Tune into just about any network or television station and you are sure to find a TV show running that has its basis in controversy. Reality tv has continued to lower the bar on the behavior we accept as normal. As a culture we’ve become accustomed to accepting outlandish stories as being authentic. The more outlandish, (do we really believe that newest Bachelor incarnation is a farmer of all things???) the more the culture seems to accept and celebrate the story.
Enter the world of handmade crafts and Etsy. The hot story right now is about a California based company called Three Bird Nest. It’s a top selling shop on Etsy, and it’s grossing over a million bucks a year selling on the platform. This is what came from a recent interview with Huffinton Post.
In the last 3 years since opening her shop on Etsy, Alicia’s business has skyrocketed to success. According to Handmadeology.com, Three Bird Nest is the second bestselling handmade products shop on Etsy with over 86,000 sales.
Holy Toledo, Batman!!! You can get rich just sitting around knitting some stuff and putting it on Etsy? People across the country are screaming, “Take me to Michael’s so I can get started on my own shop selling 10’s of 1000’s of items! How hard can it be?”
Before you get too excited, let’s do some simple math. 86,000 sales over 36 months equals 2,388 sales a month. Take the monthly sales down to a daily average by dividing by an average of 30 days in a month and you get 79.62 sales a day. Let’s say 80 daily sales, just to make it an even number. Remember, she’s selling even more stuff on her own site. This is just what shows up on Etsy. If she knitted ten hours a day, she would be cranking out 8 handmade, finished pieces every single day, 7 days a week.
I’m here to tell you that there really isn’t much that can be knitted and finished in an hour. You can probably make up an arm knitted scarf, or a scarf for a really tiny dog. Not much can be done this fast.
Three Bird Nest is filled with items that take a lot longer than an hour to make. How does she do it? Fast Company Design sat down with the etsy mogul and shared this bit of information.
Now, Shaffer has a team of 15 sewers—”all moms,” Shaffer says—working full-time, as well as a professional photographer. Shaffer’s husband was able to retire early from his job as a fire chief. Not all the items are entirely handmade by Shaffer’s team—many, like the knitted legwarmers, socks, and gloves, are sourced wholesale from India. “We finish them here, adding lace trimmings and buttons,” Shaffer says. The profit margin from such imported items is 65%.
So you see, the reality of the situation is that Three Bird Nest is a reseller NOT an hand knitter. For the consumer, this is much the same as buying something at Target or Walmart. I’m incredibly irritated that all the media and press insist on talking about her and her team of moms as though they are actually making this stuff. Even a team of 15 people couldn’t make all this product and ship it and keep up with the marketing. I know we love a success story in America, but stop leading people to believe this story is as “aw shucks” as our “farmer” is on The Bachelor.
I thought Etsy was the Hand Made Marketplace?
So here’s the deal. Etsy has changed some rules that define what can be sold on the platform. In the early days, the seller had to be making the whole piece themselves. Now, in an attempt to plump up the numbers as they go public, they’ve allowed what amounts to simple reselling. This means shop owners can buy pieces from something like Alibaba and simply resell it. As long as they sew their own label on the piece, Etsy considers it enough to call it “handmade.” Do me a favor. Go to Etsy right now and search “Blanket Scarves.” See how they come up in a category called “Handmade?” How much do you want to bet these came from Alibaba?
In all honesty, the pieces still ARE handmade. Somebody has to sit there and cut the material, or knit the fabric, or sew the thing together. Somebody somewhere IS making the item. The question is where? This mass produced stuff being presented as hand crafted in California is in reality handmade in sweat shops in SE Asia or Mainland China. That’s not as pretty a picture as a team of moms sitting around sipping Starbucks while knitting and sewing is it? But that’s the reality.
You see, using the term “Handmade” means different things to different people. It’s not supposed to be a good term to use anymore when describing your small, handcrafted business for precisely the reasons being discussed.
So here’s my thing. I absolutely do NOT begrudge Alicia any of her success. I love to see a woman taking charge and developing a profitable business. That is AMAZING. She is a PR genius. She’s generated all her own traffic and has figured out the Etsy system of tagging and keywording. These are no small tasks.
She also attributes much of the success of her brand to high quality photography and modeling, so you know I’m going to get behind anybody who believes in that! That service is part of the suite of products I sell, myself. And I believe in the worthiness of that service.
What I do have a problem with is the misleading nature of the whole thing. The public has no idea of what goes into making a made-to-order handcrafted item. My large dog cowls represent just over two hours of hands on time to make and finish plus driving and time shipping at the Fed Ex office. Every time someone buys one to those, I’m putting approximately 3 hours of my time into making and shipping it for them. That, my friends, is the reality of a handcrafted item. My people cowls and neckwarmers take in the neighborhood of 6-7 hours to make and finish. That’s a full day’s work, or two evenings of time.
I am on a platform where my custom knit hand made items are presented as the same as resellers who purchase their products cheaply from overseas manufactures. We are two entirely different kinds of business models, so I am bothered by Etsy lumping us together. I really think Etsy needs to reconsider the model and split itself into two divsions. I miss the old Etsy uncluttered with mass produced crap and filled only with true hand crafted items. I think allowing resellers cheapens the whole thing for everybody.
I will continue to make my own products, one at at time and truly by hand as the orders come in. My first two months of 2015, I’ve already beat the average sales that 65% of shop owners on Etsy will have all year. I must be doing something right! But I don’t expect to generate $1MM on Etsy anytime soon. However, you can but you can bet I will take some of Alicia’s advice when it comes to tags and titles and descriptions. I am running the business to make money, and learning from someone who has success is good way to grow your own success.