- A marketplace is a community of people,
it could be online, it could be offline,
who come together to sell goods.
Those of you watching this class
have certainly been to an in-person marketplace,
whether it was a flea market or a craft fair,
even a shopping mall is a marketplace.
I would venture to guess that all of you
have been to online marketplaces as well,
because that's where we do most of our shopping now,
online in these large marketplaces.
Obviously one of the most popular is Etsy.
Online marketplaces are really effective
because people more and more are
doing their shopping online, one.
But two, they're plugged into how people search online.
So it allows people who are shopping for unique goods,
like a wealth of information.
At the same time,
it allows them to search really specifically
for things that they want.
A really good example is when people search
for things online,
you don't necessarily search for just like shirt.
You search for the type of shirt or the style of shirt
or the color of shirt or the size of shirt.
Online marketplaces allow people to connect
with specific goods that they're looking for
kind of more efficiently
than traditional in-person shopping,
where you have to do all that work with your own eyes.
I think you should consider selling on an online marketplace
if you want to benefit from a built-in customer base.
Also, if you're just getting started
and you don't have that brand loyalty.
So if you're just starting your business
and people don't know you exist
and you want to benefit from a marketplace
that already has loyal shoppers,
you're probably a good candidate
for selling in an online marketplace.
So different marketplaces definitely
have different cultures and that's something
to consider when you're thinking about
where you're gonna sell your goods online.
Some marketplaces are based on
getting you goods really quickly.
Some marketplaces are based on curating
certain types of goods.
At Etsy, we're really focused on creating
a community between buyers and sellers
and creating a really authentic relationship
between the person that you're buying your product from
or you're selling your product to.
There are tons of examples of different sellers
and businesses that have been really successful on Etsy.
Anything from fashion designers to furniture makers
to vintage collectors to craft suppliers.
There are certain examples of success
that range in different ways,
depending on what your goals are.
So success for one seller might look like
being able to quit their day job
and really starting a business that supports themselves
and their families and their life ambitions.
Success for somebody else might just mean
getting the justification to make something that they love.
One example of a seller who's had phenomenal success
that comes to mind is Leanna Marshall.
Some of you might recognize that name
because she actually won Project Runway a few years ago.
She's a wedding gown and accessories designer
and she's just had huge success on Etsy.com.
So she makes super unique,
I mean really super unique, wedding gowns
that are really for any budget.
She's had phenomenal success.
People love her gowns.
I think she's also successful
'cause she understands her target market really well.
She understands that every bride is really super unique
and is gonna want something super personal
for that special day.
So she's able to key into that through her designs,
through the way she curates her shop,
through her photography,
through the way that she just kind of creates
a buying experience from you from the moment
that you land in her shop.
Another great example of a shop
that's been wildly successful on Etsy.com is Goose Grease.
Goose Grease is co-run by Anna and Juan
and they hand-make these wooden dolls
that are hand-painted and they started selling them
as cake toppers for weddings.
They now make box sets of toys for kids.
They make the wooden dolls custom for different people,
for different reasons.
They've been able to expand their business enough
to support themselves,
they run their business out of their home.
They're able to spend more time with their kids.
But also, they've expanded to this small town
in Columbia where Juan is from
through the use of responsible manufacturing.
They've been able to also bring awareness
around these cultural aspects that we really love at Etsy,
which are responsible manufacturing and providing jobs
in responsible and ethical way.
So there's a lot of examples
of really successful sellers on Etsy,
and that's great because that's something
that you should definitely aspire to.
We're really excited to help you get there.
But you have to start, you have to start at the beginning.
In the beginning, it's gonna take a lot of motivation.
It's gonna take a lot of skills
that maybe not all of you have at this point.
There's that moment where you become the maker
or the collector or the curator,
and then there's that other moment
where you become the business owner.
That transition requires building some specific skills.
So that difference between being the maker and the collector
or the curator and being the seller or the business owner,
those skills are what we're gonna cover together today.