Etsy Allows Sellers to Work With Manufacturers

Etsy, the online marketplace for crafted goods, has announced that it will enable Etsy sellers to source goods from "Etsy-approved manufacturers" as part of a new program called Etsy Manufacturing.

Tech Crunch reported that this move comes two years after Etsy allowed sellers to work with manufacturers, as long as they were transparent about the manufacturing process with customers, and kept authorship over their products and designs.

Rather than trying to enforce rules about "handmade" products, and what falls under the category of "handmade," Etsy defined the term as "authorship, responsibility and transparency," and said that sellers could seek production assistance to work with outside manufacturers. If approved, the sellers had to give Etsy the proposed manufacturer's information.

About 5,000 Etsy sellers applied for this program and created 7,853 partnerships with manufacturers. Of those relationships, 85 percent are within the same country, after concern that Etsy sellers would use low-cost overseas production to mass-source items.

Etsy Manufacturing aims to pair sellers with small-scale manufacturers, who have met specific criteria laid out by Etsy, including transparency, detail to what extent they allow subcontracting and overall size.

A statement from Etsy details the story of one Etsy seller, Virginie Dyvorne, who sells jewelry. Dyvorne partnered with local jewelry manufacturers in New York City to do work for her, such as polishing, casting and plating.

The statement also mentions a small screen printing business as an example of the manufacturing companies with which Etsy sellers are partnering.

The new Etsy Manufacturing program will launch into beta stage later this year, and designers and manufacturers can start doing business next year. There will be no cost to find manufacturing partners during the beta period, but later transactions via Etsy will come with fees.