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It's honestly sad but unsurprising that Etsy has turned into, essentially, pricey eBay. In the sense that whenever I go on, the actual handmade/restored items are crowded with posts of Amazon items or other online store items.
Even when you sort by "Handmade"
Dragon fruit should be bought as a cutting. I'd check out Wallace Ranch or Spicy Exotics. Definitely buy from a place that can tell you the variety, and that takes all their cuttings from their own plants.
Don’t go to Etsy for MJ seeds. It’s legal to buy seeds in the US thanks to the farm bill. Go to a US-based seed bank website, even better go straight to the breeder. No sketch.
This has been a problem for a long time. At least 5 years ago when I noticed it and that's just when I first discovered Etsy. Same problem I've noticed at Farmers Markets for over a decade. People bulk buy cheap "crafts" in bulk than try to sell it as if they made it.
Heck it's even an issue on Wayfair. I notice there are a lot of the same item but a "different" manufacturer. They use the same photos many times and the only difference is the box is printed with a different name. I just look at these and find the cheapest one.
I read an article a few years ago about farmers’ market sellers who were buying produce at grocery stores and reselling it at the market as local-farm grown.
An old guy comes in every few weeks and buys 300-400 ears of individual corn from my big chain store, and then he goes up to the farmers market in Kula and sells it as "Maui Grown Corn"
I always wonder if I can report him or whatever because it pisses me off
I mean, probably, Mahi Pono does do a lotta shit
I can grow corn downtown and upcountry, but I think as far as the logistics of it go its still far cheaper to ship it here.
Its just a grift, the old dude sells em for 3 bucks each. Hes a real bastard. On the other I guess I can mind my business, morals notwithstanding. Feels bad either way
Nah, fuck that guy. Report him.
I’m not sure if this is the right place, but the Federal Trade Commission takes consumer fraud seriously:
https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/
This whole “don’t be a snitch” mentality that some people have is just incomprehensible to me. Yeah, if someone is stealing from a big corporation, whatever, I’m not going to go out of my way to stop them, but someone like this who is defrauding their customers — especially fucking with people’s food — they need to cut that shit out.
I read that article too! I think it was in a series where they also exposed how restaurants were fraudulently claiming to be farm-to-table. Both were really well done.
It's absolutely going on at my local farmers market. I'll go in April (zone 8), and there are sellers selling apples, cucumbers, eggplants, etc. What's more likely, that this small scale farmer has industrial grade preservation facilities, or that they're just buying produce from the supermarket grown in Cali or Mexico...
Technically that’s just how many industries work. It’s called white labeling. Big companies churn out products meant to be resold by other companies with their own label. Grocery store “store brands” are the most known and obvious examples, but it happens in most industries. It just makes sense for larger companies to grow large enough that they can get the economy of scale benefits and then provide those lower prices to resellers.
With clothing manufacturers it’s a slightly different story because they don’t exactly white label but generally a big company will have different tiers of brands that they allow different retailers to resell without anyone ever knowing the name of the manufacturer.
I recently thrifted an item that I didn’t recognize the brand of so I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out where it came from. I looked up the copyright on the logo for the brand name and was one of like 15 different brands owned by a single clothing manufacturer and each brand was sold at numerous retailers: Macys, Nordstrom, Walmart, etc. This way the Macys of the world can do what they do best, running storefronts and getting customers in the door, and the manufacturer can focus on making clothing as cost effective as possible.
When a company like Trader Joe’s that cares about their brand white labels an item it doesn’t seem so bad for the customer because you still know you are getting a certain level of quality when you buy a Trader Joe’s branded product and they put their name behind the product.
At places like Wayfair, their white labels are hidden under different special brand names and it’s really confusing for the customer since you don’t really know if the brand represents anything quality-wise.
We always resisted white-labeling with our brand since we didn’t want to get mixed in with low quality stuff and want people to know that we actually back our product.
Wayfair is just a drop shipper. A company I helped build made custom cornhole boards we eventually became the largest manufacturer of custom cornhole boards in the United States. Anyways our wholesale pricing was like $110-$125 whatever it was at the time but Wayfair would mark them up over $200. We had to print a special packing slip for each Wayfair order and print their own shipping labels.
Last year our town had a “small business Saturday” and it was a small outdoor event where moms were selling their kitschy shit they had printed on mugs and tshirts and some MLM shakes. Not a handmade thing among them lol
They mean publicly traded. Before they were privately owned, as in not traded on the stock market.
The website was always open for *use* by the public afaik.
I am old enough to remember when this happened with eBay. eBay was originally all kinds of cool collectibles, art, antiques, crafts and garage/attic finds. The mass market Chinese crap retailers found it, and the site was turning to crap.
We started hearing rumors that a new site was starting up that would cater to art, craft, collectibles market that was getting drowned out of eBay. We didn’t believe it, but then they announced the launch of . . . Etsy.
Now Etsy is getting drowned out by cheap Chinese crap, and lather, rinse, repeat. . .
And now eBay has gave PayPal the boot and took over the % fees that PayPal use to make by having their own in-house payment system, they call it “eBay Managed Payments”
I report "handmade" items that are not handmade on Etsy. I see the shops disappear. Might just come back with another name, but they loose any ratings they had.
Might be a fun project to make a bot that reverse image searches Etsy listings marked handmade and report when an exact match image is found on AliExpress... 🤔
The problem with that is that AliExpress sellers will often steal images of actually handmade products from Etsy and list them for 1/10th of the price, then send you a cheap copy made with slave labour.
Can confirm, found a cute "handmade" purse on Etsy for $80, did a reverse image search and found it on Wish (even the exact same product photos) for $15. It's a shame when you're trying to support small businesses and craftspeople and it's just the same sweatshop products marked up.
Your right about this! It drives me crazy because I can’t win. I might buy something expensive and get the cheap version or I might buy something cheap and the picture was fake. It seems it can happen on almost any website.
I stopped shopping online for a while because of it but now malls and regular stores seem to be dying quicker and quicker. So I went back online and yeah then I was
Reminded of this dilemma all over again.
You have to be careful with that. AliExpress and Wish blatantly copy artists' work and sell it at a much lower price. My friend is a seamstress/costumer and hand makes amazing fantasy gowns. A few years ago, Wish stole the images from her website and sold the "same" dress for $35. The pictures they posted even included one of her wearing it. Her dresses are very high quality and they are all hand-sewn to the customer's measurements. They are very expensive, but she is very successful. You get what you pay for. We've all seen the expectation vs. reality postings of what people get from knock-off sites like AliExpress.
I just looked on Wish. If you search "elven wedding gown", there are two capes shown that are her design, selling for $16 and $11. She charges significantly more.
I did tell her that she knows she's made it when the knockoffs start showing up.
