It's interesting (if not terribly surprising) how most of these Etsy businesses simply don't scale. The thought of making the same thing over and over again is really quite foreign. I sometimes forget how much leverage we have as coders.
These business could scale, if they're owners weren't so attached to making the things themselves.
I'd bet the lady selling scarves could simply design the patterns and farm the production out to a couple women paying them $30k / yr (and take home $80k+ herself).
You are misunderstanding the Etsy community. If she did that, she would lose all of the sales she is making. Because the buyers at Etsy generally only purchase when they have a reasonable certainty that the item will be produced by the original artisan, by hand.
Here is another view on Etsy that isn't as positive.
Take a look, I think the NYTimes article dances around this idea but isn't brave enough to come out and say it. It does dance around it a little bit on page two, I guess, but this article makes it the point that most aren't $100K seller and are women who are married and home with their kids.
Thruth be told, this fantasy applies to all genders.
Consider stock photography sites, Second Life, programming sites(rentacoder etc), iPhone development and dare I say Mahalo and their ilk.
What do these seemingly dissimilar outfits have in common? They present a fantasy on making a living doing something you love or at least don't despise. Good PR/press only encourages this view.
Reality? Few outliers make out exceptionally, while the average participant makes less than minimum wage(sometimes even for China).
Problem is, as soon as you start making a living out of a hobby/game/craft, you inevitably start treating it like a job and with that goes the fun.
There are a lot of sellers there who either see it as pure fun or simply discount their time heavily, and as a result many items are an incredible deal.
Because of those people I was assuming almost no one was pulling a living wage, but it's interesting to see those 6 figure numbers.
unfortunately being able to live on making crafts in the US is not at all due to 'hard work', that is simply a red herring in terms of difficult things facing these producers. Instead, it is likely due to obscurity or the novelty of that market. Someone in the story is already hiring employees to do the work, it is only a matter of time when those employees, and then even the entrepreneur will be outsourced outside the country.
I don't know that they'll be outsourced. For those who buy crafts from Etsy, the whole point is that you have direct contact with the seller and you're getting a handmade, one of a kind item. I know several individuals who buy things from Etsy, and being able to get a cheaper version made in China doesn't deter them. I tend to lump the growth of Etsy in with the increase in people buying local, organic food and fair trade products -- the buyer consciously avoids supporting that kind of outsourcing.
