Comments
VP & Country head of global marketplace for creators, Etsy, Pankaj Jathar told businessline that the platform took a long time before deciding to invest in India, but they are here for the long run now. .
Etsy has been onboarding Indian sellers since 2018 but it wasn’t until late 2022 that the platform integrated rupee transactions on the platform. Even the appointment of Jathar as the country head of India was announced in August 2022.
Commenting on the India opportunity and market response to Etsy, Jathar said, “The whole point of what we did in the last four years was to understand the seller side of the market and we believe there is very strong market opportunity in India.”
- Also read: The logistics of raising e-commerce exports
He added that Etsy has onboarded tens of thousands of sellers in India over the last four years. The platform also started getting Indian buyers on the platform in October 2022 (post-introduction of Indian currency) and is seeing steady growth.
“We are still in the early stages. We’re still onboarding sellers from across the country,” said Jathar.
Talking about what differentiates Etsy from other online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, etc, Jathar said, “Etsy is home to small creators, solopreneurs who are running their own business, and when these small sellers go onto a large platform their discoverability usually goes down. This is where Etsy differentiates, on our platform sellers are in a sea of small creators just like them, and the technology behind Etsy search, recommendation engine, etc are all built to support such small and unique sellers.”
About the platform
Etsy was set up as a marketplace in 2005. It is a marketplace for creators, creative people, and artisans to sell their products directly to buyers.
Globally, Etsy has buyers from almost every country in the world (by currency). It has almost 90 million buyers and about 5.5 million sellers globally.
The marketplace is not divided into different domains, so any seller who onboards on Etsy can start selling internationally.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.