Etsy.com - Buy and Sell Your Homemade Goods Online

Etsy is a great place for budding entrepreneurs, letting a person set up a virtual shop and sell their homemade items online. The products are indexed, tagged and searchable, including allowing the potential buyers to browse the products of a particular maker or artist of their choice. Sellers are allowed to showcase their favorite items, and Etsy hand-picks some items themselves for high exposure. It"s super easy to be a buyer or seller. Sellers are charged $0.20 per item listed, and charged a 3.5% fee for items sold (hey, it beats the overhead of their own business and office space). Otherwise, the site functions like every other retail site, where you add items to your shopping cart and then purchase online. Overall, the site is sophisticated, professional and well designed.

Your place to buy and sell all things handmade.

This site is a genius idea -- homemade products are popular, special, and rare. It is difficult to find the products to buy and it is difficult to sell them. To create an online marketplace for homemade goods is a winner for buyers and sellers.

How are they marketing to the average internet user (i have never heard of them)? Have they had any problems with the sale of these products and unsatisfied customers? It is obvious by their large staff size alone that they are making a profit, but are they thinking about taking it to the next level or being bought out by a larger corporation?