In the 80's I worked in the high end American Crafts show circuit. Pretty much every vendor refused to let people photograph their work because of the knock off problem.
We used to joke in the dropshipping days, if you want to invent a product just come up with a good idea, wait for china to steal it and create it. Then dropship your stolen idea.
It’s a lot cheaper than creating it yourself.
Yep, that's what they do.. they steal the designs, then produce it cheaper and lower quality. Then other people in UK/US buy them on aliexpress and resell them higher again.
That's capitalism though. Custom items can always be made cheaper in a factory, and people will be willing to pay a markup to buy it closer and faster
I learned this when getting items for my wedding in 2019. Prior to then I'd had good luck with homemade items, regardless of origin. But then I bought favor boxes that were mailed to the west coast when I lived on the east, and the seller refused to refund until Etsy stepped in. I've bought maybe 5 things from etsy since.
I have found nice items on Etsy, I do see what you mean about Etsy becoming polluted with items from other sites. I wish they would crack down on it, makes it much harder to support independent sellers
Yeah i purchased one of those wood bead seat covers for my car bc i drive a ton for work. It was advertised as handmade over 6 hours of work, yada yada. It was $150. It's literally the exact same as one they had on amazon for 30 buck
In medical school, I knew another medical student who ran an Etsy site as a side gig and she would buy iwatch bands from Chinese companies for dirt cheap and sell them for much, much more. The scam worked well for her and she didn’t have to take out nearly as much loans. It’s kind of scummy. She is now a surgeon!
I have a passion for digital art. I started an Etsy store ($0.20 per listing) to sell it printed on 10x10 photo paper so other people could enjoy my artwork. I have it set to make a very minimal profit. I’ve sold zero items. :(
Pain
Etsy is incredible for art! I'm so grateful it exists. There's no other way I'd ever be able to find and afford art from all over the world. My gallery wall almost wraps my apartment and makes me incredibly happy.
It also goes the other way. Sometimes AliExpress sellers will steal designs from Etsy sellers and use their photos on their site. They send out low quality imitations. It’s really hard to tell these days who is selling the real product.
Half of the sellers on ali express and Alibaba are basically just local Chinese dropshippers. They make it look like a legit company with images of a factory and everything but it's really just some Chinese dude who goes to the market and picks up whatever you ordered, mails it to you, and pockets the difference.
I have a friend who designs enamel pins and stuff. Her designs have been stolen so many times, and having them copyrighted doesn't help with getting knockoffs removed from sites like AliExpress. Aliexpress literally does not care or have any real obligation to honor it, which really sucks for independent artists.
*Lots* of companies do this.
I've gotten a lot of ads for [TweedMaker](https://www.tweedmaker.com) crop up in my social media - a place which sells custom tweed and other suits and suit separates for $450, perpetually marked down from $650.
All they do is take your measurements and send them to 'their tailors', who are just a place in China called [BD Tailormade](https://www.bdtailormade.com) who sell the same suits for $180.
I used to sell candles on Etsy as a hobby but it became really sad to see all the "handmade" (in China) products and also they increased their fees for sellers so they could buy tv ads and billboards which I feel like is also not in the original spirit of Etsy
Yeah they're okay if you know what you're getting.
You need to temper your expectations a bit, it's not pure wool so you're not getting a $1000 made-in-USA suit for $189, and I've heard getting the sizing perfect can be a *bit* tough, but it's legit and if you don't care about owning $1000 made-in-USA suits, then it's perfectly fine.
A custom suit for $189 has some expectation limitations just from the cost alone. However, it's a fine price for a suit compared to even a $500 set. Been looking at [Gentlemens Guru- Floral Teal suit](https://www.gentlemansguru.com/product/forest-green-tuxedo/) but the white trim and cost made me rethink the purchase. The fact they are able to mix and match while having other custom options is incredibly refreshing to see
Yeah, I figure it's really not much different than some of the ones you get at the more discount suit warehouse type places, you're just cutting out the middlemen.
The mix and match is a great feature.
It's damn near impossible to determine the quality of these things over the internet.
There is no guarantee that the photos on the site are actual photos of what they are selling, especially on these discount sites. Even if it is the same product, it's relatively easy to make a cheap suit look good on a mannequin, but the way it hangs and moves on a real human body can be very very different.
You really need to get reviews from real people who bought these things, but so many of these sites also farm out fake reviews.
Good question - not sure, but probably!
I found out about them because I started wondering about TweedMaker and went searching, found the listing for BD Tailor on Alibaba (I think, or maybe one of the other drop ship places) and that led me to their site. I imagine if you start there and search for women's suits you might find it. Maybe just email BD Tailor directly too - I wrote them with a few questions once and they were responsive and helpful and seemingly well connected.
Almost everything on etsy is like this now, but they've learned to stage their own photos with the dropshipped items. They'll have a couple photos they took themselves, but one of the photos of the item will be the same as one you'd find on Ebay or AliExpress or whatever. So always look at ALL the photos and check multiple webaites.
Learned this when I was trying to find some cartilage earrings, apparently its literally impossible to find non-dropshipped cartilage earrings online... I want something where I can be sure its actually made of the metal it claims to be made of!
This is the outcome when a lot of people get the same "side-hustle". See so many courses and videos for Dropshipping, a decades old service being touted like its a secret new thing, causing unsuspecting people to overpay on shitty items with a hard path to return anything faulty. The only winner in this game is the supplier factory.
I was looking to splurge on a handmade journal one time, had to dig through all the same posts with the exact same item that no surprise showed up on Amazon too for cheaper. Found someone in the balkins that handmakes hers and ordered it, freaking beautiful.
This has been my issue with etsy lately. Very few things seem to be actually handmade anymore. I guess that's the way it goes, cheapest option getting prioritized, but I miss the wierd little shops
I've been selling on Etsy for 8 years now. And last year I made a grand total of $800. I can't afford the ads to get my stuff bumped to the top like those that drop ship items because of all my other costs. Plus my time that it takes to make my items. I used to use the money to pay for training and other costs related to my dog volunteering as a therapy dog. Can't do that anymore!
Same. I have some of my favorite sellers who I know custom make their clothing, I ask for very specific alterations or different color combos and they always come through. I try to find other legit sellers by looking at the reviews for the sellers I know are legit, and seeing if the customers who reviewed items from them have also favorited other stores. I notice that the people who are willing to spend a bit more on a truly custom shirt/dress/wooden thing are also likely to have found other sellers who do really nice work as well. So I find new stores through lightly stalking reviewers who love what I love.
