Made with love

The global online marketplace for handcrafted products – Etsy – opened a pop-up store in London late 2018 to promote products craftsmanship, sustainability, and wellbeing. The store provided QR codes that consumers could scan to discover more information about the maker. Etsy has had strong growth over the past few years, boasting a 20.9% increase in revenue in 2017 compared to 2016.1 The strong growth Etsy is experiencing suggests that there is a demand for handcrafted products.

What drives demand for artisan products?

Handcrafted products are argued to contain a quality that machine-made products do not: love.2 The study finds the existence of a handmade effect, where products that are marketed as being handmade are perceived to be imbued with the love of the creator, thus increasing the product’s attractiveness. These perceptions were particularly prevalent for handmade products intended to be gifts for close relationships, though became less prevalent for more distant relationships. Furthermore, the effort invested into a product influences its quality perceptions.3 Products – such as handmade products – that are perceived to take more time and effort to create are rated as having higher quality.

Which brands are incorporating artisanship into their offerings?

As mentioned in the introduction, Etsy provides consumers with a marketplace full of handmade products, often from small businesses or independent vendors. However, there are also major brands marketing handmade products. For example, Lush emphasises the handmade quality of every aspect of its stores from the products to the hands-on approach of the staff members. This allows the brand to promote its ethical ingredients and adds exclusivity to their products as no two handcrafted items are the same.

  1. Etsy. (2018). 2017 Annual Report. Retrieved from https://investors.etsy.com/~/media/Files/E/Etsy-IR/annual-report-proxy-materials/etsy-2017-annual-report.pdf
  2. Fuchs, C., Schreier, M., and van Osselaer, S. M. J. (2015). The handmade effect: what’s love got to do with it? Journal of Marketing, 79(2), 98-110. DOI: 10.1509/jm.14.0018.
  3. Kruger, J., Wirtz, D., van Boven, L., and Altermatt, T. W. (2004). The effort heuristic. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(1), 91-98. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(03)00065-9