The online craft marketplace Etsy has announced Pattern, its e-commerce store builder that hopes to attract current users while competing with industry giants like Shopify and Squarespace.
Where all Etsy users are given a basic templated page to sell their wares, Pattern gives them the ability to create and design their own online store from a number of more fulsome templates, then upload it to a unique domain for $15 a month.
The new store-based format hopes to incentivize sellers to stick with the platform even after they’ve become successful, said Demetrius Michael, a marketing consultant and former Shopify staffer.
“When you buy from Etsy, or any kind of marketplace, when people ask you where you bought it, you say ‘Etsy.’ You don’t say the store name. I bought this on Amazon, I didn’t get it from Jacob’s Ties on Amazon,” he said. “That small distinction really matters. Business owners realize that and eventually want to break out into their own brand. “
Etsy sellers — typically hobbyists that start selling handmade products — often graduate to an online store provider where they can build a unique retail experience and brand. Michael believes Pattern is Etsy’s attempt at capturing some of that market share before it builds an ecommerce store elsewhere.
“The business model that they currently have incentivizes people to eventually leave after they’re successful,” he said. Pattern “makes a lot of sense for them to stop the bleeding on the top end but also add some predictability to their revenue and widen their market reach.”
A standard Etsy seller’s page
“They have 1.6 million active sellers, and about one third of them, according to their data, said they’re interesting in starting their own site,” said Michael. “Even if they get a 10% take, that’s 160,000 sellers times $15 a month. That’s a really nice chunk of revenue that they get pretty much for free, because they already have really good relationships with payment gateways.”
A sample Pattern-templated store
From an operations side, Michael added that Etsy will benefit from having a predictable, recurring line of revenue, as opposed to relying on processing fees that can vary significantly month to month.
The company also announced a number of changes to its primary site, including a redesign that allows sellers to post cover photos, store updates and selling policies on a single page.
