Etail giant Amazon has gone and launched “Handmade at Amazon”, giving entrepreneurs a platform to sell handcrafted goods and competing with online arts and crafts marketplace Etsy.
The new service was launched on Thursday with a selection of 80,000 products, including homemade candles and pillow covers, on sale from artisans across 60 countries.
In recent years, the ecommerce giant has been building on its niche category offering and in May began inviting sellers to join Handmade and access Amazon‘s 285m shoppers.
It is understood that the new site from Amazon was launched off the back off the customer feedback and site searches for crafty items.
“We had thousands of searches every day from customers looking for handmade or handcrafted items,” said Peter Faricy, Vice President for Amazon Marketplace.
With the new focus, Amazon is challenging Etsy, which went public in April and recorded global sales of over $1bn during the first half of this year, although the two are not directly the same.
Amazon is waving a listing fee but will take 12% of sales to cover costs, while 10 year-old Etsy takes a 20% per-item fee. In addition, Amazon can attract sellers with Prime shipping options so that buyers don‘t need to worry over delivery costs.
