Etsy: Why you naughty fantasizing feminists!
Sara Mosle must have wanted to stir up some controversy, and so she picked Etsy to talk some smack about. Unfortunately, she got so lost in being condescending and not doing her research, she actually buried the few valid points she had. As a favor not to Mosle, who deserves a job at McDonald’s cleaning toilets with her tongue for the deliberate “stirring controversy” attitudes that came through in this piece, but to other Etsy sellers who might need to think about the perception of their business as I have for the past six months, I would like to go through and point out the actual valid business discussions buried within her piece.
1. Many sellers are underpricing. It’s a common discussion. I’ve vacillated on this issue, but then I got this month’s Lucky Magazine, which listed Etsy as a major shopping resource. The description read “Everything is priced wholesale!” To me, that is SO not good.
Given that the majority of Etsy sellers are making their work one piece at a time and it’s very common for women to undervalue their work, that does require consideration. Lots of orders doesn’t necessarily make you a profit, although it does give you a sense of success. Sometimes you just have to sit back and trust the numbers. But ultimately, your business, your decision.
2. The whole “Quit your day job” series is questionable and I do think that Etsy staffers – who are notably running their busineses as sidelines – don’t really know the whole picture and don’t know the right questions to ask to make the series useful. Fortunately, I think most of the people who have been on Etsy for two years or longer see right through that. Especially since only a few of the long-timers are interviewed for the series.
Jezebel does a great job pointing out how Mosle is a complete jackass who is spouting rhetoric to cover her obvious lack of research. Mosle doesn’t say where her “demographics” come from, and the ratio of men to women, the income base, etc. in no way match the demographic data that Etsy publishes annually. She also completely ignores the many couples/families who work in tandem, either in shared Etsy shops or in a separate but cooperative environment.
What bothers me most about the article and all its inflammatory comment: the undertone is “quit daydreaming about your crafts and get a real job.”
First of all, the economy is not doing well, and that whole $65/70K income thing was a)pulled out of nowhere or b)is strictly New York centric. I live in Minneapolis – incomes are so disparate that it gets reported by neighborhood. And jobs are hard to come by at the moment for men and women, just about equally. Second of all, the women who are staying home to do this full time and to stay at home with their kids just might be making a great financial decision. Every working parent I know has an enormous chunk of income go to childcare. Staying at home and running a side business is sometimes the only way to come out financially ahead.
Mosle is so determined to prove that women are buying into some subversive patriarchal manipulation that she completely overlooks what the Etsy sellers she interacts with are telling her themselves: they aren’t hoping and dreaming of the Etsy full-time, they’re using it as a platform, as intended, while working out the best choices for themselves and their families. Really, Etsy sellers as a group, with all that education, are much smarter than Mosle is giving them credit for.