Another One Bites the Dust — The Corporatocracy Advances
Among the many different things I patch together to create something that resembles "a life," some of you may be aware that I am a "wannabe artist," of sorts.
As part of that, I also bring a marketing background to the table... trying to apply some functional experience to dispelling the age-old idea of "starving" artists.
Hand Painted Mandala Stone
I enjoy creating art, but I don't see why "starving" has to be the outcome.
But I digress.
Long story short, I use a wide range of online vehicles to market what I do, including a variety of online sales venues.
So this morning, another in the endless stream of incoming marketing emails stands out: Yet another of the venues I have been using is shutting down: Scott's Marketplace.
Odds are you've never heard of Scott's, but it was kind of a big deal for those of us who got tired of the eBays, Amazons and Etsys of the world when they decided to disenfranchise small individual sellers in favor of giant corporate organizations.
"There's no money in catering to INDIVIDUALS, we just want to deal with General Motors and Kitchen Aid directly!"
Hand Painted Mandala Stone
The inspiration and philosophy behind Scott's was precisely that it was about empowering small local businesses and individuals to have online presences and sales venues... at reasonable rates, and absent the endless red tape and regulations of the "big venues."
Scott's was also founder of the SHIFT10 initiative, a grassroots movement to encourage consumers around the world to shift 10% of their spending from "Big Box Stores" to local individually owned businesses.
Yes, I still sell through the "Big Three" but it's increasingly frustrating to work as a "hand made" individual seller in a system designed to suit the needs of giant automated operations with robotic fulfillment centers.
Although Scott's never accounted for many sales for me, I shall still miss them because of the underlying ideal of supporting individual enterprise.
Our Shrinking Freedoms...
The demise of Scott's Marketplace once again made me sit and contemplate how the world seems to be increasingly marching towards lack of choice.
Hand Painted Mandala Stone
Everything ends up dominated by a handful of huge players, while everything else perishes.
Is that really what "Capitalism" is about?
I'm definitely not some left wing bleeding heart liberal, but I feel like my Freedom of Choice is being stolen from me; to paraphrase Henry Ford, referring to the color of early automobiles: "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."
Personally, I'm tired of being told "what I want." Shouldn't I get to be the judge of that?
In a different way, however, the shutdown notice from Scott's now serves as the impetus for something I have been considering for a while: "Forking" my blog here and creating a separate "spur" as a social media (and possibly sales?) venue for my artistic endeavors.
Because... why not?
And because Steemit at least still gives me the freedom to choose.
Stay tuned!
How about YOU? Have you noticed smaller independent businesses shutting down, and/or getting gobbled up by "mega venues?" How do you feel about that? Does it seem like our choices are getting fewer? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
created by @zord189
(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180816 16:38 PDT
I wish I had known about Scott's before, or the initiative. I too have tried to sell my wares (or, my belongings that someone might deem collectable/vintage/cool) on Etsy and eBay. I focused on hand made goods on Etsy, but sold almost none of them. Instead I sold mostly vintage collectable stuff. eBay I never tried for art or homemade body care stuff like I did on Etsy; I just listed my MTG cards or comics or video games or whatever. Sad they are going under, even in an online world, mom and pops getting smushed by big corps. I joined a few groups on FB that were about individuals who sold on sites like eBay, and I quit them because they were either: a) "can you help me identify this item I found at the thrift store" (and no, I don't know how to tell if that designer purse is real or a knock off) or b) eBay is screwing over the little guy again!!! ...and it was just disheartening. They were the ones that warned me off selling my inexpensive MTG cards, because either no one would buy them because shipping with tracking would cost more than the card, or if I tried to just mail it like a letter, the person would be a scammer and claim they never got it and there would be no way to prove that I sent it. Apparently all the small collector people selling their baseball cards and stamps and whatnot learned that the hard way as eBay became less "enthusiastic collectors selling to each other" and more "direct from the Chinese warehouse." Eventually I sold a few lots at ridiculously cheap prices to: a store that sold card games and D&D figures and whatnot. I only sold once or twice to an individual.
Ah, very similar experiences and markets!
