Is It Ethical And Correct To Sell On Etsy

Hey guys,

Could someone help me with this. Is it OK to sell shapeways items on ETSY?
Their motto being : Marketplace of individual sellers/creators of handmade or vintage items, art, and supplies.

Can 3D prints that are uniquely designed by the owner considered as handmade?

Anyone here who sells items at ETSY?

Thanks

Try entering "etsy" in the forum search - several designers apparently do sell there. Beyond the philosophical question of what qualifies as "handmade", reading the terms and conditions of that site - it is a commercial enterprise after all - is probably more edifying.

Je ne vends pas sur etsy! Vous qui vendez sur etsy, pouvez-vous dire si le résultat est fructueux?
Cordialement

<humor>
My response to those who say that Shapeways items are not handmade:

I'll send you a box of nylon powder and pint of superglue. You have 48 hours to achieve the same result, "by hand". And, you can't use a hobby knife or dremel drill.
</humor>

My designs are produced by the sweat of my brow and the carpal tunnel using my mouse. With the 3d printer, I'm just using a tool no different than a hobby knife or dremel drill to help resolve the final object.

No, they can't.

I'm not native English speaker, but I would say, it depends how "tight" is the word "vintage" connected to words "art" and "supplies" in the sentence.

In my native language "vintage items, art, and supplies" can mean both "vintage items, vintage art and vintage supplies" as well as "vintage items, (some) art and (some) supplies" ... depending on rest of the content.

Shapeways is definitely at least "some art", so in one way of understanding its Ok.

@Ontogenie you sell on Esty, can you chime in and explain how you sort it out

I have been selling jewelry on Etsy for years now. Etsy is a very very good marketplace! When Etsy first came into being it was strictly handmade, but then after a few years went by they became lax about that. More years went by and they found that the entire site was becoming dominated by products made in China and other manufacturing adept countries so they made a rule that if you're going to sell something that is made by someone else manufacturing it for you that you need to notify Etsy who that manufacturer is so they can approve it. In short, Etsy currently welcomes 3D printed products with open arms! There are lots of designers selling on Shapeways and Etsy and some of them are doing extremely well with their sells on Etsy. For jewelry, I'd say that Etsy's marketplace outsells Shapeways by about two to one.

I don't get all of my jewelry products from Shapeways currently. I have my own equipment for doing investment casting myself, except for platinum and large items. I work with three other jewelry manufacturers as well depending on how large the item is, how quickly I need it, if it is platinum or if I'm just plainly swamped.

When I came to Shapeways' forum years ago from the CNCZone.com forum I picked Universe Becoming as my forum username. Little did I know I'd end up years later registering that name with the state of Nevada as a business. I'm going to expand the brand into the stratosphere in the coming years! Also, this year I will be starting another jewelry brand with a celebrity friend of mine. Pretty cool considering this all grew from just following my hobby of posting in forums that I like! HAHA!

Handmade at Amazon is Etsy's latest competitor and I'd say sales there are about equal to Shapeways. Handmade at Amazon is extremely strict about who they will approve, though. When I first applied I was rejected! I had to send them numerous images of all my jewelry making equipment and facilities and they also wanted to see receipts for the precious metals casting grain I had purchased because they wanted to know if I was buying from a reputable source. I'll bet they will loosen up too though at some point in the future just like Etsy did.

Trust me when I tell you if you're not selling your Shapeways manufactured products on Etsy you are losing money!

Oh, this again.

For starters, I agree with everything James just wrote. Etsy has a ton of organic traffic (random people looking for stuff and finding it) that Shapeways doesn't have. I try to promote both my Shapeways shop and my Etsy shop on social media...but as it turns out it seems there are a lot of customers who buy my jewelry on Etsy who have never seen me on social media. They're just hanging out on Etsy and they type in something like "marine biology jewelry" and they find me. So, for a marketplace, it's magnificent.

Secondly, we're not claiming our designs are "vintage" but they are most definitely handmade, in my opinion. I design with Blender, I envision the design in my little brain and then sculpt it in Blender. Shapeways produces the jewelry and does a beautiful job, but their machines don't come up with these designs out of thin air. What's that old computer programming adage, 'garbage in, garbage out?' In this case, it's beautiful design in, beautiful jewelry out. This is impossible unless there are designers with vision and creativity hand-sculpting these files. Stony's explanation is perfect.

Furthermore, my designs are completely unique, you can only buy them on Shapeways, Etsy and a couple of other places. I feel that my work is enriching the Etsy environment. I'm not making yet another beaded necklace or cabochon earring (even though some of these are indeed gorgeous). Furthermore, I don't even have to work that hard at my SEO at Etsy because, again, my stuff is totally unique and I'm not competing with the cabochon earring makers.

