[acgourley]

My 2c on Etsy. My mother is a freelance artist by trade and I witnssed a radical change in her web savvy and understanding in her first 6 months on Etsy. The reason was that she was participating in the Etsy community forums which provide a lot of technical direction. Generating facebook leads, optimal posting strategies, how to make white backgrounds on photos of inventory, etc. In short, they have a passionate self-training community that increases seller efficiency rather than just punishing the inefficient.

One odd side effect of this passion and sense of community is that sellers see selling on Etsy as a hobby rather than a profession, and their effective compensation reflects this.