Amazon Shows Why Search Disadvantages Handmade Goods

by: The End

I am on pages 1 - 4 in the google search for various iterations of my product.
My business name, product style, and sites to get my product, ALL show up immediately.
If people are : selling dime a dozen widgets, are middlemen, or are inattentive to their placement via SEO, you're "gonna have trouble right here in River City".
STUDY how to make google search your friend.

by: Life During Wartime

The difficulty in finding artisan items in a sea of mass made products doesn't really apply to antiques and vintage.  Shoppers searching for player piano rolls, Lustroware plastics, or a particular pattern of Depression glass are using specific keywords to find those items.  

Amazon doesn't seem to have a lot of vintage items, but the ones that are there -- and matched my search terms -- were easy to find both in Google searches and searches on Amazon.

Etsy is a different story.  About a decade ago, a portion of the seller community decided it was bad for their businesses to include the maker or pattern/product name in their listings because they felt it was discouraging hipsters from buying.  Etsy vintage sellers are still leaving out product/pattern names and makers out of their titles, tags, and even descriptions in keeping with this idea.  So if you are searching for, say, Jeannette Shell Pink glass, typing that in the search box will turn up only a portion of this pattern listed on Etsy.  The rest can only be found by searching for ''pink milk glass'', which turns up a bunch of contemporary (less than 20 years old) products that shoppers have to wade through.  This is something that the sellers did to themselves.

by: Flying Childers

Just another example of how American artists and craftsmen are getting screwed by platforms like Etsy.
The algorithms don't write themselves.  They are written by company employed "humans" who know how to manipulate search so that the company can make the most money.

They don't really care about the sellers and it's offensive for Josh to pretend otherwise.  He's there for one reason only- to make money for himself and the shareholders.

It doesn't have to be like this.  Maybe a little less greed and the artisan sellers could have their work show up.

Incredible that anyone would blame the SELLERS for this problem.  What is it?  Stockholm Syndrome?

by: Life During Wartime

Flying Childers sez:  ''Incredible that anyone would blame the SELLERS for this problem.  What is it?  Stockholm Syndrome?''

No one is blaming the sellers of art and artisan items.  It's the vintage sellers -- whose items mostly come with their own recognized keyword phrases, making SEO easier -- who have chosen to leave relevant info out of their Etsy listings.   ''Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.'',  

by: Coolstraps

I sell on Amazon (not the Handmade section) and I don't think it's possible to optimize SEO for handmade items given how Amazon's and Google's search algorithms work  Artfire was actually great for that but when they removed their musical instrument accessories categories, my sales there declined dramatically and I ended up leaving.

One of the problems on Amazon is that handmade sellers make so few of a particular item that there's no immediately visible feedback once the item is sold out. Reverb.com has all the feedback in one place, not on the particular item, so people can see your reviews even if an item is sold out. That can't happen with the way Amazon is set up unless someone REALLY hunts for it-- and they won't.  

Number of listings also affects search and handmade sellers are, again, at a disadvantage. My 100's of items cannot outweigh a commercial producer's 1000's of items. Also, commercial producers, at least in my case, can still call their items "handmade" because, technically, they are even if it's in a mass production environment. I just think handmade sellers will always have a harder time competing against commercial sellers. That's why we have to make products that are so unique and impressive that we build a patron base not dependent on search algorithms. .

by: Chicago48

One way around that is for AMZ to buy an Etsy-like craft site.  There's one Artfire.  AMZ on its own is just not equipped for handcrafted sales.  The whole site is just tooooo big and the search doesn't accommodate handcrafts.

by: wayward girl

I'm wondering why ArtFire has such horrible reviews. I'm looking for the best site to sell vintage and handmade goods. Any help out there please?

by: Sierra

I've sold on Etsy since 2006, and on Amazon Handmade since it launched in 2015.

My sales on Amazon Handmade have always been few and far between. For a long time, I thought this was due to Amazon's ''sales rank'' feature which gives a better ranking to items which sell more often. Etsy has been incorporating something similar for several years, yet my Etsy orders are up 13% YOY and my Etsy revenue is up 51% YOY!

Amazon has approximately 10 times as many active users as Etsy. While there are obviously more shoppers looking for handmade on Etsy, I think if Amazon put some effort into promoting Handmade, my sales could skyrocket!  

by: Whatever

I make alot of my product and pretty much anything I have manufactured or hand made is found on page 1 of any google search so I'm not buying into this 100%/  That being said being on page 1 doesn't mean jack as far as selling that item.  I dominate page 1 for my seller id all the way to the bottom of page 1 and that doesn't mean your going to sell.  Here's what's moving these days - High end (the rich still have money) and very low end - like $10 because the rest of America is broke buy needs a shopping fix and $10 will get them that little surprise is coming in the mail. AND mark my words 2020 won't be much better till the election is over.  I'm old - this aint my first rodeo - been there done that.

by: Whatever

"One of the problems on Amazon is that handmade sellers make so few of a particular item that there's no immediately visible feedback once the item is sold out."

Have any of you actually searched on Amazon's handmade? It's pretty danged hard to find something actually made by hand among all the chinese crap.  Problem with no sales is that many buyers once they get there and see all the commercial junk are turned off from page on and just leave.  If Amazon ran a REAL handmade category it could be different but it is what it is. was for me anyway - never went back when I saw what was happening.

by: iheartjacksparrow

@wayward girl - Do an internet search for the best place to sell vintage and handmade. Names that keep coming up in my searches are eCrater (yeah! that's the only place I sell); Dawanda; Zibbet; Made It Myself; Folksy (if you reside in the U.K.), Supermarket; Spoonflower; and iCraft.