If you're a Swede, we need your translation services!

A very nice Swedish journalist named Pierre had visited us at the Labs a while ago. Now, the fruits of his labor are online and fully incomprehensible to us. Social shopping på Etsy.com appears to be a lengthy feature in the Swedish magazine Internet World! Check it out!

Note: This was originally posted in the Etsy Garden.

See our Press Clippings!

Update: 

alohadear, being the dear that she is, took it upon herself to translate the piece for us!

Etsy is where e-commerce and the social internet meets. With a lot of clever and neat functions the company has managed to create a marketplace with a lot of dedicated members. What do they sell? All things handmade. Etsy resides on the sixth floor in an old factory in west Brooklyn. The sun shines through the big windows.

Etsy.com is a marketplace on the web for artists and crafters. A place for sellers and buyers of all sorts of clothes, jewelry and trinkets, with the only requirement that it is handmade.

You don't have to be into crafts to be fascinated by Etsy. Here is also innovative flash e-commerce solutions and valuable knowledge on how to get loyal costumers. Call it social shopping. Or why not e-commerce meets web 2.0.
The company got started in Robert Kalin's apartment a little over two years ago while he still was a student at New York University. Together with college friends Chris Maguire, Haim Schoppik and Jared Tarbell he built the first version of Etsy.com.

"The interest in creating things yourself and eco shopping have really exploded in the past years, but there were no place on the internet to sell hand made things," says Vanessa Bertozzi who works with community development at Etsy. The site was created to fulfill that need.

Today etsy.com has over 300,000 members and is growing with nearly 1,000 members each day. You have to become a member both to buy and sell. And at the moment 45,000 members have created there own stores on the site.

"We have not had any resources to maket Etsy. We've grown because people have tried it and then told their friends. That way we are totally dependent on our members. Most of the members are from North America but the fact is that one of our top sellers is living in Singapore."

The business plan is simple. The very idea of Etsy is to make the connection between buyers and seller of "all things hand made." For each listing Etsy charges 20 cents. If the item is sold, Etsy gets 3.5 percent of the price. Today two of every five items listed are sold within four month.

"It's the seller who decides which method of payment that is used. They often use PayPal. But that creates some problems for the members so we're thinking of creating our own payment sollution."

Among the sellers a majority do crafts as a hobby. But there are also they who are selling so much that they can make a living off of it.

"There are only a few that sell that much, but I think there will be more in the future. We're devoping a better support system for these sellers, maybe in the future we can have some kind of wholesale function that would make it easier to sell smaller stocks to retailers. Another idea is to maybe be able to offer some kind of health insurance. Many crafters are often completely uncovered. The fact that most of the sellers are hobby crafters also creates some problems, especially for the sellers trying to make a living of their sales. A lot of people are doing this just beacuse it's fun and that is keeping the prices down."

Econmically Etsy is just starting to show profit. To make it through the construction phase they had to take some help from finaciers, of which some were the founders of the web successes Flickr and Delicious.

"We are growing organically and it's important to us not to have to big expenses," Vanessa Bertozzi says. "For example, we're cleaning the office ourselves. Everyone that works here is ready to jump in where it's needed and that is something that we are very clear about when we are hiring. At the moment we are 21 people working full time with Etsy and a lot of us are in fact from the Etsy community."

In a time where 'find the lowest price' web services are popping up like mushrooms, Etsy stands for something else. Buyers and sellers are smoothly connected through a site that is easy to use and at the same time is offering innovative and unique ways of shopping.

Here you can find items by color. And there is also the popular Treasury where members can pick 12 favorite items on a theme which are presented in an attractive way for other shopppers.

With the Geolocator you can easily find local sellers. A click on our corner of the world shows that there actually are a few sellers in Sweden and in the other nordic countries. Click on a seller and you can see some samples from their store or just go directly to their store. Quick, intuitive and easy.

"We are improving that feature. The idea is that you should be able to do searches based on postal codes. That way you really will be able to shop locally and the goods won't even need to be shipped."

Another way to navigate the site is by the Time Machine, also an interface built in flash by Jared Tarbell,  one of the founders of Etsy. Here you can see the latest added items on a three dimensional time line. "Jared is a true flash artist," Vanessa Bertozzi says. "He has the ability to both produce and to implement the most fantastic ideas. I think a lot of people in the e-commerce business could learn a thing or two by looking at what he does."

Of course there also is the possibillity to use the categories or use the search function. In addition to searching by name or decription you can also search the sellers username, the materials or the tags that the seller adds to each item.
Etsy has also developed a system that allows each user to save his or hers favorite sellers. That way a social network is created by which you easily can navigate between members that like each other's products.

Etsy is not only a place where you can by things handmade. They have also created a platform where the members can get to know each other. "There is a lot of activity in our forums and many members are really involved in the site," says Vanessa Bertozzi. "The members help each other and there's not much competition. We have given people a lot of space for creativity but at the same time the site is very user friendly. And it is important to us that there is an open atmosphere; it can't be arrogant."

One of the reasons to that there are such nice atmosphere in the forums is probably that people who are being helpful and friendly will sell more. "Your reputation definitely affects your sales. And the more active you are, the more people will take notice of you, that will also affect your sales. That way we have some kind of symbiotic relationship to our members. If they sell more, we make more money."

One reason Etsy has grown as fast as it has is a strong and devoted membership base, at least when resources for marketing are low. "One of the reasons that we have made it so well is that we've never been a faceless company," Vanessa Bertozzi continues. "Everyone working here is active in the forums and some of us even are sellers on Etsy."

Since a while parts of the company's office are open for the members. For $20 a month you get acess to Etsy Labs — a well equipped workshop for members who don't want to or can't work at home. Vanessa Bertozzi guides us and there are advanced sewing machines, equipment for metalsmithing, video editing, a photo lab and a woodshop.

"Most of it is included in the rent, but for the more expensive and advanced equipment we charge a little extra fee. We also arrange a lot of seminars where the members can get together and exchange ideas and trade things with each other.
At this moment Etsy Labs only is in New York, but a lot of members would like it if it were similar places in other cities as well. Time will tell how things will turn out, maybe we can expand later on. I know that in some states members, who have met on Etsy, get together and collaborate locally, which is really fun."

Showcase is one of the features on the site that attracts a lot of visitors. For $7 a seller can display an item for 24 hours. There are only 36 spots and they are sold out quickly.

Big parts of the site is built in Flash by the co-founder Jared Tarbell. One of the functions makes it easy to find new sellers through the system of the members favorite sellers.