Calling bullsh*t

Etsy clearly indicates handmade items for sale as one of the primary things you’ll see on a product page:

I’ve purchased a few handmade things from Etsy this year, which on arrival had an odd factory smell, along with other weird clues like shrink-wrap packaging, multi-week delivery times, customs stickers, and “Made in China” labels.

One snag I noticed is that new listings on Etsy have “Handmade” selected by default – so if your item is not handmade, you have to switch it off.

I contacted one seller about this, and the response to whether it was actually handmade or not wasn’t a clear yes or no, but rather I was pointed to the fact that the items are made to order… nice, but not the same thing, so I put that to them aswell.

A few more questions lead to discovering that my seller was actually just an importer, the products were factory made, and the Aussie address, while real, was simply used for shop headquarters. The fact that they can customise their products allowed them to believe that leaving the “Handmade” ticked on was justified.

I really don’t like having suspicions like this about a company like Etsy that seems to be doing the right things… especially when suspicions are confirmed.

But I’ve had this sense that the handmade thing was a bit of bullsh*t for a while now. Almost as though it was something that worked when Etsy was actually mostly makers, but they left it there because it works.

Etsy and others really need to do better with this.

I’ve since started conversations with sellers before purchasing (rather than after), which is not unlike the awkward conversations I’ve talked about that can come up with suppliers when your values don’t line up.

It’s always, always worth asking questions to sellers, suppliers, whoever – otherwise you’re spending your hard-earned on them, which is a direct way of saying you support of whatever bullsh*t they’re pulling.

(Subject line inspired by the book “Calling Bullshit – The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World” available on Booktopia).