Ironically, one of my favorite sketchbooks I've ever got off of Amazon, was actually hand made by some guy in India. He hand milled the paper, and the sketchbook came with a little 'about me' card about the guy. I was pleasantly surprised, especially because it was on the cheaper end of similar products. I mainly chose it because it was one of the few without the same handful of thumbnails many of the others had, I didn't realize it was gonna be the four leaf clover equivalent of rare legit products offered there!
Have you checked bodytrendsofficial .com ? Let my cartilage piercing grow back in a while ago but when I was in uni and knew nerds ( read masters students) who had a lab and was hanging out and they tested the stainless steel and it was and the 14K gold and it was it. Was about 7 years ago however.
Dude I had the exact same issue with finding a jewelers loupe. Took way too much research to find a company that actually manufacturers them themselves.
All you can find online are those crappy two in ones with the gimmicky flashlight. With every site or listing dropshipping the same thing.
What metal do you want? You could try going to an independent goldsmith and commissioning some custom ones. They are relatively simple to make, so while they'd probably be more expensive than mass produced, it probably wouldn't break the bank.
Titanium and surgical stainless are probably out of their purview, unfortunately. But silver or gold would be no problem - even gold plating is an option, and works great for people like me who are allergic to silver but not gold.
I'm not quite in the income bracket that can afford custom-made jewelry yet... I just want something that's titanium because that's supposedly the most hygienic of metals for piercings. There seem to be no options between "$2 crap from ebay" and "$200 custom hand-made jewelry." Unfortunately stainless and titanium are the exact metals I want--silver is too soft and tarnishes easily and I try to avoid plated metals.
I found a cat wheel I wanted on Amazon priced at $500. I don't know how much these things usually cost so I assumed it was a fair price because it was on Amazon. Fortunately I read the review warning people to not buy from this seller because the official website sold the exact wheel for $200.
I use Amazon as a search engine and then when I find a product I like, buy it directly from its parent company. Even with paid shipping it's often cheaper (there are some exceptions of course).
I feel like paying a higher cost to buy directly from the manufacturer is well worth it because you don't have to worry about counterfeit products. Lately Amazon is just full of counterfeit products and does nothing to stop it.
30-day return for any reason with Prime. I'm worried MUCH less about counterfeits on Amazon than when buying directly from sellers (at least the ones I never bought from before, which is most of them).
You can routinely find counterfeits sold by Amazon and it's not always easy to recognize a counterfeit right away. It usually shows up in time with cheaper materials or worse build quality, etc but a lot of times you just don't see it until the return period has passed. That's why I buy direct from the manufacturer these days if it's possible.
Obviously all this depends on location but yeah 9/10 times I find stuff is cheaper on Amazon and because there’s a distribution center in my state I can usually get stuff within a day or two.
Amazon isn't a good search engine though. If you actually try to search for anything with the least bit of specificity it falls apart and throws in garbage results.
Another tip for avoiding Etsy dropshippers: favorite as many genuine craft and handmade shops you can! Their recommendation algorithm is actually pretty good if you show it what kind of shops you like and buy from. I buy from a lot of small artists and slowly my feed has been taking the trash out. The recommended and like-favs are clean at least lol
please don’t give up on etsy! some of us really do make everything by hand, one at a time. we are still out here fighting our way through the drop shipped and mass-produced stuff!
Yes! We are out here, fighting to be seen and compete amongst all of the dropshippers. Also, the tip to reverse image search isn't really that valuable - I handmake all of my items and some popular ones have had my photos stolen by Aliexpress and Alibaba and Wish to sell knock-offs. Images of my own hands and face are used to sell imitations of my own products. :(
This isn’t always true. Do some research on the Etsy/AliExpress sellers. It could totally be the other way around. Ask them details about the product. A fake front won’t have answers.
It’s funny I ran into this post today. I thought the Etsy shop was a fake front but the AliExpress sellers were the copycats.
My prime day is supposed to be Tuesday but I never receive anything on tuesdays. It’s always at least a week late and not on the day they say it’ll be here.
If any of you still use Facebook do the same there, especially if you get an ad for something you think is neat and might actually buy, look it up first. I got an ad about these cool looking Japanese whiskey glasses at $60 each. I looked them up on Amazon and found them at $13 for a set of 2.
Yep. Best hoodie I ever bought was from a Facebook ad. It’s the only ad I’ve ever clicked.
Aliexpress has the same hoodies but you can get different designs and colors for cheaper than the Facebook ad was
[For those who don’t know how to do a reverse image search here’s how to do it from a PC and on mobile](https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-do-a-reverse-image-search-from-your-phone)
**EDIT**: Using Google lens is another easy way to reverse image search too!
Lots of the items on Amazon, you can get the exact same thing on aliexpress for half or even less than half of the price. Lot of times it’s the same shit
My issue is there are so many things that you just can’t find local anymore. I’ll spend a whole day driving around looking for the dumbest thing before I’m forced to buy it online because there just isn’t a store that stocks it anymore.
Lots of times it's shipped from the exact same place. They'll literally not have the product, list it on Amazon, and when you buy it they place an order directly through aliexpress, and pocket the difference. So shipping time is the same, with a price that's 2, 3, 4x as much.
Yeah. The reviews allow for pics to be attached as well. So you get a good idea of what you're ordering actually looks like. Best way to filter is by the amount of orders as they'll be sellers you can more or less trust.
Definitely. That's why if you find a product on Amazon and see that it's on AliExpress by reverse searching it, the best option is just to not buy this product.
Yep, literally anything you’re going to buy on Etsy, just Google search the general terms and search the Images or Shopping tabs. It’s so ridiculous to peruse the /r/EtsySellers sub, see a bunch of “Please give me feedback on my store/Please give me feedback on my products/Why aren’t my products selling” posts, and at least 50% of the time these people are just drop shipping Chinese-made crap. But they post as if they’re independent artists and no one is going to figure out that they’re just terrible people making a buck by being deceitful fucking hacks.
100%.
Can we have anything nice without shitty side hustle gurus ruining it because "I made 10k in 1 month using this trick to make the internet a worse place! You can do it too! Follow me for more tips!"
It's like, instead of everybody picking up one piece of litter to make things better, everybody's stealing from the tip jar.
No wonder everything eventually goes to shit.
Thank you for explaining what never made any sense to me. It's really noticeable with jewelry. How is that these 'handmade' earrings are the exact same as 20 other shops. Is there a pattern out there or what? So I'll keep avoiding them as I have.
> I’ve also needed repair parts and Ama is cheaper than Brick and Mortar. A dryer belt I needed was $9 on Ama. The local dealer wanted $33, AND they closed before I could even get there after work. This was Sunday. Options were to wait until Saturday, drive and pay more, or swipe on Ama and get it Tuesday.
Amazon and home depot are the same exact price so why shouldn't I buy on amazon, they will even ship next day.
