Etsy

Founded in 2005, Etsy is a global digital marketplace that aims to bring the experience of visiting a craft fair or flea market to the web. As Bluedot’s Marketplace Editor and a longtime Etsy shopper, I never tire of this site. Over the years, I’ve purchased stunning beeswax candles, three sarongs, soap saver pouches, wooden toys, hundreds of postcards for voters, whimsical plant animals, and so much more. Finding Etsy stores whose wares align with my values has always been easy. I feel great knowing that Etsy now offsets the carbon emissions from the shipping and packing of every delivery (through a partnership with Certified B Corp 3Degrees). And, Etsy now works with a company that offers competitively priced sustainable packaging materials to Etsy sellers.

A quick note: Etsy had as many as nine million active sellers in 2023, so that makes it a very large craft fair (and one where it can be hard to stand out). According to the site’s Creativity Standards, “Etsy is a place for items made by a seller, designed by a seller, handpicked by a seller, or sourced by a seller.” As Etsy has grown, it’s become increasingly common to find stores that “handpick” and “source” mass-produced items of the type that really belong on (and may have come from) sites such as Temu or Alibaba. Fortunately, it’s usually not too hard to avoid these things. If you search for dog beds and see multiple stores showing what seems to be the exact same dog bed with the exact same Pomeranian in it: Just don’t buy it.