My eBay account is actually 20 years old, can you believe that? I have a 5-digit account number. I started there trading rare old postage stamps with collectors, so I know the whole "collectibles" gig pretty well. It was very sad to watch the decline from being a "cool collector marketplace" to what it is today. Just like sending an MTG card, sensing a single old stamp makes ZERO SENSE with a tracked service... and yet if you don't, you can't be better than a "standard" grade seller. You also HAVE to have a 30-day money back guarantee or no go. In the collectibles business, that's a huge invitation to scamming "switcheroos."
Meanwhile, my jewelry supplies business mostly fell off a cliff thanks to the influx of Chinese sellers... which is neither here, nor there. It simply happened. I can't compete with people willing to work for 50c an hour.
Etsy screwed the pooch when they went public, and that was the start of their downhill slide. Once you allow "manufactured" goods in for resale, everything else pretty much heads down the toilet.
Have not heard about it, why is it shutting down?
Well, kinda. That was one of Marx's points, was it not? Unchecked capitalism tends towards monopoly—one surviver who controls the entire market and so can do whatever it wants. Your Ma Bells and Amazons. How long before At&t tries to buy Verizon and/or Comcast and uses their lobbying to convince the gov to allow it? Just how many giant companies control everything these days?
Depressing to think about.
Anyway, I wasn't aware of Scott's Marketplace, but I am sad to hear of it's demise all the same. As a professional photographer, I need all the places to see I can find in order to scrap together enough to support my family, so wish I had known about that one. Oh well.
BTW, I've said it before, but your stone mandalas are wonderful!
It is kind of depressing to think about the way it's all unfolding. Eventually, we'll just have "THE bank" and "THE grocery store" and "THE computer store."
Very sad state of affairs.
But thanks for your kind words about my painted stones!
Yes but the cool thing about capitalism is YOU can start up the next (maybe) big thing: Denmarkguy's Marketplace!
howdy sir denmarkguy! hey I thought Etsy was the place for artists to sell their stuff? and what is a Mandala Stone and that sure doesn't look handpainted?
@janton, Etsy did start out as a marketplace for artists and those specializing in handcrafted goods, and it was a pretty successful formula. But — like most organizations — I guess they got greedy, and had an IPO in 2015, and became a "public" company.
With that, their focus also shifted from trying to keep artists and craftspeople happy, to instead keeping investors happy through maximizing profits. This included a change in their marketing focus to include "mass produced handmade" goods... which was basically "secret code" for "cheap handcrafts from SE Asia that people would buy for resale. No longer was it just the domain of craftsman-sellers, but now there were "companies." And they are slowly pushing the artisans into the background.
But they ARE "making more money."
Edited to add: The mandala stones are my own handpainted designs, painted on beach stones my wife and I pick up when walking in the evenings. I've been doing them for about 10 years; they are all free hand and individually done, without photos or stencils.
no way!! I mean about the stones. how much do they cost? I love those patterns!
the part about Etsy is a little depressing but someone else will start another one I'm sure.
Resistance is futile. There is no choice. Assimilate or die. :P
Rats.
I am "Denmark of Borg?"
It's exhausting to try top keep standing in the face of the eternal onslaught, but I'm just crazy enough to keep standing.
This is the first I'm learning of Etsy going down that path. I haven't bought much there in the last couple years, but before that there was a period of about 5 years where I shopped on Etsy a lot. I loved getting handmade goods there, especially clothes made to my dimensions and pottery with the colors I wanted. What a shame to learn that it is no longer favorable to the individual craftsman.
Kind of sad story. When Etsy had their IPO and became a "public corporation," their selling philosophy was "expanded" to include certain types of "manufactured" or mass produced handmade goods. Which basically opened a whole new avenue for people wanting to have "drop ship" businesses selling cheap Asian goods that they certainly didn't make themselves.
Is the handmade stuff from real artisans still there? Certainly, but you have to work quite a bit harder to find it...
The sucking sound to the top is quite loud these days. After these big businesses manage to drown out all others and suck all the money to the few, I wonder who will be able to afford their products. There is certainly economies of scale in large businesses, but more and more we are also seeing monopsony power further concentrating wealth in a small number of businesses and handful of people. Perhaps we need to create an alternative economy around sharing and trade and even crypto. If we are willing to buy and sell in Steem to each other, who cares what Steem is worth to the dollar? In some sense, this could be a shadow economy. After all, governments have allowed and encouraged the vast sucking of wealth to the top few. If the masses now want to bypass governments, that seems completely fair and to be expected. If government isn't willing to stand for all, why should we support it?
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