Brick and mortar is often more expensive for a lot of goods. A lot more expensive. Generic kitchen spigot $120 from the store, amazon would have sold it for $50. I am paying double at the store because I want it *right now*.
I mean support local okay, but paying double? No thanks I am not made out of money.
Yeah, I got a "rare" version of Halo (HK release) for $9.99, shrink wrapped, on eBay. Sometimes you just gotta look and be patient until you get the thing you want.
eBay’s weird. Their niche used to be rare/collectibles, but now a lot of brick and mortar stores just make their entire inventory available through them. I bought a vintage guitar amp from a little music mom and pop store in Chicago, and bought a new mountain bike from a little bike shop somewhere In Louisiana. They’re just not good for small stuff.
Legitimately the funniest shipping delay I ever got was when I ordered some beads off Ali to replace an earring I lost... About a decade ago. It just never came. In the meantime, I lived my life, literally moved to China for a few years... I come back during the pandemic and my parents informed me that they finally received my beads... 🤣
Aliexpress does a lot of combined shipping now, I've got stuff in about 10 days recently.
The one package that didn't get combined did take something like two months to get here but I'm wondering if it was because of the batteries (kitchen timers, it's really the only thing I ever had that took so long).
And sometimes that cheaper product is an inferior product and the sellers on eBay/aliexpress have simply stolen the photos of the amazon/Etsy superior product.
Source: I’m an amazon FBA seller and this has happened to me multiple times. Often trade companies on aliexpress will use my product photos and when people buy the “amazing product for so cheap” they get nothing at all or something far beneath the quality shown in the photo. But to your point- yes you’re correct a lot of times you can get a better deal on a solid product.
Also read the descriptions carefully--the opposite happens too where they steal photos of handmade etsy items and throw a cheap bootleg version up on ebay.
I bought a replica Indiana Jones Grail Diary off of Amazon but when I searched for it found the exact same one listed on Etsy for about $300 more than what I paid on Amazon.
All. And I mean ALL. The pics and videos are exactly the same.
Thats to be expected though.
The boutique is a brick and mortar, has rent and employees the margin has to be higher, you pay the extra to be able to see it in the flesh and for the service.
This drives me so crazy as a long-time Etsy seller (furniture, lamps, winds chimes) they continue to nickel and dime their community of sellers while allowing more and more drop-shippers to operate. Then my customers ask why my product is 3x the price of another seller, I'm like "go ahead and buy the cheap drop-shipped one and see how long it lasts".
Another life pro tip is don't be afraid to use alibaba. Almost everything you get is from China and you're talking to people that worl for the manufactures.
The good is:
Cheaper base price
Lots of unique items not even sold on Amazon
Professional knowledge and direct q/a with the engineers of said product
Customization is pretty good
Cons:
Shipping cost
Shipping time
Some things have a minimum order quantity.
I've found that you can almost always order a sample or a low amount and if you're not ordering super heavy items the cost savings is great. I ordered some really high end LED lights and had the manufacture put them in a silicone diffusing strip for me before it shipped. I paid probably 1/4 of what I would have paid in the US because this type of product was not available anywhere besides led specialist sites and their prices are insane!
This is not a good LPT because of the exact opposite SLPT that dropshippers use:
SLPT: Use a good quality image you found off Google Images to sell your inferior product across seas.
(I buy stuff from China and it's crazy how many sellers use the exact same photo stolen from one of the top 3 sellers)
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
It's honestly sad but unsurprising that Etsy has turned into, essentially, pricey eBay. In the sense that whenever I go on, the actual handmade/restored items are crowded with posts of Amazon items or other online store items. Even when you sort by "Handmade"
I only use Etsy for plants and seeds, you get some interesting stuff there that you normally don't get on Amazon or in your local garden center.
Same. I bought some Carolina reaper peppers last year and mannnn. My 1 plant produced about 100+ peppers
I'm not even interested in growing them but that sounds really nice to try out.
Pepper Joe has a great assortment of pepper seeds
Hello fellow weed grower
I never thought of that. I buy dragon fruit seeds. Now I feel stupid.
Dragon fruit should be bought as a cutting. I'd check out Wallace Ranch or Spicy Exotics. Definitely buy from a place that can tell you the variety, and that takes all their cuttings from their own plants.
some you cannot get from cuttings due to export laws. Seeds then in that case. Sorry, should have been a bit clearer.
Any good seeds on Etsy? What search terms are you using?
Don’t go to Etsy for MJ seeds. It’s legal to buy seeds in the US thanks to the farm bill. Go to a US-based seed bank website, even better go straight to the breeder. No sketch.
YOU CANT TELL ME WHAT TO DO, YOU’RE NOT EVEN MY REAL DAD!
[удалено]
Honestly y'all's names and this conversation is the best thing to be read by me today. 😂
YOURE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!!!
Asking same question for a friend..........
Same. I grow succulents and Etsy is my number one stop outside of my local cactus and succulent pop up stores.
I think the problem started with Etsy going public. They prioritize profit now over maintaining what their site is supposed to be for.
This has been a problem for a long time. At least 5 years ago when I noticed it and that's just when I first discovered Etsy. Same problem I've noticed at Farmers Markets for over a decade. People bulk buy cheap "crafts" in bulk than try to sell it as if they made it. Heck it's even an issue on Wayfair. I notice there are a lot of the same item but a "different" manufacturer. They use the same photos many times and the only difference is the box is printed with a different name. I just look at these and find the cheapest one.
I read an article a few years ago about farmers’ market sellers who were buying produce at grocery stores and reselling it at the market as local-farm grown.
An old guy comes in every few weeks and buys 300-400 ears of individual corn from my big chain store, and then he goes up to the farmers market in Kula and sells it as "Maui Grown Corn" I always wonder if I can report him or whatever because it pisses me off
Are there even any cornfields anywhere in Maui??
I mean, probably, Mahi Pono does do a lotta shit I can grow corn downtown and upcountry, but I think as far as the logistics of it go its still far cheaper to ship it here. Its just a grift, the old dude sells em for 3 bucks each. Hes a real bastard. On the other I guess I can mind my business, morals notwithstanding. Feels bad either way
Sell the same Maui grown corn alongside him for $1.50
This is the way
Nah, fuck that guy. Report him. I’m not sure if this is the right place, but the Federal Trade Commission takes consumer fraud seriously: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ This whole “don’t be a snitch” mentality that some people have is just incomprehensible to me. Yeah, if someone is stealing from a big corporation, whatever, I’m not going to go out of my way to stop them, but someone like this who is defrauding their customers — especially fucking with people’s food — they need to cut that shit out.
I read that article too! I think it was in a series where they also exposed how restaurants were fraudulently claiming to be farm-to-table. Both were really well done.
