Thank you TroutMan
Interesting articles.
I do think it matters where you buy, where and how the item is made.
I will not shop a Walmart. Just walking into the store is depressing to me.
The more I learn about the global economy the more I want to buy used items.
I bought a poster from an artist on Etsy, it seemed like it was really him selling them. My friend’s mom knits hats and sells them on Etsy and now she’s a millionaire! Just kidding, but she is a nice old lady who once found me passed out drunk, put me to bed, gave me a stern talking to the next day and didn’t tell my folks when I was in high school and now she’s knitting hats and selling them on Etsy.
You do have to do some homework. I’ve almost pulled the trigger on some “unique, handmade” items that a quick Googling turned out to be some mass-produced bullshit being sold at a premium as “hand-crafted.”
That said, I’ve had a lot of very good experiences with Etsy. Bought an amazing spalted maple vase for my mother, a really cool driftwood vase for my wife, and some copper art stuff, among other things. There are some really cool things to be found there.
I’ve bought a fair bit off of etsy. Some of it probably is mass produced but I only found it on etsy. Things like a pair of mermaid earrings, a VW belt buckle and specific character that probably wasn’t licensed. There was also the coca cola white sox stocking hat that I bought for Mistermage. It’s from the 80s but he loves how they fit and how warm they keep him. I’ve bought him one for XMas the last 5 years but he knows there will come a time when he’ll have to find a new style of hat.
Other stuff was for sure homemade like the fetus soap bar*, zombie finger soap and various goatsmilk soaps.
*Sign in | Etsy smells great and leaves my skin super soft.
My son has a friend who sold stuff on Etsy and she was absolutely authenthic. But we mainly bought her and other stuff at a craft fair in Seattle around Thanksgiving. What she did was buy old cashmere sweaters and the like, unweave them and reweave into scarfs and similar things. She did exquisite things. Unfortunately she found it too time-consuming and is now reselling old post cards.
I’ve had generally good experiences buying things from Etsy. I think I do a moderate amount of comparison shopping that helps me get a sense of what’s out there and what’s really original. I’ve contacted several sellers about items I’ve seen on their page, and asked for a quote to make a similar item but with different colors or other random requests and I’ve been really satisfied – I’m quoted a reasonable price and the item arrives as promised and I find it hard to believe that the seller just happened to have another mass-produced item coincidentally in my brother’s fraternity colors and his name on it. You get a feel for it – someone who is really making the item is going to ask you the right questions to get the thing to your specifications.
There are a few areas where it might be harder to know what you’re getting, especially if you don’t know that much about the field – an example would be vintage-looking posters and prints. I know enough about this to be able to tell (in most cases) from the descriptions if something is an actual, vintage thing or simply a vintage design that was reprinted yesterday. It’s not that the seller is being dishonest – it’s that the buyer maybe didn’t know the questions to ask before purchasing. I’ve even seen positive feedback about a wonderful “vintage print” and I know for sure that it’s recently mass produced. But, it’s a print – if the buyer thinks it looks adorable displayed in their home, well, then I guess that was a positive transaction.
I have bought some great perfumes, body lotion, soaps and a handmade puppet. All worked out awesome for me!
I sell beaded things on etsy, and am upfront about my real location. All of my purchased items have likewise come from where they claim to be based.
But there are a lot of resellers- fronted by people who may well live in the US, say, but all the items are shipped from a warehouse in China. It’s worth googling for resellers.
Try this:
Great looking bug!
I have purchased many times from Etsy and will again. Each individual store has their own stories - I’d make sure to check the reviews before you purchase. The particular seller was probably a wholesaler.