Move Over Etsy, Amazon Is Moving Into Your Space

Etsy Inc. ETSY has long cornered the market on handmade, specialty items with a vast marketplace of sellers offering everything from baby clothes to pet portraits. The site has been around for 10 years and offers sellers exposure to customers all over the world.

However, e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN is looking to disrupt Etsy's hold on the artisanal market with its own site, dubbed Handmade.

Handmade

Amazon's Etsy competitor Handmade launched on Thursday with an already robust base of sellers. Before opening its doors, Handmade made the rounds on Etsy, offering sellers a chance to hawk their products on the new site. Amazon says its site boasts 80,000 artisanal items made by some 5,000 sellers, and expects to continue growing with time.

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Stiff Competition

While Etsy is still home to the majority of crafty sellers with around 1.5 million, the site is likely to face tough competition with Amazon in the market.

Amazon has a much larger customer base than Etsy and with Handmade items showing up in customers' Amazon searches, sellers are more likely to see a higher volume of sales on Handmade. However, Amazon charges a 12 percent transaction fee, a steep increase from Etsy's 3.5 percent. In that regard, Etsy has the edge as such a price hike may not be feasible for sellers of handmade goods since their businesses are often small.

Still, Amazon is a force to be reckoned with and Etsy shares lost 4.3 percent on Thursday following Handmade's launch.