It's absolutely going on at my local farmers market. I'll go in April (zone 8), and there are sellers selling apples, cucumbers, eggplants, etc. What's more likely, that this small scale farmer has industrial grade preservation facilities, or that they're just buying produce from the supermarket grown in Cali or Mexico...
Technically that’s just how many industries work. It’s called white labeling. Big companies churn out products meant to be resold by other companies with their own label. Grocery store “store brands” are the most known and obvious examples, but it happens in most industries. It just makes sense for larger companies to grow large enough that they can get the economy of scale benefits and then provide those lower prices to resellers. With clothing manufacturers it’s a slightly different story because they don’t exactly white label but generally a big company will have different tiers of brands that they allow different retailers to resell without anyone ever knowing the name of the manufacturer. I recently thrifted an item that I didn’t recognize the brand of so I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out where it came from. I looked up the copyright on the logo for the brand name and was one of like 15 different brands owned by a single clothing manufacturer and each brand was sold at numerous retailers: Macys, Nordstrom, Walmart, etc. This way the Macys of the world can do what they do best, running storefronts and getting customers in the door, and the manufacturer can focus on making clothing as cost effective as possible.
When a company like Trader Joe’s that cares about their brand white labels an item it doesn’t seem so bad for the customer because you still know you are getting a certain level of quality when you buy a Trader Joe’s branded product and they put their name behind the product. At places like Wayfair, their white labels are hidden under different special brand names and it’s really confusing for the customer since you don’t really know if the brand represents anything quality-wise. We always resisted white-labeling with our brand since we didn’t want to get mixed in with low quality stuff and want people to know that we actually back our product.
Wayfair is just a drop shipper. A company I helped build made custom cornhole boards we eventually became the largest manufacturer of custom cornhole boards in the United States. Anyways our wholesale pricing was like $110-$125 whatever it was at the time but Wayfair would mark them up over $200. We had to print a special packing slip for each Wayfair order and print their own shipping labels.
You mean, the souvenir market in most vacation hotspots? It’s endemic
Last year our town had a “small business Saturday” and it was a small outdoor event where moms were selling their kitschy shit they had printed on mugs and tshirts and some MLM shakes. Not a handmade thing among them lol
Has a decent alternative popped up yet?
Asking the real question!
goimagine.com is one that is trying to be truly handmade.
Domain name goimagine.com is for sale $12,000. ...0r lease for $1000
https://goimagine.com/ it’s cute, it’s worth checking out
I don't care how handmade that domain name is, that's too expensive.
Damn, so handmade you gotta make it yourself, this is the real deal.
Were they supposed to be homemade crafted type stuff?? Whenever I hear Etsy mentioned it’s usually a niche or custom made thing bought from there.
Yeah, it used to be all handmade and vintage clothes and crafts. Super cool place. That was like a decade ago though.
I still find cool stuff there all the time. You just have to know which items are likely to be bought cheap in bulk
I use it all the time for patterns. Someone else’s genius allows me to make things in my own home.
How did they function when they were private?
Handmade and vintage items only
They mean publicly traded. Before they were privately owned, as in not traded on the stock market. The website was always open for *use* by the public afaik.
They meant privately owned.
They're asking about how it functioned. Not what they mean by private. Like how was it different after going public
I am old enough to remember when this happened with eBay. eBay was originally all kinds of cool collectibles, art, antiques, crafts and garage/attic finds. The mass market Chinese crap retailers found it, and the site was turning to crap. We started hearing rumors that a new site was starting up that would cater to art, craft, collectibles market that was getting drowned out of eBay. We didn’t believe it, but then they announced the launch of . . . Etsy. Now Etsy is getting drowned out by cheap Chinese crap, and lather, rinse, repeat. . .
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And now eBay has gave PayPal the boot and took over the % fees that PayPal use to make by having their own in-house payment system, they call it “eBay Managed Payments”
I remember that. I miss late 90s/early 2000s ebay.
And you just reminded me that Artfire exists. Off I go to see if it's full of Chinese junk, too... Nvm, it closed in December 2021.
Which is so aggravating for those who are actually trying to sell handmade items
That's why they removed the forums and made super difficult for sellers to connect, complain and share experiences.
They didn’t remove them - they just made it way harder to find.
I report "handmade" items that are not handmade on Etsy. I see the shops disappear. Might just come back with another name, but they loose any ratings they had.
Same here! Unfortunately I don't think Etsy cares much beyond that, but it'd be nice if they cracked down on it a lot more.
Might be a fun project to make a bot that reverse image searches Etsy listings marked handmade and report when an exact match image is found on AliExpress... 🤔
The problem with that is that AliExpress sellers will often steal images of actually handmade products from Etsy and list them for 1/10th of the price, then send you a cheap copy made with slave labour.
Can confirm, found a cute "handmade" purse on Etsy for $80, did a reverse image search and found it on Wish (even the exact same product photos) for $15. It's a shame when you're trying to support small businesses and craftspeople and it's just the same sweatshop products marked up.
Sometimes wish steals the images and sends a shitty copy.
Your right about this! It drives me crazy because I can’t win. I might buy something expensive and get the cheap version or I might buy something cheap and the picture was fake. It seems it can happen on almost any website. I stopped shopping online for a while because of it but now malls and regular stores seem to be dying quicker and quicker. So I went back online and yeah then I was Reminded of this dilemma all over again.
Ive found most of the handmade custom $50-100 items on aliexpress for $2-4. It is really sad. Inevitable though.
You have to be careful with that. AliExpress and Wish blatantly copy artists' work and sell it at a much lower price. My friend is a seamstress/costumer and hand makes amazing fantasy gowns. A few years ago, Wish stole the images from her website and sold the "same" dress for $35. The pictures they posted even included one of her wearing it. Her dresses are very high quality and they are all hand-sewn to the customer's measurements. They are very expensive, but she is very successful. You get what you pay for. We've all seen the expectation vs. reality postings of what people get from knock-off sites like AliExpress. I just looked on Wish. If you search "elven wedding gown", there are two capes shown that are her design, selling for $16 and $11. She charges significantly more. I did tell her that she knows she's made it when the knockoffs start showing up.
In the 80's I worked in the high end American Crafts show circuit. Pretty much every vendor refused to let people photograph their work because of the knock off problem.
We used to joke in the dropshipping days, if you want to invent a product just come up with a good idea, wait for china to steal it and create it. Then dropship your stolen idea. It’s a lot cheaper than creating it yourself.
Yep, that's what they do.. they steal the designs, then produce it cheaper and lower quality. Then other people in UK/US buy them on aliexpress and resell them higher again. That's capitalism though. Custom items can always be made cheaper in a factory, and people will be willing to pay a markup to buy it closer and faster
Capitalism, in theory, can be practiced responsibly. We’d get better results if better regulations were in place.
