Amazon Handmade Goes After Another Etsy Business Segment

Amazon is taking advantage of Etsy’s turmoil. Today the company announced they are introducing the Wedding Shop from Amazon Handmade.

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The handmade shop already offers a navigational selection for various occasions, but this store design is tailored specific for weddings.

Amazon’s Wedding Shop will feature thousands of handcrafted and unique products to help celebrate and plan the big day.

Small retailers that specialize in handmade products will now be able to showcase and sell their products on the largest eCommerce marketplace in a wedding themed store.

This addition is just in time for the big wedding months coming up which are June, September, and October. While probably a little late for June weddings, the shop also features products for events leading up to the big day.

AMAZON HANDMADE AND THE $300 BILLION WEDDING INDUSTRY

With the Wedding Shop by Amazon Handmade, the firm is placing another stake into the $300 billion wedding industry.

Last year’s revamp of the site’s wedding registry already made it easier for guests to purchase gifts with longer return policies and support for adding products from other eCommerce sites.

With this addition, Amazon hopes to engage couples in the planning stage and take a little more of the wedding market slice.

ETSY TURMOIL HURTING ETSY SELLERS?

The public “corporization” of Etsy may provide Amazon with a unique opportunity to go after another popular segment in the Etsy marketplace.

When Amazon introduced Handmade, out of principle, some Etsy sellers refused to list their products on Amazon. They looked at Etsy as the unique and quirky place for one-off items and did not want to compete next to mass-produced products.

However, that line has started to blur at Etsy in recent years anyway!

There have been many complaints from the real artist sellers on Etsy about their designs and products being ripped off. Through the last few years, sellers found copies of their designs by scrupulous Etsy sellers offering cheaper quality and in mass quantity.

So while Etsy started to do more about Intellectual Property rights and removed some blatant copies, the company never brought enough staff on board to actually deal with this problem.

Now Etsy is under fire for being bloated, not profitable, and emphasizing too much on environmental and socially responsible initiatives. It cost leadership their jobs just a few weeks ago.

WALL STREET WILL DECIDE ETSY’S FUTURE

The bottom line is that Wall Street investors will decide Etsy’s future. Moreover, that future may start to look very different.

This reality has sellers that held out from joining Amazon starting to take a second look. If Etsy is going to change to a more corporate philosophy, then why not sell on Amazon or other marketplaces.

By adding the Handmade Wedding Shop, Amazon is banking on this change of heart by Etsy sellers. Let’s see how many will jump to Amazon on this news.

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