Cyber Monday Suggestion: Shop Etsy
Etsy, now twelve years old, remains the best place on the Internet to find something unique and special for your holiday gift giving.
If you want to reject the sameness of Amazon and Walmart this holiday season, head on over to Etsy to do your shopping.
Here are two suggestions for holiday shopping on Etsy:
Happy Shopping!
Comments (Archived):
does Etsy take payment in bitcoin?
No. It turns out that most people don’t want to part with their Bitcoin to buy stuff
Years ago I bought $50 worth of bitcoint to “try it out” and then promptly spent most of it. Spending bitcoin was more challenging than using a conventional credit card but did work. Fortunately the remainder has grown like 10x. Unfortunately it was originally worth $5. Next time it rains I will try to remember to bring the bucket and not the thimble.
You hear from people that are sorry they sold when it was lower. You hear from people who are sorry they never bought at all.But there is a third person that you don’t hear much grief from yet they are surely experiencing it. The person that is holding bitcoin at these price levels. (Like William and Fred at the very least).For example if the price is rising when do you sell? If you don’t own it at all or you sold it already you don’t have that anxiety. Sure you have anxiety because you sold to cheap. But you would also have anxiety wondering if because bitcoin is $10k (or whatever) do you hold or do you sell it? Fred has stated clearly he is not a seller (presumably at any price).This is quite different than the anxiety that someone might have if they hold stocks during a bull period. In that case the drops and base value are not going to vary as much as something like bitcoin. Or real estate.It also depends on how much you have relative to what your net worth is. Having 50,000,000 of net worth and 1,000,000 of bitcoin is not the same anxiety as having 1,500,000 of net worth of which $1,000,000 is in bitcoin.
which is understandable. demurrage might be helpful to accelerate the adoption of the actual use of crypto tokens that have become ‘stuck’ as a store of value only.
Bubbilicous no?
There is one place that Bitcoin is being used and that is as the payoff currency for ransoms. This feature is going to be an issue for Bitcoin at some point.
Cyber Monday 2017: the day Bitcoin hits $10K.Note: As of this comment’s writing, this is a prediction, based on the $9.7K price.
the one thing I’ve come to learn about crypto is to never make predictions 🙂
Trading volumes rose to $5.4 billion yesterday, the highest level since Nov. 13. Trends are friends.
…and bots are lots :)I await the SEC’s ETF announcement in 2018.
Something to ponder over re a Bitcon ETF in the future -“….As a currency, bitcoin is frustratingly difficult — so much so that it may be easier to go to a broker and buy shares of an ETF to get exposure to bitcoin, rather than to hold it directly.Of course if you are buying shares in a bitcoin ETF it is to bet that the price of bitcoin will go up. If you are betting that the price of bitcoin will go up, it might be because you think that bitcoin will see further adoption as a currency. But the fact that you are buying shares of the ETF, rather than buying bitcoin directly, undermines that thesis. The need for a bitcoin ETF is an argument against buying it”. – Matt Levine.https://www.bloomberg.com/v…
Bitcoin price on a log scale. Check out the End of Oct 2013 – late Nov 2013 spike.https://uploads.disquscdn.c…Source: Bloomberg.
I remember that period. I contemplated buying in in the August. Didn’t.
$10k is what I call a magic number. If (when) it exceeds that and stays there it will be a mainstream news story. And if it’s a main stream news story that will add to the demand and the price will rise more over the next few months.
Definitely. The base of users is broadening.
I took @fredwilson:disqus ‘s dollar cost averaging approach to general investing and started doing weekly automated buys in both BTC and ETH using coinbase’s recurring buy service starting about 6-7 weeks ago. In total $ I’ve not made much, as I have been doing very small purchases, but in % terms I’ve appreciated a lot. I think the dollar cost average if you’re a long term bull is (duh) an easy way for folks to dip toe into these.
Was it a Board or management decision to drop the B status?
B Corp dropped us
@fredwilson:disqus that’s an interesting comment – does this mean Etsy still meets the “80+ points” B-corp requirement, but they won’t certify you?
I keep forgetting about Etsy and I shouldn’t so thanks!I never forget about Gilt Super Sales though as every women in my extended family is a tight community of sharing deals. The online version of an DKNY pop up sample sale on Spring Street with people literally stripping and trying on the aisles.Zero friction ordering, zero friction returns, accelerated returns to cc.Something to be learned.
I love the type of stuff you can find on Etsy, but every time I go to the site the experience leaves me unsatisfied. It’s so hard to find stuff on that site. You search something, and you get a bazillion results back with questionable relevancy.It’s great if you’re just browsing and shifting aimlessly, but I very rarely do that.
Try the two experiences I highlighted.
I don’t know. I have had the opposite experience. When I want to buy something specific I seem to get good results. Shopping? Not so much but I don’t do that.This is going to sound strange but the biggest thing I buy on Etsy is leather items. They have great belts, bags, wallets, collars (dog), and leashes. Seriously great.Many seem to come from NC. Not sure why that is. I used to love Coach, but their quality has gone down.