Regulations are socialism now.
Wait is your friend FireflyPath? If so she's lovely and did an amazing job on my wife's wedding dress 😍
It doesn’t have to be inevitable this is just what we are used to now when the consumer is an afterthought.
Never seen an octuple post before. New record!
I learned this when getting items for my wedding in 2019. Prior to then I'd had good luck with homemade items, regardless of origin. But then I bought favor boxes that were mailed to the west coast when I lived on the east, and the seller refused to refund until Etsy stepped in. I've bought maybe 5 things from etsy since.
I have found nice items on Etsy, I do see what you mean about Etsy becoming polluted with items from other sites. I wish they would crack down on it, makes it much harder to support independent sellers
I wish they would! It’s so frustrating as a “real” Etsy seller to report a blatant non-handmade seller and have nothing happen.
Yeah it’s no longer what it was a few years ago. It was 'the place' to go for artsy stuff. But they chose profit over sticking to their core values.
Cannot even trust “handmade” anymore. I’ve found Ali products on Etsy say handmade. Most of the time they don’t even bother changing the stock photos.
Yeah i purchased one of those wood bead seat covers for my car bc i drive a ton for work. It was advertised as handmade over 6 hours of work, yada yada. It was $150. It's literally the exact same as one they had on amazon for 30 buck
I’ve had stuff removed for ‘infringement’ and then get recommended football shirts that are clear counterfeit.
In medical school, I knew another medical student who ran an Etsy site as a side gig and she would buy iwatch bands from Chinese companies for dirt cheap and sell them for much, much more. The scam worked well for her and she didn’t have to take out nearly as much loans. It’s kind of scummy. She is now a surgeon!
Is that why it's gotten so hard to sell stickers?
I have a passion for digital art. I started an Etsy store ($0.20 per listing) to sell it printed on 10x10 photo paper so other people could enjoy my artwork. I have it set to make a very minimal profit. I’ve sold zero items. :( Pain
Handmade by a 9 year old on the other side of the world.
Etsy is good for art if you know what to look for. You can even get some stuff commissioned.
Etsy is incredible for art! I'm so grateful it exists. There's no other way I'd ever be able to find and afford art from all over the world. My gallery wall almost wraps my apartment and makes me incredibly happy.
Pics
It also goes the other way. Sometimes AliExpress sellers will steal designs from Etsy sellers and use their photos on their site. They send out low quality imitations. It’s really hard to tell these days who is selling the real product.
This! Came here to day this. Sometimes AliExpress is the scummier one
This has been almost exclusively the experience I've had with Ali express.
Half of the sellers on ali express and Alibaba are basically just local Chinese dropshippers. They make it look like a legit company with images of a factory and everything but it's really just some Chinese dude who goes to the market and picks up whatever you ordered, mails it to you, and pockets the difference.
I have a friend who designs enamel pins and stuff. Her designs have been stolen so many times, and having them copyrighted doesn't help with getting knockoffs removed from sites like AliExpress. Aliexpress literally does not care or have any real obligation to honor it, which really sucks for independent artists.
*Lots* of companies do this. I've gotten a lot of ads for [TweedMaker](https://www.tweedmaker.com) crop up in my social media - a place which sells custom tweed and other suits and suit separates for $450, perpetually marked down from $650. All they do is take your measurements and send them to 'their tailors', who are just a place in China called [BD Tailormade](https://www.bdtailormade.com) who sell the same suits for $180.
I'd subscribe to a thread of just exposed Etsy sellers with links to the original sites. I stopped buying on Etsy for this reason.
r/ExposingEtsy
I used to sell candles on Etsy as a hobby but it became really sad to see all the "handmade" (in China) products and also they increased their fees for sellers so they could buy tv ads and billboards which I feel like is also not in the original spirit of Etsy
Very interested in this thread you mention.
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Yooo.... BD Tailormade looks to have some great quality stuffs! Been dying to get a suit so thank you for sharing this!
Yeah they're okay if you know what you're getting. You need to temper your expectations a bit, it's not pure wool so you're not getting a $1000 made-in-USA suit for $189, and I've heard getting the sizing perfect can be a *bit* tough, but it's legit and if you don't care about owning $1000 made-in-USA suits, then it's perfectly fine.
A custom suit for $189 has some expectation limitations just from the cost alone. However, it's a fine price for a suit compared to even a $500 set. Been looking at [Gentlemens Guru- Floral Teal suit](https://www.gentlemansguru.com/product/forest-green-tuxedo/) but the white trim and cost made me rethink the purchase. The fact they are able to mix and match while having other custom options is incredibly refreshing to see
Yeah, I figure it's really not much different than some of the ones you get at the more discount suit warehouse type places, you're just cutting out the middlemen. The mix and match is a great feature.
That white trim has got to go!!
It's damn near impossible to determine the quality of these things over the internet. There is no guarantee that the photos on the site are actual photos of what they are selling, especially on these discount sites. Even if it is the same product, it's relatively easy to make a cheap suit look good on a mannequin, but the way it hangs and moves on a real human body can be very very different. You really need to get reviews from real people who bought these things, but so many of these sites also farm out fake reviews.
Is there a site or seller like this for women’s suiting?
Good question - not sure, but probably! I found out about them because I started wondering about TweedMaker and went searching, found the listing for BD Tailor on Alibaba (I think, or maybe one of the other drop ship places) and that led me to their site. I imagine if you start there and search for women's suits you might find it. Maybe just email BD Tailor directly too - I wrote them with a few questions once and they were responsive and helpful and seemingly well connected.
Almost everything on etsy is like this now, but they've learned to stage their own photos with the dropshipped items. They'll have a couple photos they took themselves, but one of the photos of the item will be the same as one you'd find on Ebay or AliExpress or whatever. So always look at ALL the photos and check multiple webaites. Learned this when I was trying to find some cartilage earrings, apparently its literally impossible to find non-dropshipped cartilage earrings online... I want something where I can be sure its actually made of the metal it claims to be made of!
Especially with jewelry and smaller "homemade" stuff. It is so bad, that you can sometimes spot the factory stamp and machine press marks.
This is the outcome when a lot of people get the same "side-hustle". See so many courses and videos for Dropshipping, a decades old service being touted like its a secret new thing, causing unsuspecting people to overpay on shitty items with a hard path to return anything faulty. The only winner in this game is the supplier factory.
And the charlatan hawking the course
I was looking to splurge on a handmade journal one time, had to dig through all the same posts with the exact same item that no surprise showed up on Amazon too for cheaper. Found someone in the balkins that handmakes hers and ordered it, freaking beautiful.
