DaWanda marketplace to shut down in August

After 12 years as Europe’s leading online marketplace for handmade and unique items, DaWanda is to close it’s doors and cease trading on the 30th of August 2018.

DaWanda is an online marketplace that gives sellers a platform to market handmade goods. Items must be unique, made to order, vintage, upcycled or recycled.

It’s been a tough haul for the marketplace, they announced that in Autumn 2017 they reached profitability for the first time in their history 2017 and then have at least covered costs since the fourth quarter. The closure is apparently a joint decision of DaWanda´s executive team and its shareholders and one might guess that investors have pulled the plug and simply aren’t willing to pump more funds into the marketplace.

“It wasn´t an easy decision to take – we invested a lot of heart into building the marketplace. Together with our community we have established Do-it-yourself and positioned handmade products as a new category within ecommerce in Europe. We feel proud of this achievement! Nevertheless, more and more we had to admit that we wouldn’t be able on a stand-alone basis to drive further growth to marketplace. We have act now to ensure the incomes and businesses of our sellers in the longterm as well as their growth.”
– Claudia Helming, Founder and Managing Director of DaWanda

DaWanda don’t want to leave their community of sellers homeless and are recommending Etsy as the destination of choice. The two companies are building in import utility to enable DaWanda sellers to move their shops and inventory seamlessly to Etsy and the tool will be made available free of charge.

“We greatly admire the work that the DaWanda team has done to help buyers and sellers celebrate creativity. We’re delighted to welcome their passionate community into our global marketplace, and excited to bring more unique German goods to buyers both in Germany and around the world. In addition to working to make this migration seamless for DaWanda’s users in the coming months, we plan to continue to invest in our German business so that we can empower creative entrepreneurs and offer buyers a unique and engaging shopping experience.”
– Linda Findley Kozlowski, COO, Etsy

Sellers can continue to trade on DaWanda until the 30th of August, at which point shoppers will be automatically redirected to Etsy.

DaWanda employees have already been informed about the closure of the DaWanda marketplace and majority has left the company with redundancy packages. DaWanda´s customer care team will be available to buyers and sellers up until end of August.