Etsy

Emotionless E-Commerce and the Death of the Joy of Gift-Giving

Jason Del Rey in Commerce on December 2, 2013 at 5:00 am PT

By and large, e-commerce sites are too easy, too impersonal, and — really — too convenient.

New Seller Demand Crashes Handmade Marketplace Zibbet After Etsy’s Big Changes

Jason Del Rey in Commerce on October 2, 2013 at 10:23 am PT

A big opportunity for a small competitor.

Etsy Overhauls Its Seller Policies in What Could Be a Controversial Move

Jason Del Rey in Commerce on October 1, 2013 at 8:15 am PT

Huge changes for the popular online marketplace.

The Grommet Mulls a Wholesale Marketplace to Play Matchmaker for Inventors and Retailers

Jason Del Rey in Commerce on August 5, 2013 at 6:30 am PT

The platform that introduced you to SodaStream and Fitbit wants to help inventors put their products on retail store shelves.

Square’s New Web Marketplace Highlights Twitter Commerce Possibilities

Mike Isaac in Commerce on June 26, 2013 at 5:00 am PT

Square Market, the Web-based storefront from the commerce startup, is all about pushing products over social networks. That could prove interesting when Twitter beefs up its commerce products.

News Byte

Payments Startup Balanced Raises $2 Million

Mike Isaac in Commerce on April 2, 2013 at 5:00 am PT

Balanced, a startup that focuses on bringing payments systems to network-based companies like Airbnb and Kickstarter, announced Tuesday that it raised $2 million in venture capital. Andreessen Horowitz participated in the round, along with CollabFund and a number of current and former Facebook employees. The ten-person startup had already raised $1.4 million in funds from Ashton Kutcher, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and Reddit CEO Yishan Wong, among others.

Everybody’s a Curator: Flipboard’s Mike McCue Talks About New Version of Social Magazine (Video)

Kara Swisher in Media on March 26, 2013 at 6:01 pm PT

I made a magazine about Pop-Tarts. Anyone have a problem with that?

News Byte

Etsy Sellers Grossed $895M in 2012

Liz Gannes in Commerce on January 28, 2013 at 12:22 pm PT

Etsy said today that its online marketplace sales grew 70 percent to $895 million in 2012, with total membership nearly doubling to 22 million. But the eight-year-old company takes in only a sliver of that revenue, by charging fees of 3 percent to 3.5 percent per transaction, $0.20 per listing and additional amounts for advertising.