
Etsy.com, the online store that enables you to sell your homemade goods, just announced that they’ve accepted a $27 million dollar investment to further establish their online community.
taken from their site:
“What does this investment mean?
This means that we now have the resources to extend Etsy’s reach in this world, to enable so many more people to make a living making things. We want Etsy to exist for hundreds of years. Our goal is for Etsy to be an independent, publicly traded company, focused on all things handmade.”
They’ve seen a lot of growth since five friends started the site in 2005 to what they now claim to be a community with over 650,000 members, all purchasing wares from more than 120,000 registered vendors in 127 different countries. From their news post, they try to outline what the investment will be used for - multiple language translations of the site, a better checkout process (which is currently pretty low-fi for a site as large as etsy’s is), as well as being in a position to better service the vendors who rely on Etsy.com for their living. Ohh, and something else about wanting to give their employees dental benefits (pffffffffsh).
Another venture they plan on trying is a cooperative advertising program where Etsy’s would take out print ads in various magazines/newspapers, and select vendors would be given the opportunity to showcase their “store” and one of their products. With enough vendors, Etsy’s promises to split the cost of the ad if the combined vendors come up with the rest. This idea is just being talked about now, but judging from the results, it looks like it is plausible in the very near future.
To read more about their Marketing Plans for 2008, click here.