The Etsy Blog is the marketplace's official blog, covering company news, policies, B Corp status, workplace practices, and engineering.
HN links it for Etsy's B Corp status, office practices, and company history, and for hiring posts from its engineers.
> There are no "farms" in NYC.
Yes there is a farm in NYC, it's called Added Value Community Farm located in Red Hook Brooklyn and it grows "12 tons of fresh produce" annually.[0]
> They ship it [t]o a garden in Red Hook.
No, they deliver it via cargo bike to the FARM (see above) in Red Hook.[1]
> And let us hope this apparent "farm" doesn't use the polluted soil of that region.
No, they don't use polluted soil they use compost. "At peak performance, the program processes over 225 tons/year of organic material."[2]
> I've seen enthusiastic people growing vegetables in open fields in Williamsburg. That is a superfund site!
Williamsburg is not Red Hook, we are discussing how Etsy delivers their compost to the farm in Red Hook. I encourage you to come take a look first hand at the farm in Red Hook and see how they actually grow produce.
> Farming is hard, thankless work that entails high risk. What they do in Brooklyn is not farming. It is gardening.
Again, let's talk specifics. Yes there are rooftop gardens in Brooklyn, yes they are gardens, but let's not lose the forest in the trees.
Is there a farm in Brooklyn? YES. Does Etsy deliver compost to it? YES. Do I encourage you to visit the farm and maybe volunteer to see how hard, thankless work it is that empowers youth in the area? YES!
Before you get negative on HN and spew a bunch of unsubstantiated "facts" do a little search to find out that yes it is possible to have an urban FARM that has the data to back up the…
You have only half the picture because the three problems you've listed have existed for quite some time.
Here are some new problems that are driving more sellers off Etsy:
4) October 2013: Etsy redefines "handcrafted" and allows Etsy sellers to get "help" with making and shipping their items. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/etsys-industrial-revolution.html
5) September 2015: Etsy openly embraces mass manufacturing https://www.wired.com/2015/09/etsy-embraces-mass-manufacturing/
6) October 2016: Etsy forces sellers to enroll in Google Shopping ads and spend their own money promoting their items. On the surface it looks innocent enough but most sellers are not sophisticated enough to run their own ad campaigns. They expected Etsy to provide that service as a marketplace. With no traffic coming in from Google any more, sales have tanked. https://blog.etsy.com/news/2016/introducing-google-shopping-ads-for-etsy-sellers/
7) April 2017: Etsy forces sellers to direct all revenue to Etsy's own bank account (no more Paypal), or the seller can't sell on Etsy any more. https://www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/18325841/ The deadline to comply is May 17 so expect many shops to die on May 18 because shop owners are loath to turn over their bank account information and personal identity proof to Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/18322006/
I can confirm that I know at least one seller who set up their shop on Shopify in January this…
Its interesting to see the path Etsy has taken. IIRC, around 2007 or so they closed all of the 'vintage' shops because they weren't handmade. They quickly went back on that and restored those accounts. (In 2014 they also tried removing 'vintage' from 'browse', which resulted in a lot of backlash.)
Its a shame to see them relaxing the standards over the years. In 2007 their blog even acknowledged the mass-produced items and the lack of support for these products [1]
[1] https://blog.etsy.com/news/2007/cultivating-a-strong-community/
Etsy / San Francisco / Full time
I'm an engineer on San Francisco's localization team. We are hiring engineers for various teams in the San Francisco office. Check us out! Etsy is:
- passionate about open source (github.com/etsy)
- equal opportunity (https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-hacker-grants-supporting-women-in-technology/)
and the work is fun too. You can contact me directly if you're interested: adit at etsy.com.
There's an Etsy blog post where they explain what a B Corp is and why they wanted to be certified as one [1]. "It’s like a LEED or Fair Trade certification, but for a business, not just a building or a bag of coffee."
[1] https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b-corporation-movement/
You can find their Overall B Score at:
https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy
Etsy is currently a B corporation. They're likely to not remain one. The article clearly points this out, but it's easily verifiable as well:
- https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy
- https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b-corporation-movement/
- https://www.etsy.com/ca/mission