory sell you the same design that was created by the original company. The factories have entire “catalogs” that are just designs of products that they originally manufactured off of someone else’s specs. If that person didn’t pay extra to protect their specs or if they did and the factory is dishonest the designs are just up for grabs. Which is fine but you simply can’t try to pass it off as handmade, or even designed by you.
Hi Sharon,
I understand your passion because you value your work so much, and while I do agree that Three Bird Nest is very much treading the line of “handmade,” I think you are blowing this way out of proportion. The wording in Alicia’s listings are deceptive, I will give you that. But she could just as easily be purchasing her knitted fabric for her legwarmers from a fabric store and then sewing on the lace and a button. Would you consider that handmade? The only difference is she has found a factory abroad to buy the fabric portion from at a lower cost rather than driving to a fabric store and buying it by the yard there. There are plenty of people who string big wooden beads onto a cord and sell that as handmade jewelry on Etsy – this involves a lot less work than what Alicia is doing, but I don’t see you harassing those sellers.
As someone who sells hand knit items, Three Bird Nest should be considered my direct competition. However, I wouldn’t touch any of that stuff with a ten foot pole just because I think it’s cheap and tacky looking, so I would hope that the same customer who would buy from me wouldn’t buy from her. She’s not taking away any of my business because we have two totally different styles and we are offering very different products. Unless you are selling lace knit boot socks and ugly swatches of fabric disguised as headbands and scarves, I don’t think you need to worry about stores like hers taking away sales from your shop.
Social media, saturated markets, and technology is an inevitable monster that we all have to battle and evolve to in order to succeed in this world. All I am saying is that you should be using these things that Etsy offers to your advantage, because whining about it in these comments isn’t going to get you anywhere, and that energy you just threw out could have been put to furthering your goal as a craftsman and developing your business into something more scalable. We are all responsible for ourselves. Etsy is just an internet platform, and it can’t take responsibility for your declining sales. Again, you should be happy that it even exists. Maybe a grateful attitude will bring more prosperity into your life.
Annoymous- the main problem is that Etsy MARKETS themselves as an artisan, handcrafted website. If they want to turn into Ebay that is fine. The problem is that they allow mass marketed items and Chinese made knockoffs to compete directly with their handcrafted artistan wares and pass off these mass marketed items as hand crafted. I have had some of my artwork and stories that go with some of my items copyrighted. Would I stand a snowball’s chance in hell of going after one of these huge entities if they violated my copyright? I would tend to doubt it. The posters at this sight are not upset with the success of this woman’s business. There are countless posts congratulating her on her marketing savvy. What concerns them is the deception and failure to provide truth in labeling for her products. We as artists shouldn’t be forced to compete with mass produced products on a website that is promoted as an artisans’ venue. It is unfair to the vendors and it is deceptive business practice. As another poster stated when will ALL of the merchandise on Etsy be considered suspect because Etsy allows the deception of labeling mass produced products as hand crafted. Again if you can’t see the difference between the two there is no point arguing.
Sharon,
This will be my last post as I have a business to run and do not have time to argue with you. I don’t think you understand what I am saying, just as you don’t understand what a multi-million dollar company needs to do to operate and stay afloat in order to sell your “artisan” goods that would otherwise be completely unknown to people across the globe. And this is exactly what I am trying to explain to you and the others on this platform that are bashing the one company out there that is trying to help them!
Where are all of these “Chinese mass-marketed knock-off” super aliens that are completely taking over the entirety of Etsy? I come across some clearly mass-produced items occasionally (Three Bird Nest being one of them when I first saw their shop many years ago) but because I have the integrity and wherewithal to market my own items truthfully, it really doesn’t bother me that they are out there. They’re not taking away any of my business because it is totally obvious that they are crap! And to be honest, they are very few and far between.
Etsy is still very much true to their original values and whether you believe it or not, they still operate as a handmade/vintage/supply ONLY selling site. What I’m trying to get across to you, is that you can still be making something handmade and be considered an artist or artisan if you have components of your work outsourced. As I said before, Three Bird Nest is walking a fine line, but there is no possible way to finitely define what “handmade” means as there are countless interpretations and applications for the word, just as there are countless different items being sold on Etsy. It is ludicrous to think that Etsy could or should be able to determine what handmade enough to be determined handmade or not. They are trying their best but there will always be exceptions and people bending the rules. Aren’t hands used to operate the sewing machines that produce the stuff that’s made abroad as well? In a sense, EVERYTHING is “handmade.”
