Cool idea! Sometimes I wish Stackoverflow had a similar functionality, where rather than getting help, I could literally offer a cash bounty for the solution. I realize the focus of SO is for education, but would be a nice option, particularly since it already has a very active community.
Thank you. This is exactly the reason I built this site.
I had the idea a long time ago, and then SO came out a few weeks later, so I abandoned it because I thought SO would fill that space. However, they've remained free, and it's still hard to get an answer on something requiring more than a few minutes' time.
Checkout passive GPS tracking devices. They record movement, then you can upload the data back into a system via USB. RFID might work if you're tracking movement within a building. If you want to be able to locate or track an item remotely, I believe you would need a device with GPS & wireless data capability.
2) I personally admire email campaign sites like campaignmonitor.com and mailchimp.com. They have created great businesses centered around a very simple product. It also has a wide enough audience and viral loop.
I have kinda asked this to the group, but thought I would direct it at you. Do you think other sub-markets of eBay could flourish as a separate entity? Or was Etsy just able to find a really good balance of a good market with a good audience?
I don't think Etsy was really a sub-market of eBay. This didn't occur to me at the time, anyway. I just thought that "handmade goods" are probably an aggregate multibillion dollar business.
I actually invested in another company that directly targets another eBay segment.
So yes, I strongly believe that other sub-markets of eBay are interesting to compete with.
I have this gut feeling that local furniture could be a huge market. Almost all my friends (even the ones with lots of money) got a large portion of their furniture from craigslist and other people.
I think these guys have also done a great job in showing how to chip away at eBay. Do you see any potential markets/customers/products that could also benefit from a dedicated site?
It's dicey. Handmade in Etsy terms can mean as little as altering a commercial item by splashing it with pain, or as much as making a silver bracelet entirely from sheet metal.
The line is blurred by the fact that they allow vintage items (defined as 20 years old or more - clearly something decided by 23 year olds) and mass produced craft supplies in their own sections, which has always been a source of confusion and friction. The CEO/founder blamed this on 'Leah from Craftster' in an interview, saying she picked the categories.
Other than that, it's not juried in anyway which is think is good. BUT, they do sometimes interrogate sellers about whether their items qualify, and come to incorrect and poorly supported conclusions about whether people are allowed. Etsy has has a long history of closing people's shops suddenly with no accountability or recourse... it's really inconsistent, too. Really inconsistent. Check out http://www.etsybitch.com for some recent horror stories.
AFAICT, there's not much line-drawing happening. In terms of handmade vs retail, I've seen people essentially buy retail items, paint a little something on it, then sell the "customized" items... but it doesn't seem like it hurts Etsy much for people to do that.
And in terms of controlling quality, there definitely isn't much...
In some cases, that goes for safety as well. My wife (a EE) noticed that there are a lot of sellers on Etsy selling jewelry made from recycled printed circuit boards (earrings, necklaces, bracelets, etc). Unfortunately, a lot of the sellers don't know that PCBs are full of heavy metals that should not be exposed to the skin without some sort of varnish coating. Especially since some sellers like to remove components and sand the boards down so they look cooler.
