Etsy will soon be requiring sellers to disclose the manufacturers of the goods they sell on the crafts, retro and quirky marketplace. There are no changes to what you are allowed to sell but they will be requiring greater transparency on who made the items you’re selling and, interestingly, they say they will be making efforts to verify such claims.
As they say in the Seller News section of Etsy: “We’re making it easier to share information about your production partners when you add or edit a listing in your Etsy shop. If you work with a production partner to produce any of the products you sell, you must disclose this information on those listings. As of today, you can add and manage your production partners during the listing process. This way, you’re being as transparent as possible about your processes without having to wait for Etsy to review your partnership.”
The new Policy can be found here. The idea is to draw a distinction between what Etsy are classifying as Makers and Designers.
It’s right that they should be proud and promote people who makers and producing goods themselves and those who are Designers. They come up with an idea and others make their designs reality. It’s no bad thing that Etsy are drawing this distinction and it helps them retain their unique selling point as a crafters marketplace whilst also expanding the inventory available on Etsy.
