Online Marketplaces for Handcrafted and Vintage Merchandise

Executive Summary

• Online craft marketplaces are peer-to-peer platforms that sell handmade or custom-made products, which are usually created by the sellers themselves. The sellers are typically artisans and designers.
• Etsy is the archetypical online craft marketplace. In 2015, its annual gross merchandise sales grew to $2.39 billion and its number of active sellers reached 1.56 million.
• Amazon expanded into the handcrafts market when it launched Handmade at Amazon in 2015.
• Consumers spent $34 billion on general crafts, fine arts, jewelry and bead crafts in the US in 2015; Etsy’s share of this market was only 3.9%.