Handmade: The Future of Community-Based Markets

Kellan Elliott-McCrea, Etsy CTO

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a handmade marketplace

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f

A place for Makers to buy and sellFriday, September 28, 12

~6 years oldAugust: sold 2.2 million itemsAugust: $46 million in GMS

Etsy Weather Report

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Why Handmade?Friday, September 28, 12

Why Handmade?“If you can’t open it, you don’t own it”Friday, September 28, 12

What is handmade?Friday, September 28, 12

Towards a scalable definition of handmadeFriday, September 28, 12

Towards a scalable definition of handmadeFriday, September 28, 12

Towards a scalable definition of handmadeFriday, September 28, 12

Everything is optimized for something

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Everything is optimized for something

1. Uniformity2. Automation3. Low purchase price

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Handmade is about creative inefficiencyFriday, September 28, 12

Conversations!

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Conversations!

Markets are conversations, ...

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Conversations!

Markets are conversations, ...

(some markets are more conversational then others)

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Teams!

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Community markets - made of people

1. Bi-directional information flow2. Diverse marketplace, increased capacity3. Grassroots economics

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UnblemishedFriday, September 28, 12

UnblemishedFriday, September 28, 12

FingerprintsFriday, September 28, 12

History TagsFriday, September 28, 12

Bi-directional information flowFriday, September 28, 12

Glancing, and checking into objects. MaybeFriday, September 28, 12

Grassroots economicsFriday, September 28, 12

Potentially Hazardous FoodsFriday, September 28, 12

RefractometerFriday, September 28, 12

Local capacityFriday, September 28, 12

Local imaginationFriday, September 28, 12

a

Community based markets for handmade

Conversational, creatively inefficient, bi-directional, identifiable makers,

fingerprints, local or with some other communication technique for high and

low bandwidth communication, overlapping, capacity building

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