When I want to buy something specific’Specific’: Search isn’t typically a problem anywhere if you know what you are looking for. I think the parent comment relates to when you don’t. Like if I walk into a wine store vs. Arnold Waldstein. Our needs are different. Don’t make me think. To many choices and I am not going to ask for help either.Now separately (and using your ‘leather’ example) it looks like Etsy is being gamed for placement. If you sort by ‘highest price’ for leather, right after the paid ads you will see items that have obvious wrong prices to get attention and good placement:https://www.etsy.com/search…Fred needs to pay attention to the parent comment as it is relevant for the vast majority of new users.And the placement and sizing of the ‘ads’ is cookie cutter. When someone says ‘highest priced’ they need to see legit highest price and if you show them ads it has to be visually a cue that it’s an ad. What is shown doesn’t do that. I am not saying the problem is deception either. Just seeing ‘$28 – $93.18 $52’ doesn’t fit with what you just tried to sort by.Also since you got me started on this topic the top nav bar during either a holiday period or fathers/mothers etc. day should clearly have a link to ‘holiday gifts’, ‘mother’s day’ and so on with whatever the event is. And it needs to stand out as well. This is in addition to whatever else is done to encourage sales on a special event.And the home page is to busy. Perhaps for any day but especially when someone is shopping for a specific reason and has not time to think and figure out the lay of the land (which is what the parent comment is talking about)…. https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
But on the other hand look up trifold leather wallet:https://www.etsy.com/search…Your search is “leather” you don’t know what you want to buy.My point is always been this: trying to “shop” = “I don’t know what I want” online is tough. Yes, it get’s gamed, yes you get strange results, so yes if you physically go to a saddlery store that specializes in leather stuff you can find stuff you didn’t know you wanted, that is shopping, same for the mall which people (wrongly) say is going away.Now if you are in the market to “buy” = “I need this”. The beauty of online (and Etsy) is you are going to get a ton of different choices, from a ton of different places and you can compare right on line, see the ratings and have shipped to your door.
True but I would think the opportunity with ETSY and a holiday like this is for people who need to buy multiple gifts for many people and they haven’t a clue to what to buy at least down to the level of, say “Phil needs a trifold leather wallet let me see what ETSY has”.Note also that ‘leather wallet’ w/o trifold has dubious results including the price gaming.Same item, two listings software could flag this..Priced at $3000:https://www.etsy.com/listin…Priced at $180:https://www.etsy.com/listin…
This is what his examples show. They are obviously curated, which is a feature, not a downside, it is the digital solution to going into a wine store and having the most popular wines on the end cap.If you don’t sort on price the results seem to be pretty good. Again, I agree if you are that far out of band, it just becomes noise and clutter, and yes marking ads is the right thing to do.
Was yesterday’s NYT article on Etsy fair or a hit piece? The article in sum states going public and profit pressure has undermined the company’s unique ethos and culture, but in reality those inevitable seeds were likely planted much earlier by accepting VC money, no?https://mobile.nytimes.com/…
Salt Shaker:Is discussing the financial health of a portfolio company a hit piece because someone your familiar with owns or invested in it? GheezA hit piece is what occurred to the public company Herbal Life. If it was anyone other than Bill Ackman it would have been illegal.If a person is a serious investor in any sector objectivity should be a requirement. There is much too much subjectivity on investing from contributors on this bulletin board. (Forgot it isn’t called that anymore, same objective) We understand Fred doing it it is his board. So his ultimate plan is known mixed with his Philanthropic endeavors.
David Heinemeier Hansson would agree with you, and takes it a step further: https://m.signalvnoise.com/…
Would love to hear Fred’s take on this.
CONTRIBUTORS:Etsy does provide a niche but those of us who still research our own trades do a cursory review of what is promoted from the USV portfolio when mentioned (public or private). Etsy is being flanked by you know who with craft offerings of their own. Not good news. Etsy isn’t on the financial path they once had under the B corporation designation. Hopefully the new incorporation structure Etsy will fair better.The industry talks favorably about Josh Silverman so there is a hope it can get turned around.https://mobile.nytimes.com/…Hopefully the facts just stated doesn’t earn us a erroneous attack. (Sarcasm, we don’t care when posting facts)We know that providing your sincere time with volunteering to a local charity is worth more than money can ever buy.Try volunteering with your family or colleagues and see the rewarding feeling.We encourage everyone associated with us to volunteer within the community. The Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul, United Service Organizations, NCJW, USCMO, etc. are worthwhile organizations within our communities.Captain Obvious!
Completely agree, every year I shop more and more on Etsy. Bought all my bedding on Etsy this past March. Everything from covers to shams, everything. It was awesome. Getting blankets for the kids this year. It’s the perfect example of Chris Anderson’s the long-tail. Thanks Fred.