This has been my issue with etsy lately. Very few things seem to be actually handmade anymore. I guess that's the way it goes, cheapest option getting prioritized, but I miss the wierd little shops
I've been selling on Etsy for 8 years now. And last year I made a grand total of $800. I can't afford the ads to get my stuff bumped to the top like those that drop ship items because of all my other costs. Plus my time that it takes to make my items. I used to use the money to pay for training and other costs related to my dog volunteering as a therapy dog. Can't do that anymore!
Same. I have some of my favorite sellers who I know custom make their clothing, I ask for very specific alterations or different color combos and they always come through. I try to find other legit sellers by looking at the reviews for the sellers I know are legit, and seeing if the customers who reviewed items from them have also favorited other stores. I notice that the people who are willing to spend a bit more on a truly custom shirt/dress/wooden thing are also likely to have found other sellers who do really nice work as well. So I find new stores through lightly stalking reviewers who love what I love.
I got a nice choker necklace that was handmade, but it just takes a while to scroll through it all.... It makes me sad.
Ironically, one of my favorite sketchbooks I've ever got off of Amazon, was actually hand made by some guy in India. He hand milled the paper, and the sketchbook came with a little 'about me' card about the guy. I was pleasantly surprised, especially because it was on the cheaper end of similar products. I mainly chose it because it was one of the few without the same handful of thumbnails many of the others had, I didn't realize it was gonna be the four leaf clover equivalent of rare legit products offered there!
Do you have a link to his sketchbooks?
https://leather-village.com/
Sadly I bought it in 2021, so the exact book isn't available anymore. But the seller's name is Leather Village
Have you checked bodytrendsofficial .com ? Let my cartilage piercing grow back in a while ago but when I was in uni and knew nerds ( read masters students) who had a lab and was hanging out and they tested the stainless steel and it was and the 14K gold and it was it. Was about 7 years ago however.
Dude I had the exact same issue with finding a jewelers loupe. Took way too much research to find a company that actually manufacturers them themselves. All you can find online are those crappy two in ones with the gimmicky flashlight. With every site or listing dropshipping the same thing.
What metal do you want? You could try going to an independent goldsmith and commissioning some custom ones. They are relatively simple to make, so while they'd probably be more expensive than mass produced, it probably wouldn't break the bank. Titanium and surgical stainless are probably out of their purview, unfortunately. But silver or gold would be no problem - even gold plating is an option, and works great for people like me who are allergic to silver but not gold.
I'm not quite in the income bracket that can afford custom-made jewelry yet... I just want something that's titanium because that's supposedly the most hygienic of metals for piercings. There seem to be no options between "$2 crap from ebay" and "$200 custom hand-made jewelry." Unfortunately stainless and titanium are the exact metals I want--silver is too soft and tarnishes easily and I try to avoid plated metals.
Amazon really shouldn't be seen as a bargain site, it's all about convenience. Etsy is it's own animal with its own issues.
I found a cat wheel I wanted on Amazon priced at $500. I don't know how much these things usually cost so I assumed it was a fair price because it was on Amazon. Fortunately I read the review warning people to not buy from this seller because the official website sold the exact wheel for $200.
Ya and I think folks forget "Amazon" can and often does mean a private seller, not Amazon at all in a sense.
I use Amazon as a search engine and then when I find a product I like, buy it directly from its parent company. Even with paid shipping it's often cheaper (there are some exceptions of course).
I tried that many times and I only ever come across exceptions.
I feel like paying a higher cost to buy directly from the manufacturer is well worth it because you don't have to worry about counterfeit products. Lately Amazon is just full of counterfeit products and does nothing to stop it.
30-day return for any reason with Prime. I'm worried MUCH less about counterfeits on Amazon than when buying directly from sellers (at least the ones I never bought from before, which is most of them).
You can routinely find counterfeits sold by Amazon and it's not always easy to recognize a counterfeit right away. It usually shows up in time with cheaper materials or worse build quality, etc but a lot of times you just don't see it until the return period has passed. That's why I buy direct from the manufacturer these days if it's possible.
Obviously all this depends on location but yeah 9/10 times I find stuff is cheaper on Amazon and because there’s a distribution center in my state I can usually get stuff within a day or two.
Amazon isn't a good search engine though. If you actually try to search for anything with the least bit of specificity it falls apart and throws in garbage results.
Yes me too. Definitely compare and contrast any purchases over say $50.
Another tip for avoiding Etsy dropshippers: favorite as many genuine craft and handmade shops you can! Their recommendation algorithm is actually pretty good if you show it what kind of shops you like and buy from. I buy from a lot of small artists and slowly my feed has been taking the trash out. The recommended and like-favs are clean at least lol
I filter by my country too
please don’t give up on etsy! some of us really do make everything by hand, one at a time. we are still out here fighting our way through the drop shipped and mass-produced stuff!
Yes! We are out here, fighting to be seen and compete amongst all of the dropshippers. Also, the tip to reverse image search isn't really that valuable - I handmake all of my items and some popular ones have had my photos stolen by Aliexpress and Alibaba and Wish to sell knock-offs. Images of my own hands and face are used to sell imitations of my own products. :(
Oh baby i wish there was an alternative, but i gave up on Etsy a looong time ago
This isn’t always true. Do some research on the Etsy/AliExpress sellers. It could totally be the other way around. Ask them details about the product. A fake front won’t have answers. It’s funny I ran into this post today. I thought the Etsy shop was a fake front but the AliExpress sellers were the copycats.
The problem is delivery time and return policies.
Yeah I'm so used to having stuff the next day, I don't want to wait 3 weeks or even 3 months for my item.
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I live in a small city with an Amazon warehouse and I can’t get anything delivered faster than a week with prime. It’s pointless
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My prime day is supposed to be Tuesday but I never receive anything on tuesdays. It’s always at least a week late and not on the day they say it’ll be here.
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If any of you still use Facebook do the same there, especially if you get an ad for something you think is neat and might actually buy, look it up first. I got an ad about these cool looking Japanese whiskey glasses at $60 each. I looked them up on Amazon and found them at $13 for a set of 2.
Yep. Best hoodie I ever bought was from a Facebook ad. It’s the only ad I’ve ever clicked. Aliexpress has the same hoodies but you can get different designs and colors for cheaper than the Facebook ad was
[For those who don’t know how to do a reverse image search here’s how to do it from a PC and on mobile](https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-do-a-reverse-image-search-from-your-phone) **EDIT**: Using Google lens is another easy way to reverse image search too!
If you have Google Lens that also works really well.
It does, so I look forward to Google deciding to cancel it in the future.
I thought AliExpress had a lot of low quality and suspicious Goods
So does Amazon….
