There's a lot of mass-produced crap and plenty of overpriced stuff on Etsy, but it's not too hard to find real creators. I recently bought some nice wooden guitar wall hangers, made by some guy in Pennsylvania. My wedding ring was made by a guy in Luisiana. I felt both were reasonably priced for something not made in an overseas factory.

Edit: My method is something like, search for what I'm looking for, flip through items to try to find things that actually look like a person made them (i.e. not made of metal or plastic, unless the shop specifically specializes in those; not identical to five hundred other listings), then look over reviews and search for the creator online. Most creators maintain their own web presence outside of Etsy, too. It doesn't seem that onerous to me, you'd want to do that research anyway for a nice, hand-made item, wouldn't you? I don't really understand how people get scammed by drop-shippers on Etsy. Do you just click "Buy Now" on the first listed item you like the picture of?

I agree, it's usually easy to weed out real creators from drop shippers/pirates if you care to. The one method you left off was to send a message to the seller. It's pretty easy to tell through communication.

This is now my approach. Communicate. Ask for more info. Customization options. A photo of their shop. ask where is there shop.

I live with a lot of early artists. A ton of people make and buy art on Etsy

> This is a seller strike not a worker strike, just to clarify.

I found this clarification interesting. If a headline said “Uber Strike”, I think most of us would assume it was the drivers (rather than Uber’s in-house employees) striking. I naturally thought the exact same thing here.

Maybe I'm getting it mixed up with some other similarly sized tech companies in NYC but I thought I remembered Etsy workers talking about forming a union and I thought this might be related. Maybe I'm thinking of Kickstarter.

I'm the primary audience. I sell hand made wooden goods (shaker trays, boxes, urns) and most of the listings around me for similar items are less than 25% of my prices. I sell less than 10 items a month.

It's difficult, though. What is hand made? Can you use a CNC? 3D printer? What percent must be hand made? I use a table saw and mitered joints instead of truly hand made dovetail joints.

I have been wondering similar to you as to where the cut off is for "fine woodworking".

In my view, go to town! Craftsmen in the past might have done a lot by hand but they used every tool they could!

But I understand other opinions may differ.

Handmade means without machines, but practically no one sticks to that definition so it's pretty much meaningless now.

Unless a specific term is regulated by law, it's just marketing

Sorry I didn't mean who's the primary audience of this strike I meant who is their customer (persona). I should have said market or customer instead of audience.

For buyers it probably varies a lot but there’s a lot of anime/video game/tabletop gaming stuff. I know it’s the first place I look if I want the sort of things I might otherwise buy at a con. (Think pins, custom dice, etc.)

Got it, thanks!

I've ordered some handmade ties as gifts (silk ties), and niche high quality items for my dog that aren't mass produced, but can be hand made. Stuff like a Dyneema leash, a specific kind Biothane collar that will fit my dog's breed well, and a toy for hiding treats called a SnuffleMat. There's a decent amount of dog stuff at a fair price, and the stuff I've gotten from Etsy lasts way longer than a random piece of kit from Amazon.

I used Etsy a few times to buy art paintings. Back then there were certainly a few high-profile sellers who kept showing up with the same stuff again and again. Not necessarily anything wrong with what they were doing, but I don't need to see it over and over again...

But with a little bit of effort I could find some pretty neat art to decorate my walls with.