What is Handmade?

Nope, not the age old debate about "my handmade is more handmade than yours", but a deeper look into what it means to me and my view on society's take on it.

Recently, the topic of 'resellers' invading the handmade artisan community has come to point where some of us feel that something needs to be done about it.

What is a reseller?  well, generally speaking, just about any store you can think of is a reseller.  They buy inventory from a wholesale source and resell it to the public.  In and of itself, it's not a bad thing.  It's the way commerce works.  From Wal-Mart to Macy's virtually everything comes from a factory of some sort and is produced in mass quantities.  Some things carry a 'handmade' label, such as embroidered slippers from Indonesia.  We're not talking a few women in their homes, we're talking whole villages of people cranking out X number of items per day. Their weekly salary is often less than our hourly minimum wage.  The conditions are not always sanitary or safe, and very often young children have to work under these conditions in order for a family to make ends meet.

I don't tell you this to get you riled up, or start a movement to boycott these products or companies, but to point out the different definitions of handmade.

Recently, within the last 5-6 years the "Handmade Movement" emerged onto the scene.  It really isn't such a new concept, lots of people have been making their own clothes and their children's for many years.  People have been raising livestock such as sheep, rabbits, llamas and alpacas for their fiber for commercial purposes for hundreds of years, many of them kept a portion for their own use to spin into fiber and then construct into garments for their friends and family and to sell to local folks.  Co-ops where groups of people grow their own fruits, vegetables, grain and meat to trade, barter or sell.

Craft shows and flea markets have been around forever, where people make and sell their own furniture, soaps, clothing, accessories, jewelry, as well as items they've collected over the years.

To those who don't belong to this segment of society, handmade is a novelty, or a completely unknown concept.  With the introduction of the internet, handmade has gotten a lot more attention, mostly by other crafters as they can now gather from across the world and converse with others who share their handmade ethos.  They can gather in virtual markets and sell their wares.  Undoubtedly, this is the largest market for handmade products, as very few can fully appreciate the time, skill and quality of handmade like another crafter or artisan.  The added exposure has increased awareness, certainly, but I think it's still a novelty or an unknown to the general masses.

Education has helped, but education is a double edged sword.  It might convert a few non cratty types to appreciate and purchase handmade products, but it also gives the do-it-yourselfer the means to try their hand at crafting and selling.  I think the crafting pool has grown larger, faster than the buying pool.  And then there's that reseller issue.  Finding a formerly untapped market, resellers begin to label their things as handmade, and due to their lower prices, sometimes lower quality, and their ability to flood the market with their mass produced goods, it is squeezing the crafters and artisans out of their market.  Now we're faced with what to do about it.

It's pretty obvious that we're never going to escape the resellers, they will encroach on every market they can, using whatever tactics they have to in order to compete with us.  It's a dilemma that handmade marketplaces are now facing.  It's not just that resellers are encroaching on our territory, but that they are misrepresenting their items as handmade when they're not, undercutting our prices, copying our pictures to represent their items and often duplicating the exact items of some handcrafters.  I think most of us can accept competition when both sides play fairly, but not when one side cheats. 

It not only hurts us by taking away business, but the deception to the customer is just as serious.  Certainly there are people who don't really care whether or not something is handmade, as long as it's what they want at the price they want to pay.  That's fine, commercial items have their place and their market.  But what about the person who wants to support handmade and they are fooled into thinking that they are purchasing a handmade item only to find out it is mass produced in another country?  How do we protect them?  How do we educate them before they make that purchase?  And if they are fooled, how do we repair the lost trust?

There aren't really any magic solutions to this problem, it will be an ongoing project for us to educate the buying public.  And there will always be those who don't care.

If I can enlighten one person, or give them pause, or encourage them to be a more informed consumer, then I have done my job.  It's more than I expect, but everything I hope for.

RESEL;LERS ON ETSY

Resellers, those shops that try to pass off mass manufactured products as handmade are getting a strong foothold in the Etsy doors.  Allowable reselling are in 2 categories;  vintage

and commercial crafting supplies, nowhere else.  It is even not allowed to buy an item on Etsy and then turn around and resell it, unless it is a commercial crafting supply or vintage.  Any other category is reserved for handmade by the seller.

So, how do you identify who is a reseller, or if a seller has items that are not h andmade by them?  Most of the time, people who are in the a specific craft can pick them out much easier than those that aren't.    And you tend to have at least 2 different kind of resellers, ones who have a shop of handmade stuff who are usually trying to unload stuff they don't want or won't wear anymore.  For example, a gal that sold simple handbeaded jewelry, also had cast rings with stamping in them.  A red flag is when certain items just don't fit the sellers skill set.  Of course, that in and of itself isn't enough proof, so a little detective work is necessary to see if you can find out where else this type of thing can be purchased.  Sure enough, in this case, I found the exact ring sold in Target, so my guess is she bought if for herself at one time and either can't wear it anymore and figured since she already had a shop with handmade jewelry she could slip it in.

I often find the casual sellers are a little more difficult to back with proof of reselling because a lot of stuff is picked up here and there over a few years and might no longer be in the current inventory of the store they bought it from.   They're profiles are usually pretty general and they might elaborate on their love of crafting and creating the perfect thing and yadda, yadda, yadda with no real details about their craft.

However, the career reseller, one who's shop is dedicated completely to items purchased from a wholesaler  is usually easier to spot, but still it is much easier for those in that particular craft to discover them, they are more familiar with the wholesale sites that carry these items.  And of course, some shops just give themselves away by stating that their item is new in the package,  or new with tags or imported from wherever.  They also use names like Gucci, Dooney and |Burke and other famous brand names, and whether they are the real thing or knockoffs they are reselling and not allowed.  Unless, of course, they are vintage, and then the vintage people can spot the ones that aren't vintage.

Resellers often have no location listed, very scant announcement, no policies, their descriptions might give specific details as to size, material content, but there is no connection to the buying public  and they tend to use only 1 or 2 tags only.  The pictures can be another clue, even though we have some artists who take spectacular pictures, there is something about catalog pictures that gives them away.  Oftentimes you can google their shop name and find other places they sell that will describe their items as imported.  That's a nice piece of proof that I have used before when reporting a reseller.  If the same items on that website are the same on Etsy and the website says their imported and Etsy just implies they're handmade by avoiding mentioning it, it's pretty safe to assume they're reselling on Etsy.

I'm sure there are more little things I've omitted, so feel free to add to them.  I don't think anyone who isn't familiar with a craft can spot them like those who are intimate in a particular craft can.  I'm quite sure though, that we have knowledgeable people in every category who could go a long way to weeding these sellers out,