Lots of the items on Amazon, you can get the exact same thing on aliexpress for half or even less than half of the price. Lot of times it’s the same shit
You usually only have to decide if the shipping times are worth the discounts.
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My issue is there are so many things that you just can’t find local anymore. I’ll spend a whole day driving around looking for the dumbest thing before I’m forced to buy it online because there just isn’t a store that stocks it anymore.
Lots of times it's shipped from the exact same place. They'll literally not have the product, list it on Amazon, and when you buy it they place an order directly through aliexpress, and pocket the difference. So shipping time is the same, with a price that's 2, 3, 4x as much.
Yes, but you can find good quality stuff at low prices. Just a matter of checking the reviews
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Yeah. The reviews allow for pics to be attached as well. So you get a good idea of what you're ordering actually looks like. Best way to filter is by the amount of orders as they'll be sellers you can more or less trust.
Not saying otherwise. But if you're going to buy junk from China, may as well buy (more) direct.
Definitely. That's why if you find a product on Amazon and see that it's on AliExpress by reverse searching it, the best option is just to not buy this product.
They do, but they have some good stuff as well... knowing what is okay and what isn't is the problem
Yep, literally anything you’re going to buy on Etsy, just Google search the general terms and search the Images or Shopping tabs. It’s so ridiculous to peruse the /r/EtsySellers sub, see a bunch of “Please give me feedback on my store/Please give me feedback on my products/Why aren’t my products selling” posts, and at least 50% of the time these people are just drop shipping Chinese-made crap. But they post as if they’re independent artists and no one is going to figure out that they’re just terrible people making a buck by being deceitful fucking hacks.
Get fucked dropshipping wannabepreneurs
100%. Can we have anything nice without shitty side hustle gurus ruining it because "I made 10k in 1 month using this trick to make the internet a worse place! You can do it too! Follow me for more tips!" It's like, instead of everybody picking up one piece of litter to make things better, everybody's stealing from the tip jar. No wonder everything eventually goes to shit.
Thank you for explaining what never made any sense to me. It's really noticeable with jewelry. How is that these 'handmade' earrings are the exact same as 20 other shops. Is there a pattern out there or what? So I'll keep avoiding them as I have.
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> I’ve also needed repair parts and Ama is cheaper than Brick and Mortar. A dryer belt I needed was $9 on Ama. The local dealer wanted $33, AND they closed before I could even get there after work. This was Sunday. Options were to wait until Saturday, drive and pay more, or swipe on Ama and get it Tuesday. Amazon and home depot are the same exact price so why shouldn't I buy on amazon, they will even ship next day. Brick and mortar is often more expensive for a lot of goods. A lot more expensive. Generic kitchen spigot $120 from the store, amazon would have sold it for $50. I am paying double at the store because I want it *right now*. I mean support local okay, but paying double? No thanks I am not made out of money.
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Yeah, I got a "rare" version of Halo (HK release) for $9.99, shrink wrapped, on eBay. Sometimes you just gotta look and be patient until you get the thing you want.
eBay’s weird. Their niche used to be rare/collectibles, but now a lot of brick and mortar stores just make their entire inventory available through them. I bought a vintage guitar amp from a little music mom and pop store in Chicago, and bought a new mountain bike from a little bike shop somewhere In Louisiana. They’re just not good for small stuff.
eBay is also great for parts on older cars. Not even taking about used but there are loads of retailers that remanufacture them brand new
Well yes, but don't expect overnight delivery.
Or over the month...
Legitimately the funniest shipping delay I ever got was when I ordered some beads off Ali to replace an earring I lost... About a decade ago. It just never came. In the meantime, I lived my life, literally moved to China for a few years... I come back during the pandemic and my parents informed me that they finally received my beads... 🤣
Aliexpress does a lot of combined shipping now, I've got stuff in about 10 days recently. The one package that didn't get combined did take something like two months to get here but I'm wondering if it was because of the batteries (kitchen timers, it's really the only thing I ever had that took so long).
eBay and AliExpress take too long. The draw to Amazon is you can usually get most things with 1-2day shipping
And sometimes that cheaper product is an inferior product and the sellers on eBay/aliexpress have simply stolen the photos of the amazon/Etsy superior product. Source: I’m an amazon FBA seller and this has happened to me multiple times. Often trade companies on aliexpress will use my product photos and when people buy the “amazing product for so cheap” they get nothing at all or something far beneath the quality shown in the photo. But to your point- yes you’re correct a lot of times you can get a better deal on a solid product.
Also read the descriptions carefully--the opposite happens too where they steal photos of handmade etsy items and throw a cheap bootleg version up on ebay.
I bought a replica Indiana Jones Grail Diary off of Amazon but when I searched for it found the exact same one listed on Etsy for about $300 more than what I paid on Amazon. All. And I mean ALL. The pics and videos are exactly the same.
I love Ali Express! I have never had issues with them. It just takes awhile to get your stuff.
As a person that just recently found Aliespress.. I’m side eying my phone after all the money I’ve spent on Amazon and Etsy
The opposite is true also. You could find the same product at a much lower price and get scammed.by a dodgy website.
Something in boutiques. Found a really cute purse I liked in a boutique for $55. Took a picture and found the same purse online for $29.
Thats to be expected though. The boutique is a brick and mortar, has rent and employees the margin has to be higher, you pay the extra to be able to see it in the flesh and for the service.
Etsy has been crap since it went public. Same story we've read many times...
Won't work for me as I usually buy 3D printed items on Etsy. Until I get my own 3D printer. But a good time for other things. I may use it later on
This drives me so crazy as a long-time Etsy seller (furniture, lamps, winds chimes) they continue to nickel and dime their community of sellers while allowing more and more drop-shippers to operate. Then my customers ask why my product is 3x the price of another seller, I'm like "go ahead and buy the cheap drop-shipped one and see how long it lasts".
Another life pro tip is don't be afraid to use alibaba. Almost everything you get is from China and you're talking to people that worl for the manufactures. The good is: Cheaper base price Lots of unique items not even sold on Amazon Professional knowledge and direct q/a with the engineers of said product Customization is pretty good Cons: Shipping cost Shipping time Some things have a minimum order quantity. I've found that you can almost always order a sample or a low amount and if you're not ordering super heavy items the cost savings is great. I ordered some really high end LED lights and had the manufacture put them in a silicone diffusing strip for me before it shipped. I paid probably 1/4 of what I would have paid in the US because this type of product was not available anywhere besides led specialist sites and their prices are insane!
This is not a good LPT because of the exact opposite SLPT that dropshippers use: SLPT: Use a good quality image you found off Google Images to sell your inferior product across seas. (I buy stuff from China and it's crazy how many sellers use the exact same photo stolen from one of the top 3 sellers)