In the previous post i told you about the idea to make your competitors irrelevant and to not compete! This idea is also know as Blue Ocean marketing strategy. I’ll post about it in details soon, but here is a good example of what i meant by sharing this idea with you.

Everybody knows Ebay. Few are the people, however, who are aware of the existence of a totally different e-commerce platform – Etsy. These two platforms offer consumers two completely different models of online purchasing. While Ebay is known to be the 2.0 leader for years, Etsy is progressively establishing itself as an e-commerce  model in total rupture with Ebay’s.

Etsy is all about hand crafted goods. In a world entirely dominated by mass and serially produced goods, Etsy is a helping hand towards craftsmen. Thus this platform can be supported by a community of 300,000 members and 26,000 sellers! Impressive, isn’t it? Web buyers, of course, recognize the richness of function and symbolism superior to that of Ebay.

The reasons for the success of Etsy are found when looking into the platform’s user experience on  which it is positioned – selling crafted goods. Also Etsy offers very original search interface, organized by colour, time and connections. There is a huge editorial effort brought by a very doog blog and Editor’s Pick – interviews of craftsmen and artists.

Currently Etsy is the only sales platform that offers such a purchasing experience, thanks to the method that gives a predominant place to a more individualized communication between buyers and sellers. This proximity differs greatly from the secured “fortress: of Ebay and lets buyers and sellers develop a more personal relationship.

Numerous are the distinctions from Ebay and are more than enough to affirm Etsy’s quality and to affirm its true value against Ebay. Etsy’s members have a feeling of belonging to a community, to a different and more authentic econimic system. Lastly, Etsy launched the Handmade Movement video contest where members could express what Etsy means to them.