Results of a survey Etsy took, mostly about the Etsy blog, but so interesting

5,600 people responded to this survey, buyers, sellers and both. I especially was interested in the part about the age brackets of buyers and sellers. There are some interesting conclusions from the survey that will determine new directions. There's nothing pertaining specifically to vintage, but still some new insights.

http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/survey-says-the-results-of-th...

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Permalink Reply by Gilty Girl Vintage on March 10, 2010 at 6:30pm

I participated in the survey and I wasn't too surprised about the 'sweet spot' being 25-34 years of age.
Surprising to me was that the majority of sellers who participated were in the 45-54 yrs. of age.
Makes me think that I have some homework to do to bridge the gap. My 25 year old was up to see me last week and showed me some things on the web that that age group is into. I am still stunned that in this recession 'trendy' is still expensive and still being bought by this age group despite it's priceiness.

Permalink Reply by Linens and Things on March 10, 2010 at 9:11pm

I had the very same thought about how am I going to bridge the gap to reach those 25-34 year olds. I am in a much higher age bracket.

What are you thinking about as being "trendy" and expensive that the younger age group is willing to pay pricey prices for?

HighDesertRose Vintage - Admin said:

I participated in the survey and I wasn't too surprised about the 'sweet spot' being 25-34 years of age.
Surprising to me was that the majority of sellers who participated were in the 45-54 yrs. of age. Makes me think that I have some homework to do to bridge the gap. My 25 year old was up to see me last week and showed me some things on the web that that age group is into. I am still stunned that in this recession 'trendy' is still expensive and still being bought by this age group despite it's priceiness.

Permalink Reply by VintageJewelsAndMore on March 10, 2010 at 9:13pm

That really was interesting, for all the reasons HighDesertRose mentioned. I wish someone would start a website or something to educate us older people about what's "in" to young people!

I also was happy to see that I'm not alone in finding Etsy's on-site communications and navigation a little confusing. It took me a long time to figure out what was a blog, a treasury, a forum, etc. I don't have that trouble usually.

Permalink Reply by onelevel on March 11, 2010 at 10:43am

Interesting that 54% of shoppers are also sellers. My concern of late is Etsy drawing in customers. We need customers more than sellers/shoppers. I feel they are missing a whole world of people out there. I don't know of any real advertising that Etsy does, i. e., magazines, radio spot, heck TV.

I spend a lot of my time promoting my shop which in turn promotes Etsy, which puts money in their pockets. I would like to see them spend some money and draw some customers in. My boyfriend keeps telling me to just create my own website but I adore the people of Etsy, all of you who I interact with daily. I just don't think Etsy understands what a group of dynamic, truly wonderful people they have brought together!

Permalink Reply by VintageJewelsAndMore on March 11, 2010 at 1:28pm

I think you make some good points here and I agree that Etsy needs to do some advertising, especially advertising targeted toward vintage buyers. The 54% of shoppers who are also sellers already know about Etsy and are there often, which tells me that they're shopping because of advertising (except the first ad they saw, if that's how the found Etsy). I know that whenever I tell people I sell on Etsy, they say they've never heard of it. It's worth noting that these are all antiques people -- maybe craftpeople and handmade buyers would be better acquainted. But I've never seen paid ads for Etsy mysef.

I'm going to develop my own website in addition to staying at Etsy, just because you never know what the future holds. Back in the mid-90's, I had my own website and sold on ebay...when ebay took off, I gave up the website even though it was doing pretty well. Then when vintage went into its ebay slump, I had nowhere to go until I found Etsy.

Not to say that Etsy will go the way of ebay, but I think it's a good idea to keep my options open.

onelevel said:

Interesting that 54% of shoppers are also sellers. My concern of late is Etsy drawing in customers. We need customers more than sellers/shoppers. I feel they are missing a whole world of people out there. I don't know of any real advertising that Etsy does, i. e., magazines, radio spot, heck TV.

I spend a lot of my time promoting my shop which in turn promotes Etsy, which puts money in their pockets. I would like to see them spend some money and draw some customers in. My boyfriend keeps telling me to just create my own website but I adore the people of Etsy, all of you who I interact with daily. I just don't think Etsy understands what a group of dynamic, truly wonderful people they have brought together!

Permalink Reply by Another Time Antiques on March 11, 2010 at 8:54pm

Well interesting sellers vs shoppers age awareness! Boy, I wish we could draw a little more mature crowd in there too! I've always done best with 25-40 age group of buyers. Places like our beloved VV certainly help pull a wider range to our shops.

