Small Is An Empire, But Not An Empire Builder - The Final Small In A Short Lineage Of Small
Etsy is small gone big. A crap-load of small businesses use Etsy’s platform to sell their wares. I love Etsy. I first went there several years ago when my extremely tech savvy husband told me about the site. I wasn’t impressed. It seemed like a giant craft sale, where all of the crafts were of the variety that my grandma used to make. No disrespect to grandma, she made nice stuff, but it wasn’t the type of thing I would shop for online. There wasn’t much in the way of edgy, cool or up-and-coming. As the site matured and more people added stores, the cool factor elevated significantly. Now if I’m looking for a purse, t-shirt, jewelry, furniture, art or most anything else, my first stop is Etsy. I can get lost on Etsy the way other people get lost on Facebook. I love me some serious Etsy. If you’ve never checked it out, go now and peruse. Even if you are a dude, there is something for you.
I love the stuff on Etsy and the feeling of Etsy. When you buy something from Etsy, you make a connection with a real person somewhere in the real world. You feel special because you get this special thing and the crafter feels special because someone chose their thing out of the millions of things available for sale. It’s a beautiful relationship. It adds something positive back into the world. So much of our society today isolates and alienates people, but Etsy brings people together. It makes a connection where none existed before and bridges a gap that had no reason to be bridged before. That might sound all high and mighty for a commerce website, but I find it to be true.
Okay, so here’s where the story gets a little less warm and fuzzy and a little more brown and muddy. It seems the business model that Etsy is built on doesn’t work so great for the individuals selling the stuff. It’s great for Etsy itself, they make money on each listing and a percent of sales, but for the small business it’s hard to eek out a living making everything by hand, charging basement-bottom prices (considering the time put into each item), and crossing your fingers hoping that someone will buy your stuff. People are used to paying for things that have been mass-produced and the cost of making things by hand is much greater. The industrial revolution didn’t happen without reason; we all want more stuff for fewer bucks.
The CEO of Etsy is a dreamer and artist at heart. He wants the small businesses on his site to bloom and grow and he’s even started a non-profit to try to help some of the Etsy sellers develop their businesses, but ultimately the thing that makes Etsy so great is the very thing that keeps its sellers from making a living. Handmade = more time = higher price to make a livable wage. The other thing that makes Etsy great is the mass volume of things to choose from. A great thing for Etsy itself and for the consumer, but a tough thing for each individual seller. That’s not to say that there aren’t people on Etsy making enough money to live on, and even some making a pretty penny, but the vast majority find themselves not able to get by on Etsy money alone. As a supplement to income or a hobby it’s a great vehicle to get your stuff out there and have your creative voice heard. But, as a small business generator, it seems the generator is broken. People are willing to pay more for hand-crafted things, but not that much more. So, you end up selling for less or you end up not selling much.
I think to make Etsy a full-time gig you need a few things going for you. First, what you make has to be interesting and cool or different, and second, it needs to be something that a person can’t get at Target, Macy’s or the local mall. It has to be the kind of thing that would garner a comment from a passerby. You need to find a niche market and rock it hard. I think then a person can charge more, collect a following, and make a living.
I’m rooting for Etsy and for all of the people schlepping things on the site. I guess maybe the focus needs to shift from “hey, you can make a living here”, to “hey, you can have a portal to sell your creative wares, but you aren’t going to make much doing it”.
My husband, the same tech savvy husband from the beginning of this post, sent me this article about Etsy a few days ago. The article was what got me thinking about Etsy and the whole idea of small. If you are interested, read it and then let me know what you think. Or, just let me know what you think!
Small Can Build An Empire - The Third Installment Of Small
In my continuing homage to small, we take a look next at Scot Pampuch. The man is a small force to be reckoned with. He owns a small restaurant, The Corner Table, and has for several years.
He’s a local food guru who’s always shouting it out to whomever will listen. I’ve usually got my ears tuned to the local food scene and my head on a swivel and I’ve never seen or heard another foodie shout so often and from so many vantage points. Wherever you turn, there he is. It would be creepy if he was creepy, but he’s not, so it’s cool.
This will be his third summer heading up Tour De Farm, a fully sanctioned copy-cat version of Outstanding in the Field, where dinners are held at local farms, out in the field with local chefs and local food.
I just discovered his latest project, the Corner Table Community Supported Kitchen and it’s sheer genius. It’s like a CSA, but from a restaurant. If you don’t know what a CSA is, it’s short for Community Supported Agriculture and it’s basically a box of veggies, fruits, herbs and other random things that you get from a farm. Shares are available to purchase from many local farms and you pick a farm, buy a share, and pick up your box from a pre-determined location each week. The shares can last all year if you are located somewhere South of here, but in our frozen tundra most shares run 18 weeks or so. The CSK or Community Supported Kitchen that The Corner Table has started is a box that you pick up from their restaurant full of local meats, cheeses and the like, all prepped and ready to cook. He is also offering cooking classes bi-weekly at the restaurant in conjunction with the boxes and interesting, but gross classes where you can break down a whole hog with him. Ick, but probably a good thing to do if you eat meat. According to his website there is also talk of a CSK box for vegetarians. The dude is awesome and is living large the small way.
Three cheers for Scot Pampuch!
The Special Of Small - The Second In A Small Series Of Small
New Glarus makes great beer. At least that’s what people who like beer tell me. If you are in Wisconsin, check it out. New Glarus Brewing Company is following the Small Is Cute mantra and keeping things small and manageable, so the only place you can buy their beer is the state where it’s brewed and bottled.
I think it’s nice that certain things are only available in certain places. It used to be that when a person took a trip they could bring things back from their destination and they would be special things, only available from where they had been. More and more that’s not the case anymore. I’m divided about this, because I love that you can find anything from anywhere on the internet, but I also like the specialness of unique places and things.
Jamie and I were in Switzerland several years ago and we came across Sigg water bottles. They were super lightweight, made of aluminum and looked cool. We brought a few back for family members and within a year they were everywhere. It’s great that the bottles are everywhere, the bottles are a much better product than plastic water bottles and Sigg Bottles ended up inspiring a whole industry, but I was sad as well. Our special find wasn’t special anymore.
What’s your take?
Small Is The New Cute
I’ve always liked small. Small is cute. Baby animals, babies, small bottles of shampoo, miniature whatever, it’s all good. Small business is cute too.
My dad and his brother owned a honey packing plant during my childhood and early adulthood and at the time I didn’t see it as all that great, but looking back now at how the company was run, I respect and admire how they did things. They never expanded product sales beyond the five state region, they bought all of their product from the region, they paid their workers well and my dad and his brother worked like dogs. They had a passion for what they did and weren’t willing to compromise that vision for growth.
I’m not saying that growth is bad, and in certain businesses large-scale, fast-paced growth is fundamental and necessary. But, I think there are lots of circumstances when a business grows faster than it should and the business and those associated with it suffer.
So, all of you small business people out there, listen up. Slow down, grow naturally and enjoy the process. If you are doing what you love, keep doing it. I’ll keep spending my dollars with you and your kind as often as I can. Other people might love the Walmart, but I’m loving you. Thanks for keeping it small and personal; you are all so cute : ).
Of course, I’m in no position to say anything about business large or small, but I’m saying it anyway. I don’t think the six people that read my blog will mind.