Futhermore, to suggest that Etsy looks ANYTHING like ebay is not only insulting to the company as a whole, it is insulting to every single person who has commented here that sells on the site., and it is insulting to every buyer that frequents that site because you are suggesting that they are too stupid to distinguish between your “artisan” crafts and factory produced “junk” – just as you’ve suggested I am too naive to see above. Sure, there is a lot of junk – but a lot of that junk is “handmade” to your standards. To repeat myself again, the problem is not Etsy allowing outside manufacturing, the problem is that the market itself is oversaturated with over a MILLION Etsy shops competing against each other. This is due to the fact that it is becoming more well known and there are more success stories coming out of the Etsy engine. They have an entire team of over 50 people working every day to remove fraudulent and “factory produced” items every day from their site, but being that Etsy is a very popular open marketplace, it takes a lot of work to be constantly monitoring every single listing that pops up in milliseconds of each other. They have to evolve just the same way that every other internet platform has to evolve to stay competitive and viable as a marketplace. They run countless tests on every aspect of their site, because they also want to succeed, and if something isn’t working then they change it. Outside manufacturing was clearly tested, passed the test, and has allowed people who would otherwise be struggling to produce their items be able to run a scalable and sustainable business. If they offer outside manufacturing to some people, they can’t take away that opportunity for others. It’s not their fault that some people abuse that, and they do everything possible to try to stop them from doing so – including asking people to send them photos and detailed descriptions of their production process, which obviously Three Bird Nest did.
IF YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE STEPS ETSY HAS TAKEN TO PROVIDE A PLATFORM FOR ALL OF THESE MILLIONS OF INDIVIDUALS TO LAUNCH SUCCESSFUL SMALL BUSINESSES, THEN IT IS YOU WHO IS NAIVE. I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU RUN THEIR COMPANY AS YOU CLEARLY HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS AND IT’S SOOOOOO EASY.
I’ve never commented on one of these things, but I just have to say, I completely agree with “Anonymous”.
I also think it’s weird that people in these comments are accusing Etsy as a whole of being some greedy money-hungry foreign entity that is just out to get all of you innocent little artists. We need to take advantage of what they are offering us! And of course they’re trying to make money, they have hundreds of employees that spend every day developing tools to help US grow our businesses who they need to pay!
Everyone needs to just chill out and focus on how they can make their businesses succeed and stop putting all the blame on Etsy, especially because they haven’t done anything wrong and in my opinion are staying true to their handmade roots while also helping shops grow into something that can be a full time job and not just a “free-time” craft.
I’m THANKFUL to Etsy for giving me all the opportunities it has! And I take full responsibility for whether my sales go up or down. You gotta stay inventive and use the system to your advantage or it will eat you!
What sale is rumored?
Of course they are hiring and growing! Every day more and more people are opening Etsy shops so obviously they need more and more people and solutions to manage said shops. Just like if your business would grow, you would also need more help and solutions (outside manufacturing) so you wouldn’t run yourself into the ground. You all need to read this if you haven’t: http://whileshenaps.com/2015/07/proud-to-be-an-etsy-seller.html
THEY GONE !!!!
http://www.wboy.com/story/29881411/etsys-top-shop-three-bird-nest-says-goodbye-to-etsy
TBN is gone. However, I think that the article posted is inaccurate. From my understanding, they didn’t have a choice to stay or leave (or believe me, they would have stayed). Etsy finally told them to leave due to them not following their policies as well as the terrible customer reviews and customer issues they have been dealing with due to TBN.
There were plenty of posts on here about how horrible the customer service was (items not received, wrong items were shipped, items took over 1-2 months to deliver, refunds were not issues, etc…etc….).
Bottom line is that if this is the way they do business in general, I doubt that their stand alone shop will be successful much longer. However, atleast there, they don’t have to remove tags saying that their items were “Made in China”….
What about art prints? You drew and painted the image and hired a print shop to print it with high quality inks on beautiful paper? What about having t-shirts you designed screen printed for you? What about beads you buy wholesale to make jewelry with?
I think all of these things are great and completely acceptable. It may be just me but I feel the true purpose of Etsy should really be to create an environment that supports indie designers and makers, that doesn’t necessarily have to be 100% handmade. After all the most fundamental part of handmaking something is designing it in the first place. Etsy should be supporting creativity and pushing it’s Etesians to turn out unique designs, I think they’ve made the right step in not requiring things to be handmade exclusively.
If you think about it 100 people selling identical hand-knitted scarves at unsustainable low prices has the equivalent effect on “handmade” as a factory selling similar machine made scarves on Etsy for similar prices.