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Tag: Etsy

  • Etsy, other e-commerce companies feel squeeze of SVB collapse

    Etsy, other e-commerce companies feel squeeze of SVB collapse

    Etsy on Monday resumed payments to merchants with Silicon Valley Bank accounts after the e-commerce platform paused their payouts over the weekend following the U.S. government shutdown of the bank last week.

    Approximately 0.5% of Etsy’s active sellers -or around 2,700 merchants- had their payments delayed on Friday related to SVB’s collapse, according to Etsy.

    “We are working to pay these sellers today, and we’ve already started processing payments via another payment partner this morning,” an Etsy spokesperson told Reuters on Monday.

    The payments Etsy sellers received is unrelated to the Federal Reserve’s Sunday announcement, which ensured that SVB’s customers would have access to their funds on Monday.

    Shopify SHOP.TO, which provides websites and apps to stores, also halted payments to online sellers with Silicon Valley Bank accounts, telling merchants they must switch accounts to receive funds, according to the company’s website.

    Etsy and Shopify each work with 5.4 million and 1.75 million online merchants respectively worldwide, mostly small-to-medium size businesses.

    Some Etsy sellers decided to put their stores on vacation mode, pausing customer purchases in an effort to minimize their financial losses while others say they have received their payments on schedule.

    Moshe Steinberg, 31, said that he received a payment from Etsy on Monday morning, but is still waiting for it to clear with his bank.

    “It was a nail biting situation until I checked my bank account this morning,” the 3D-printed seller from Central Ohio said, adding that Etsy is currently his only source of income.

    Etsy merchant Elizabeth Thompson, 57, said she has received little guidance from the company on what transpired.

    “I just don’t understand why they can’t be a little more transparent about what’s going on. It’s not like it’s their fault,” she added.

    Etsy said it communicated with any seller who was impacted on Friday directly via email and posted an update in their forums on Saturday.

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  • Etsy to buy fashion reseller Depop in push for younger consumers

    Etsy to buy fashion reseller Depop in push for younger consumers

    Etsy said on Wednesday it would buy Generation-Z focused fashion resale company Depop for $1.63 billion, seeking to attract younger shoppers and bolster its position in a booming market in vintage or used clothing.

    After a pandemic-driven surge in sales over the last year, Etsy, among the world’s best-known e-commerce platforms for handmade goods and vintage items, estimates the U.S. second-hand clothing market alone will be worth $64 billion by 2024.

    Chief Executive Officer Josh Silverman said he saw Depop as “the resale home for Gen-Z consumers” and believed there was significant potential to scale up its business as he seeks to offset consumers’ return to the more traditional malls and retail stores over the next year.

    “This (Gen-Z) is an enormous demographic and it’s the trendsetter demographic,” he told analysts on a call to discuss the deal.

    London-based Depop, founded a decade ago by entrepreneur Simon Beckerman for readers of his magazine to purchase featured items, is known for its vintage and street-wear collections and has over 26 million users across more than 147 countries.

    About 90% of its users are under the age of 26 and it is the 10th most visited shopping site among Gen-Z consumers in the United States, according to the company.

    The resale boom has prompted companies including Gap Inc and Vera Bradley to partner with sector players Poshmark and ThredUp.

    Silverman expects Depop to increase Etsy’s footprint in apparel, a growing category as people return to work and school. In 2020, Etsy recorded about $1 billion in apparel gross merchandise sales and its overall revenue doubled.

    Neil Saunders, managing director at retail research firm GlobalData, said the deal should give Etsy a new growth avenue as it comes down from a pandemic-led high.

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  • 8 Easy Startup Ideas For Asia

    8 Easy Startup Ideas For Asia

    We live in the times of so many possibilities. Therefore starting a new business to earn some extra money could be very easy and done very quickly wherever you are – it could even be Asia. People are really into new technologies there at the moment, especially mobile payments through various apps, so you could use the benefits of  this trend for your business idea.

    If you love the idea of making some money on your own, here you’ll find some original ideas you could use for your startup and maybe even start today.

    Specialist Of Education Progress Tracking

    Every parent wants their kid to do well at school and gain the best education possible. That’s why there are so many freelance tutors that help kids and students learn the subjects that they are failing at.

    An education progress tracking will help you reach the best result possible. This is done by tracking the progress of your child and comparing it to other students who are moving up to a similar goal. For example, the same degree in business management or biotechnology. Many criteria need to be evaluated and compared, like grades, honors, certificates, additional skills, and so much more.

    Develop An App For Coworking

    Coworking apps are in demand both for teams in creative and non-creative agencies and also for study groups. Therefore if you are not completely new to coding, you could build an entire network where people could work together on a digital platform. Surely there are already some apps that allow you to share, comment files, and work on projects together, but you can always research your competitors and make an even better product. Simply detect what’s lacking in these apps.