Permalink Reply by WhimsicalVintage on March 12, 2010 at 8:32am

Very interesting and as I seldomly look at the Etsy Blog or Storque articles, thank you for bringing it to my attention. I have to say that I'm not surprised at any of the results. I believe that all vintage is "trendy" to the younger age group. I would say that my customers (and I'm guessing here) are probably 80% below 35 and 20% over 45. I think that there are very few buyers in the 35-45 group. The younger group tends lean towards jewelry and hats, while the older tends to go with housewares (as they probably already own the jewelry and are looking for replacements or gifts in the housewares area).
Etsy has a good thing going, in that the sellers market the site. Unfortunately for us, Etsy makes more money off of the sellers than they do buyers. I live in the NYC Metro area and no one that I talk to has every heard of Etsy...that's a little scary!...and shows how little marketing they do. While the NYC area is not who they should be marketing to (as far as vintage is concerned - there is just so much in our area and really no need to buy online), I wish that there would be more national and international advertising. Yes, we were on Martha Stewart but that only brought more sellers to the site, as most people who watch Martha are do it yourselfers. I'm not sure that there is a solution for this, after all Etsy is in business to make money. I would like to think that there is some consideration for those of us who make all of this possible, but the bigger Etsy becomes, the less likely that is.
It would be interesting to do our own shopper age survey, here on VV.
Lora and Jane do such a great job...I'm holding out in the hopes that they will start their own VV selling venue...a girl can dream!:)

Permalink Reply by onelevel on March 12, 2010 at 9:55am

You definately have me thinking now! It may be a good idea to have a website, it certainly wouldn't hurt anything. I am concerned that Etsy may implode, thinking that the amount of sellers may overtake the amount of customers, that is why I want to see more customers. If Etsy is concerned about advertising bringing in more sellers, they could at any time, STOP taking on more sellers. It is that easy. But money drives so much of this. Nobody wants to stop the flow of cash.

VintageJewelsAndMore said:

I think you make some good points here and I agree that Etsy needs to do some advertising, especially advertising targeted toward vintage buyers. The 54% of shoppers who are also sellers already know about Etsy and are there often, which tells me that they're shopping because of advertising (except the first ad they saw, if that's how the found Etsy). I know that whenever I tell people I sell on Etsy, they say they've never heard of it. It's worth noting that these are all antiques people -- maybe craftpeople and handmade buyers would be better acquainted. But I've never seen paid ads for Etsy mysef.

I'm going to develop my own website in addition to staying at Etsy, just because you never know what the future holds. Back in the mid-90's, I had my own website and sold on ebay...when ebay took off, I gave up the website even though it was doing pretty well. Then when vintage went into its ebay slump, I had nowhere to go until I found Etsy.

Not to say that Etsy will go the way of ebay, but I think it's a good idea to keep my options open.

onelevel said:
Interesting that 54% of shoppers are also sellers. My concern of late is Etsy drawing in customers. We need customers more than sellers/shoppers. I feel they are missing a whole world of people out there. I don't know of any real advertising that Etsy does, i. e., magazines, radio spot, heck TV.

I spend a lot of my time promoting my shop which in turn promotes Etsy, which puts money in their pockets. I would like to see them spend some money and draw some customers in. My boyfriend keeps telling me to just create my own website but I adore the people of Etsy, all of you who I interact with daily. I just don't think Etsy understands what a group of dynamic, truly wonderful people they have brought together!

Permalink Reply by onelevel on March 12, 2010 at 10:08am

You are so right, Vintage is WAY hot to many age groups. I think Etsy was smart in selling VINTAGE. The concept has taken off gloriously. I, like you, would love to see some venue take off in a Vintage direction. Really what would you need to make it work, a good concept, software, website???? I don't know.

WhimsicalVintage said:

Very interesting and as I seldomly look at the Etsy Blog or Storque articles, thank you for bringing it to my attention. I have to say that I'm not surprised at any of the results. I believe that all vintage is "trendy" to the younger age group. I would say that my customers (and I'm guessing here) are probably 80% below 35 and 20% over 45. I think that there are very few buyers in the 35-45 group. The younger group tends lean towards jewelry and hats, while the older tends to go with housewares (as they probably already own the jewelry and are looking for replacements or gifts in the housewares area).
Etsy has a good thing going, in that the sellers market the site. Unfortunately for us, Etsy makes more money off of the sellers than they do buyers. I live in the NYC Metro area and no one that I talk to has every heard of Etsy...that's a little scary!...and shows how little marketing they do. While the NYC area is not who they should be marketing to (as far as vintage is concerned - there is just so much in our area and really no need to buy online), I wish that there would be more national and international advertising. Yes, we were on Martha Stewart but that only brought more sellers to the site, as most people who watch Martha are do it yourselfers. I'm not sure that there is a solution for this, after all Etsy is in business to make money. I would like to think that there is some consideration for those of us who make all of this possible, but the bigger Etsy becomes, the less likely that is.
It would be interesting to do our own shopper age survey, here on VV.
Lora and Jane do such a great job...I'm holding out in the hopes that they will start their own VV selling venue...a girl can dream!:)

