Nine years ago, I opened my little jewellery shop on Etsy with no big business plan, no studio and no team behind me. Just me, making jewellery at my dining room table and hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone out there would love what I created enough to buy it.
At the beginning, I sold a mixture of second-hand jewellery alongside my handmade gemstone bracelets. The vintage resale side of the business never really took off, but the handmade side did. Very quickly, I realised that creating jewellery with my own hands was the part I truly loved, so I put all of my energy into growing that side of the business.
Fast forward to today and I’ve now had over 10,000 sales. I have my own website and a permanent jewellery business in York city centre — in fact, I was the very first permanent jewellery business in York.
But despite how far the business has come, I still work in exactly the kind of setup many genuine handmade sellers will recognise.
I make all of my gemstone and sterling silver bracelets at my dining room table. I take my product photos in the conservatory because it has the best natural light. My soldering and “dirty jewellery jobs” happen in the garage, and my permanent jewellery welder lives upstairs in the spare bedroom.
I’ve never been able to afford my own studio space, although it’s still something I dream about.
If I manage to get 10 orders out in one day, that feels like a really good day.
So imagine my surprise when, around six months ago, I discovered that one of the most successful UK Etsy jewellery shops was making over 1,000 sales per day.
One thousand sales. Every single day.
Naturally, I was intrigued. I wanted to understand their business model and see what they were doing differently.
But my first instinct was immediate:
“How can this possibly be handmade?”
Because when you are genuinely making jewellery yourself, you understand the time involved. Designing, beading, soldering, photographing, listing, packing, posting — it all takes time.
The more I researched this particular business, the more I discovered that the jewellery was not actually handmade by the shop owner in the UK. Instead, the products were manufactured overseas in places like China and Indonesia, shipped to the UK, and then posted out from here.
And here’s the important part:
Yes — this is allowed on Etsy.
That was a real turning point for me because it made me realise just how much the definition of “handmade” has changed on the platform.
When Etsy first launched, it felt like a place where small independent creators could compete fairly. Buyers believed they were supporting artists, makers and craftspeople working from kitchens, spare bedrooms and tiny studios.
But now, the goalposts have shifted so much that I’m not even sure Etsy fully knows what it wants to be anymore.
There are obvious reasons why businesses choose overseas manufacturing. Raw materials are cheaper. Labour costs are significantly lower — sometimes uncomfortably low. Production can happen at a scale that independent makers simply cannot compete with.
And that creates a huge imbalance.
I buy all of my materials here in the UK. Once I factor in materials, Etsy fees, postage and even a modest hourly wage for myself, my prices will naturally be higher than a business mass-producing overseas.
That doesn’t make my products overpriced.
It reflects the true cost of handmade work.
The same shop I mentioned earlier also has over 6,000 designs listed on Etsy. As a one-woman business, I can't achieve that kind of volume. Genuine handmade takes time, care and physical labour.
So it raises a really important question:
What does “handmade” actually mean to you?
If you buy something from Etsy, do you expect it to have been manufactured overseas in a factory?
Or do you believe you are supporting someone like me — someone making products by hand at a dining room table late at night after a full day of work?
I don’t blame buyers for being confused, because many people genuinely don’t realise how much the platform has changed.
And honestly, I understand why Etsy allows it.
If a shop is making over 1,000 sales per day, Etsy is making an enormous amount in fees. From a business perspective, those high-volume sellers are incredibly valuable to the platform.
But I think there’s a bigger long-term issue here.
When buyers discover that the “handmade” item they purchased has actually been mass-produced in a factory overseas, trust in the platform starts to disappear. Most customers shop on Etsy because they believe they are supporting independent makers and small creative businesses.
I’m not discrediting businesses that manufacture overseas at all — there is clearly a market for that business model, and many companies operate that way very successfully. But surely the question is whether Etsy is the right platform for it.
To me, a marketplace built around large-scale manufacturing feels more suited to platforms like Amazon or eBay..
Etsy was originally created to celebrate handmade products, independent artists and small creative businesses. So when genuine handmade sellers are competing against businesses producing at a factory scale, it inevitably changes the identity of the platform itself.
I’m not writing this blog because I’m bitter or because I resent successful businesses. I’m writing it because I think transparency matters.
As buyers, I think we should all ask more questions about where products come from and who actually made them.
Because handmade means something.
At least, it still does to me.
So next time you shop on Etsy, I’d encourage you to look beyond the price tag. Have an open curiosity about the business, delve a little deeper and ask questions.
You may discover that you’re supporting a real person — someone creating beautiful things from a dining room table, just like I still do today.
Written by Nicola Ricardson, owner of Pink Vintage Jewellery.