Crafting a new local economy

Discovering local vendors

“I’m always looking on Etsy as a customer, and I’m always buying supplies, and I’m always looking for vendors,” says Selkowitz. While many of her Etsy-sourced vendors have not been local, Selkowitz says, “I’ve met some people that work in Kingston, or outside New Paltz.”

Fatizzi says sometimes networking with local vendors is purposeful and other times it’s serendipitous. A retailer might private-message her something like “I see that you’re a local seller on Etsy, I make furniture but I have these great antique purses that belonged to my grandmother.” And in that way, a new local relationship forms from a chance encounter online.

Making ends meet

Etsy, in many ways, shows with clarity the relationship between social media and localized communities, and between local economies and global economies. It helps people supplement their income, either directly (through web sales) or indirectly (through promoting in-store sales). Simple. But how do Etsy sellers make the rest of their income? Selkowitz and Stang both have storefronts, while Fatizzi has had storefronts on-and-off for years. All of the sellers interviewed sell their wares in someone else’s storefront, as well. Most of the sellers have other jobs.

Selkowitz does custom sewing and offers design lessons. Adam Marks is the executive chef at the famous Junior’s in Brooklyn, while wife Stephanie Marks manages a salon full-time. And Fatizzi says she’s always “done something on the side” and currently works full-time as a nurse’s aide. When asked if she would want to support herself solely from her store, she emphatically says yes. “It’s hard…I don’t know how anyone else does it,” she says.

The good news for Etsy-sellers is that working knowledge of social media and web-based selling is very desirable for job candidates in the digital age. Fatizzi says that her experience listing products online has led her to employment several times. She has done work for local antique-sellers From Europe to You on 9W in Saugerties, as well as Treasure Traders, now in Kingston, mostly posting their products to selling sites like Ebay.

Rayann also did a stint working from her Saugerties home with start-up Style.ly, a spin-off of Yardsellr.com. Style.ly, not unlike Etsy, was a social buying site, where sellers could easily engage with one another, as well as share listings on Facebook and Twitter. Fatizzi says she helped Style.ly get off the ground as a consultant and as a social media promoter, referring many of her friends and acquaintances  to join.

Think global, act local

Etsy may only be a small piece in a larger puzzle, but mapping its users reveals a lot. Internet communities can be local communities, too. And local communities who use the web to connect with “the rest of the world” may actually stand the most to gain from their neighbors.