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Etsy Slashes Almost a Quarter Of Its Staff In Attempt To Refocus (engadget.com)
Etsy, the online market for artisan and handmade goods, said on Wednesday that it will reduce its workforce by 15 per cent on top of another round of job cuts announced last month. From a report: CEO Josh Silverman announced this morning that Etsy was laying off 15 percent of its workforce. That's in addition to layoffs that were announced in early May; the total workforce reduction comes in at 22 percent, or about 230 employees. Silverman said the layoffs were part of an effort to focus on Etsy's "vital few initiatives," though he didn't specify exactly what parts of the company were being a drag. The only indication was that the company would focus on its "core marketplace."
Since when is 15 almost 25?
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Laying off artisans won't help.
Laying off senior execs will.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
For all the hype and money that flowed in this place they're still just an cheaper version of ebay. stock price half of what the IPO was. Yeah, investors aren't seeing their value, and wait until the staff starts dumping the options they have.
Or just plain focus. In trouble, folks. DUMP and RUN!
I haven't seen any marketing from Etsy. Not saying they don't market but whatever they are doing isn't reaching me. I forget about them but every time I visit I find something I want.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
They had a niche, hand made, one off product shop. Not the mass-produced stuff of ebay.
They should of focused on that. That made etsy unique. It was like a niche artist market. But they allowed the lines to blur. And there isn't room for two ebays.
teh maths dont lie, Shakira!
I've been to their site, they need like 3 people tops, in total. One owner, web programmer and one IT guy to maintain the servers. Hell you can use Geocities and save more money. Accounting can be farmed out to the crafty Jew down the street and the brotha at the bodega can handle night janitorial duties.
The best pink slips are those lovingly hand-crafted by skilled artisans.
99% of the crap on their site is just that, crap.
Etsy could die tomorrow and nobody would care.
How can a company like Etsy employ over 1000 people in the first place? What the heck do they all do? The site isn't *that* complicated. I would have expected a handful of developers, managers, etc. Definitely no more than 20. This is just bizarre. I guess it's good that they're downsizing if they want to survive.
Etsy used to have a good community of sellers in the forums that, at least sometimes, kept them from doing stupid things. Then in their run up to the IPO they destroyed it.
1) Banned lots of sellers from being able to post.
2) Redesigned the forums to bury any real discussion with useless crap.
3) Moved the link to the forums from the header to the footer.
It was a clear message about the way things were going to be. We are going to start doing things you aren't going to like and we don't want to hear about it.
why do they have to SLASH their staff, that's just barbaric. Couldn't they just fire, errr, terminate, uh, lay them off?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You mean all the bulk resellers you let in who fucked over the people that made you what you are today?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Big companies selling their mass market products, doubling the price and trying to make it look like they are a small niche company is what killed them.
Maybe it isn't viable after all..
I only learned about Etsy through the old Regretsy site. People trying to pass off dresses bought from China as homemade, terrible Photoshop work, upcycling shit that should never be upcycled, and plenty of other stuff they classified as "whimsical fuckery". It was like Cake Wrecks, but for crafts.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
They had a niche, hand made, one off product shop. Not the mass-produced stuff of ebay.
They should of focused on that. That made etsy unique. It was like a niche artist market. But they allowed the lines to blur. And there isn't room for two ebays.
Seemed to me that is was mostly crap slapped together with a hot glue gun or other build this project in 10 minutes out of shit that's lying around the house then sell it and a place where artists who were actually skilled at their craft should avoid completely for the sake of their brand.
Then again I'm not part of the "buy customized barbie dolls for $100 crowd"--so whatever floats their boat.
ETSY is trading above $14 per share for the first time in seven months.