Is it ethical and correct...to sell beautiful, unique jewelry that fits exactly what the customer is looking for, that they can't find anywhere else, that shows the person they give it to how much they care about them, and shows how impressed they are with the accomplishments of the recipient (many of my pieces are given as Ph.D. graduation gifts to scientists)? I invite you to go read some of the reviews at my shophttps://www.etsy.com/shop/Ontogenie/
Happy customers, all of them. (I hope I'm not violating SW rules by posting the link to my Etsy shop!)

If Etsy somehow decides that 3D-printing isn't 'handmade' enough, then I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, but I honestly don't think they're going to kick me out at this point. I've built a successful shop. Maybe I don't sell as much as other Etsy shops, but I have my little niche and my customers appreciate what I'm doing.

The dreaded Oxford comma rears its ugly head!

Maybe Shapeways should pursue a strategic alliance with Etsy to help grow both sites, although it would require some drop shipping methods from Shapeways for Etsy orders. The two business models couldn't be more different though. Shapeways claims the benefits of having no stock items and production on demand, while a customer at Etsy might expect the item pictured for sale to be as is and ready to ship. A lot of people also don't have the time or resources to order stock from Shapeways and then ship those items after an Etsy order arrives. Quite frankly I see having Shapeways deal with ordering, billing, shipping, and returns to be it's primary outstanding service (if we ignore the 3D printing part and models sometimes crushed by packing materials).

I know very little about Etsy other than I created an account years ago and never even bought anything there. Does Etsy allow a grace period for manufacturing time after an order is placed? Or must the part basically exist and be ready to go? How would an Etsy store deal with the all too common Shapeways rejection notice after multiple successful prints? Can a order be easily refunded in the Etsy environment if this happens?

It seems to me that if Shapeways and Etsy would form some kind of partnership this rejection thing would really need to be locked down, as in creating a new class of product classification that receives a Shapeways Prime Grade A rating with regards to a future production capability.

Shipping time at Etsy is set by the shopowner. The header on my shop says 'Ontogenie scientific jewelry is dependent on 3D-printing and its creation requires a lead time of 3-4 weeks, unless I happen to have the piece you want already in stock.' There are other shopowners outside 3D-printing who do made-to-order, and they have a similar lead time, so it's not unheard of.

Regarding a Shapeways/Etsy partnership, the idea is intriguing. I enjoy a much more personal relationship with my Etsy customers than I do with most of my Shapeways customers; they write to me more, ask me more questions, and I would hate to give that up, but I could see this working.

I could see having an Etsy store front simply because it's probably less buggy and more stable over time than a Shapeways shop, and of course there's probably more traffic. On Etsy you could highlight just a few best selling models and offer them in limited material choices. For people who are in the mindset of wanting the flexibility of up to 50+ material options they would be better off shopping at Shapeways.

The only reason for a partnership would be so Shapeways could drop ship the items for you for items sold on Etsy. But this also has the drawback of the shop owner not being able to include accessories like chains, doing other post-production work, or shipping in fancy packaging. However assuming that could be hammered out the benefit to Shapeways might be additional sales. The advantage to a shop owner might be avoiding an intermediate shipping step, and that means a simpler, greener world!

Etsy has a formal approval process in place for shops that want to sell objects manufactured by outside suppliers, which is intended to include 3D printed parts made at Shapeways or other out-of-house printing sources. When you open your store you apply through this process, and they accept it or don't.

There's no need for ethical soul-searching and no need for any action from Shapeways: the only entity you need to ask about selling on Etsy is Etsy.

Here's the link to Etsy's handmade policy. Sellers can be either makers or designers, and designers are required to identify their production partner(s).
https://www.etsy.com/legal/handmade

Thanks guys for clearing this up for me. It all sounds brilliant. There is a connected question to Etsy & Shapeways, how do you process the payment/shipment?

If I need to send to a customer, I will put the billing address as my own and the shipment address as their's? That simple?

Coming from someone who both models and 3D prints on a 3D System's Projet machine for a living, I can say that every step of the process is done by hand. Modeling takes hours of focus and careful planning and execution. The printing and post-print processing the models from the 3D printer is a one-by-one process. A hand process. If you're someone who prints for the purpose of lost-wax casting, you know how hand crafted an art that is. Just because it doesn't take the same form from start to finish doesn't mean its not made by hand. It just means it may have been made by multiple hands, specializing in various forms and outputs of media.

If I need to send to a customer, I will put the billing address as my own and the shipment address as their's? That simple?

I believe this only works if you're in the same country as your customer. Otherwise you have to have the product shipped to you first, and then you ship it to the customer.

I recently sent a package to my friend in Dubai while the billing address was a bank in the states. Is it a one off then?

You sent it yourself from your address, or Shapeways sent it?