Craftster, for those of you who don’t have a box of fabric bits and a few homemade t-shirt ideas rattling around in your head, is this website that attracts a mostly female, mostly youngish (Gen X, Y and probably Z, but I’m speculating here), mostly alternative (to the cheerleader crowd) demographic. It’s forum based. Craftsters (craft+hipster, get it?) take photos of their latest sewing/painting/knitting/etc projects and post them online for others to ooh and ahh and “OMG lurve it!” (with secret envy) about.
I haven’t browsed Craftster in a while, mainly because I haven’t had time to make anything, (okay, AND it was seriously cutting into my homework time. (Killjoy.)) But, this weekend I was looking for a way to make cheapie blinds for our living room that wouldn’t block the light, (just the creepy neighbour’s view — low rent means nice bright windows that face—another apartment building), and noticed a trend that would scare away any smart investor (businessperson, etc.).
The Crafty-hipsters have moved on… from sharing—to marketing.
Exhibit A: This poster decorated some shoes and wants to sell them. Smart little entreprenuer, right?
[Sidenote: etsy seems to be kind of an online marketplace website thing -- so Craftsters can sell their stuff. And started by 4 guys, from what I can surmise in a 30-second website scan. I guess I retract my "mostly female" comment. Actually.. maybe not. These dudes just write code. Girls craft and boys code. How's that for PC. Anyone wanna debate?]
Maybe not. Who is going to buy someone else’s crafty stuff…if they can make it themselves? Seems like every Craftster worth her stick-on velcro has her own line of stuff to sell. So it’s kind of just a money trade. You buy my recycled jean purse, and I’ll buy your glitter sparkly ballet flats. Free-trade indeed. The only people making money in this are— the United States Postal Service.
So… Joanne’s (Craft and fabric store – publicly traded on the NYSE under ticker symbol JAS), Michael’s (Craft store, also public MIK), watch your backs. Craftsters make up a large percentage of the new savvy consumer generation… and by “consumers”, I mean:
kids-who-want-to-take-advantage-of-others-who-can’t-knit-paint-
craft-as-well-as-they-can-and-are-happy-to-sell-their-goods-for-
WAY-more-than-the-materials-cost-at-your-quaint-little-
international-corporate-chain.
You heard it from me first, Craftster # 76186. I’ll watch my mailbox for my commission cheque.
Interesting stats:
There are 24017 sellers on Etsy.
Craftster has 76187 Total Members.
24017/76187=31.5%
Shoe painters – that’s math for THE COMPETITION. More than 1 out of every 4 shoe buyers are shoe painters. I’m just sayin.
In other news: while doing our bi-weekly milk/eggs/frozen strawberries run at Costco Sunnyvale, with our backs turned, someone emptied AND stole our shopping cart. This is the kind of thing that just doesn’t happen at Trader Joe’s. Next time you are shopping at your warehouse store of choice…watch your back cart.
