Goodbye eBay, Hello Amazon: Martha Stewart Switches Teams

• Martha Stewart moved her American Made store from eBay Inc EBAY to Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN
• eBay's American Made venture began in 2013 and was a response to Etsy Inc ETSY's strong growth in ecommerce.
• Martha Stewart said that Amazon is the "powerhouse retailer."

Martha Stewart announced on December 19, 2013 the launch of the Martha Stewart American Made Market on eBay. The online store was intended to "introduce a new generation of great American makers – people who are building a life out of their passions; people whose stories are only possible in America."

Nearly two years later, Martha Stewart is moving her store from eBay to Amazon, according to The New York Times.

Martha Stewart's new Amazon store went live on Wednesday as part of the company's recently launched Handmade store – Amazon's own answer to Etsy.

NYT noted that since Amazon introduced Handmade, the platform has seen the number of artisans who list on the site double to more than 10,000. As a whole, over 200,000 unique items are sold on the platform, up from an initial lineup of just 80,000 items.

However, Etsy remains the dominant player in the unique ecommerce segment with over 36 million craft items for sale from 1.5 million vendors. Meanwhile, eBay's vice president for merchandising for soft goods, Jill Ramsey, said the platform continues to sell more than half a billion dollars' worth of handmade items and craft supplies annually.

Nevertheless, Stewart is confident that Amazon, and not eBay or Etsy, is the right platform to grow her business.

"It's the powerhouse retailer in the United States," NYT quoted Stewart as saying. "It's a step in the right direction, I think, to showcase the vast number of entrepreneurial small companies emerging in the United States. And some of these companies might become the giants of tomorrow."