Permalink Reply by VintageJewelsAndMore on March 12, 2010 at 2:48pm

Yeah, I'm afraid that eventually there will be more sellers than buyers on Etsy, just like on ebay. It seems like that is an eventuality with any successful site. Then the prices go down and it's not worth it to sell there anymore. The only problem with having your own website is that you have to do a lot of marketing -- but I do wonder if it would take a lot more than some of us are already doing, between Twitter, FB, forums, blogs, etc. Google is my second largest referring site, which tells me that people are finding me by doing searches for stuff I have -- which has nothing to do with Etsy.

onelevel said:

You definately have me thinking now! It may be a good idea to have a website, it certainly wouldn't hurt anything. I am concerned that Etsy may implode, thinking that the amount of sellers may overtake the amount of customers, that is why I want to see more customers. If Etsy is concerned about advertising bringing in more sellers, they could at any time, STOP taking on more sellers. It is that easy. But money drives so much of this. Nobody wants to stop the flow of cash.

VintageJewelsAndMore said:
I think you make some good points here and I agree that Etsy needs to do some advertising, especially advertising targeted toward vintage buyers. The 54% of shoppers who are also sellers already know about Etsy and are there often, which tells me that they're shopping because of advertising (except the first ad they saw, if that's how the found Etsy). I know that whenever I tell people I sell on Etsy, they say they've never heard of it. It's worth noting that these are all antiques people -- maybe craftpeople and handmade buyers would be better acquainted. But I've never seen paid ads for Etsy mysef.

I'm going to develop my own website in addition to staying at Etsy, just because you never know what the future holds. Back in the mid-90's, I had my own website and sold on ebay...when ebay took off, I gave up the website even though it was doing pretty well. Then when vintage went into its ebay slump, I had nowhere to go until I found Etsy.

Not to say that Etsy will go the way of ebay, but I think it's a good idea to keep my options open.

onelevel said:
Interesting that 54% of shoppers are also sellers. My concern of late is Etsy drawing in customers. We need customers more than sellers/shoppers. I feel they are missing a whole world of people out there. I don't know of any real advertising that Etsy does, i. e., magazines, radio spot, heck TV.

I spend a lot of my time promoting my shop which in turn promotes Etsy, which puts money in their pockets. I would like to see them spend some money and draw some customers in. My boyfriend keeps telling me to just create my own website but I adore the people of Etsy, all of you who I interact with daily. I just don't think Etsy understands what a group of dynamic, truly wonderful people they have brought together!

Permalink Reply by VintageJewelsAndMore on March 12, 2010 at 2:51pm

I think the biggest expensive would be computer equipment. Are you thinking of an auction site or just a "mall" like Etsy with only vintage stuff? I wonder why there hasn't yet been a vintage-only auction that's successful? Quite a few were started right after ebay announced the big changes a few years ago, but it doesn't seem like they've gone anywhere...maybe auctions are just out these days.

onelevel said:

You are so right, Vintage is WAY hot to many age groups. I think Etsy was smart in selling VINTAGE. The concept has taken off gloriously. I, like you, would love to see some venue take off in a Vintage direction. Really what would you need to make it work, a good concept, software, website???? I don't know.

WhimsicalVintage said:
Very interesting and as I seldomly look at the Etsy Blog or Storque articles, thank you for bringing it to my attention. I have to say that I'm not surprised at any of the results. I believe that all vintage is "trendy" to the younger age group. I would say that my customers (and I'm guessing here) are probably 80% below 35 and 20% over 45. I think that there are very few buyers in the 35-45 group. The younger group tends lean towards jewelry and hats, while the older tends to go with housewares (as they probably already own the jewelry and are looking for replacements or gifts in the housewares area).
Etsy has a good thing going, in that the sellers market the site. Unfortunately for us, Etsy makes more money off of the sellers than they do buyers. I live in the NYC Metro area and no one that I talk to has every heard of Etsy...that's a little scary!...and shows how little marketing they do. While the NYC area is not who they should be marketing to (as far as vintage is concerned - there is just so much in our area and really no need to buy online), I wish that there would be more national and international advertising. Yes, we were on Martha Stewart but that only brought more sellers to the site, as most people who watch Martha are do it yourselfers. I'm not sure that there is a solution for this, after all Etsy is in business to make money. I would like to think that there is some consideration for those of us who make all of this possible, but the bigger Etsy becomes, the less likely that is.
It would be interesting to do our own shopper age survey, here on VV.
Lora and Jane do such a great job...I'm holding out in the hopes that they will start their own VV selling venue...a girl can dream!:)

Permalink Reply by Gilty Girl Vintage on March 12, 2010 at 4:59pm

One of the sites my daughter referred me to is called ModCloth.

Here is the link to the back story read it http://www.modcloth.com/about_us and then look in the shop.
Let's talk about what you think about this site and this couples' story.