Etsy is an ecommerce site which is quite popular on social media and the creative community. With its new Super Bowl commercial announcing the introduction of artificial intelligence as a tool to give ideas for gifts, could it be straying away from its motto of ‘Keeping commerce human?’
It started out as a marketplace for vintage and handmade goods and quickly made a name for itself. With revenues of $2.5 billion as of 2022, its safe to say that it has established itself as global niche ecommerce platform.
What separated Etsy was the fact that it tried to provide a sense of connection with the creators and the communities. They even started Etsy Success to promote the success stories of the sellers on the platform and to provide advice to new ones hopping on it.
People love a David vs Goliath story, with Etsy trying to focus on the small business, they gained popularity and support against the big platforms like Amazon. Now, Amazon is not by any means a small business but from a creative perspective Etsy has an edge over it.
Its hard to replicate the real life connection between small businesses and the community, but Etsy managed to crack this code. With influencers and sellers sharing their personal growth stories on the platform it helped them build this connection. The buyers directly buy their products from the sellers, that too gives a certain edge. And the best part was that Etsy had a first mover advantage in this niche business and was able to fortify itself.
They also promoted progressive ideas and culture at their workplace, which at the time they started was quite a new thing. Taking care of employees can go a long way in a business.
Its CEO Josh Silverman, in an interview with Forbes, said that they try to make things special by making it handmade and personalized. Not many online businesses can claim such a thing and made custom-made goods. It holds true to some sense too, there are many creators on the platform who can tweak their products as per a buyers requirement.
With the Covid pandemic, it gained immense popularity. With the health authorities announcing that masks should be made compulsory as it helps reduce the spread of the pandemic, many sellers started selling quirky masks on the platform. With the younger generation looking to add some fashion to their masks, Etsy just provided it to them. As mentioned earlier social media and affiliate marketing gave them a lot of publicity. During the pandemic, Etsy also managed to help many people stay financially stable by selling their products.
So, coming to AI. Its the latest innovation in the tech world. A lot of businesses now use AI to compete in the market. Etsy too seems to be doing this with their new Gift Mode feature. From a business perspective, it sounds like a good decision. They are trying to keep up with the dynamic changes and make sure they do not fall back. But as they had once said they want to keep commerce human, does it seem like they might be going against their own words?
Now, in my opinion, its perfectly fine for them to do it. Not everyone has good ideas when it comes to giving a gift to someone (me included). It can be quite a challenging task. AI helps ease that process by giving you ideas based on what you are looking for and what the occasion is. Its not like the sellers are being pushed out by AI, because at its core its still a marketplace for small creators and handmade products.
People can obviously choose to think of gifting ideas by themselves and searching for that perfect gift, but there is always an easier alternate to it. It does not mean that the personalized feeling is going to vanish, its just that the company is trying to keep up with the trends. Because at the end of the day its still a business hoping to make profits. How will it turn in the real world is yet to be seen.
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