    Print On Demand Business

    Print on demand businesses are getting really popular lately. That is because it doesn’t require any investments and therefore is a perfect startup idea for young people like students. The best part is that you don’t need to be responsible for keeping items in stock, producing it or putting logos on it.

    One of the most popular forms of print on demand business is selling t-shirts. All you’ll need to do is come up with the design. If you want to learn more about how to sell t shirts online – there are POD platforms like Printify that are very easy to use and offer you articles that help improve your business.

    App For Acting

    This could be a similar idea to SnapChat or Instagram Stories, but with a completely different concept. Friends would be able to create short videos with specific timing, for example, 20 seconds. And other friends would have to continue the story. After finishing a story, you could watch it as a single movie clip. To access a group, you should have a special code, link or different kind of key to access. Some groups could be open to everyone thought.

    Job Interviews On Video

    Image credit: Seth Doyle

    Wasting time always means wasting money. Companies and their hiring specialist waste tons of time trying to find the best candidates for one or another job position. It’s hard to imagine, how many time has been wasted on candidates that weren’t a good fit for the company.

    And you could be the one to offer these companies a solution and create a platform with already prepared video interviews. They would be short and very specific – candidates would be asked a few questions and answer it on camera. This could be a really good filter for the hiring specialists.

    Local Social Media Network

    Social media is extremely popular nowadays. But what if you were to create a new platform that would be based only on location? You would be capable of connecting with people, see events and other information related only to the place you are currently in. This would filter out a lot of unnecessary information that we see on our Facebook every day.

    Create An App For Recycling

    Image credit: Paula Brustur

    A lot of people today care about nature and recycling, but really lack knowledge about ecology and how it works. It’s hard to determine what is truly toxic for us and our environment and sometimes we just don’t know how to properly utilize specific products.

    If you were to create a recycling app, it could help people understand recycling more, especially with all the pollution is Asia. For example, if someone would be thinking how to recycle one or another item the right way, they could type the product in your apps search and quickly find an answer.

    Sell Your Own Crafts

    If you have some skills for crafting, you should know that it’s a very trendy thing to do at the moment. Especially things like handmade jewelry and gifts. You could sell your crafts on Etsy, but you can also create your own e-store. All you need is to buy a domain, choose the design and add all needed forms for orders and contacting.

    To save some money, don’t pay the programmers for creating the forms for you, simply use CaptainForm wordpress form plugin that will offer you all the forms your website might need.

     

  • eBay sales struggle to emulate Amazon’s growth

    eBay sales struggle to emulate Amazon’s growth

    At first glance, eBay’s final quarter numbers look relatively subdued – with growth across every line sequentially worse than the prior quarter.

    However, digging beneath the headlines reveals a slightly better picture, if only because the strength of the dollar has deflated sales. On a currency neutral basis, gross merchandise volume increased by 5 per cent, and net revenue jumped by 6 per cent. While these numbers are not ultimately reflected in the accounts, they show that eBay’s underlying performance is not quite as bad as it first seems.

    All that noted, when put into a wider context the gains remain fairly unspectacular. Indeed, eBay’s growth remains well below that of total eCommerce sales growth across the markets it serves. As well as losing market share, its performance is also anemic when contrasted to that of online peers such as Amazon – which had a stellar holiday season. This is especially so in the sale of physical products from the marketplace (which excludes the more buoyant StubHub part of the business) where revenue rose by just 1.1 per cent over the prior year.

    As much as eBay did enough to meet market expectations, the results are disappointing in that they show the various improvements the company is making are not, as of yet, generating significant traction with consumers. This includes the use of more structured data to make listings easier to find and view, and an increase in the number of full-priced products available from the site.

    As sensible as these steps are, they are really about correcting deficiencies rather than putting eBay on an innovative footing.

    eBay needs to go much further in revamping the whole online experience in order to allow it to compete more effectively with rivals. This includes trying to create some stickiness around the brand and proposition, in the way that Amazon has done by creating a whole ecosystem of products and services. Admittedly, this is a very tough ask, but it is the direction in which eBay needs to travel if it is to win back market share.

    In looking at ways to improve, eBay needs to focus its attention on younger shoppers, among whom brand perception and site usage have weakened. From Conlumino’s data, younger demographics – while active digital consumers – do not have the affinity with eBay that the generation before them did, or that older consumers do. In this regard, eBay has lost out to players like Etsy which these consumers believe to be more authentic, and more likely to offer innovative and interesting products.

    Looking ahead, there is no overly negative forecast for eBay: the company is addressing its issues and is making steady progress that will continue to aid results. However, it is one of the slower players in the fast-paced digital arena and to date there are very few visible signs it will move into the fast lane in its new fiscal year.

    -Neil Saunders

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