In October 2011, an arts and crafts company called Silhouette released a home desktop cutting machine that allows crafters to design and cut a variety of substrates from paper to heat transfer vinyl for fabrics. Prior to this, vinyl decorating on apparel and occasionally mugs and glassware resided almost exclusively with professional printers as the cutting machines were rather large and quite a bit more pricey than the new desktop versions.
I have been selling on the popular maker site, Etsy, since 2012. When I started, there were only a handful of other sellers making what I sell- printed throw pillows and tote bags. There were quite a few more sellers making t-shirts, most of them screen printed. The market was competitive but for the most part civil.
Then, somewhere around 2013, an entrepreneurial minded mom made her baby an adorable Onsie from vinyl she had cut with her desktop cutter and posted a photo of it on her Facebook account. She started getting requests from friends to make them for their babies too and setup an Etsy shop to sell her creations.
Fast forward to 2015. A quick search of Etsy for Onesies yields over 230,000 listings. Mugs with sayings yields a whopping 635,000 listings. While some of these are made with more traditional screen printing methods, the vast majority are now made with vinyl. What began as a wonderful way for stay- at-home moms to work from home has now become a fiercely competitive, maker eat maker business.
Don't get me wrong, Etsy has always had it's share of power hungry, greedy crafters intent on crushing their competitors and cornering their little corner of the crafting world. But for the most part, Etsy crafters were of the hipster, live authentically and make the world a better place kind of crafter.
Not any more. This new variety of vinyl cutting crazies are mean and ruthless. Everyday on Etsy Facebook forums people post about some scheming crafter seeking to trademark every popular phrase for the sole purpose of not allowing other sellers to sell products with that phrase. When they're not busy applying for Trademarks, they're convincing their friends to buy competitors' products and leave bad reviews or blow-up their Facebook feeds with nasty comments.
Etsy used to be a wonderful community of makers, supporting one another with their passion for handcrafted wares made by independent crafters. Thanks in large part to the new generation of cut and press crafters it has become much like any other large corporation with a Miranda Priestly around every corner, sporting a messy bun and yoga pants, scheming at her kitchen table to corner the market and take you down.
No comments:
Post a Comment