MItz & Simz - Future on Etsy?

Hello and welcome!

You nay have seen one of the many things online talking about the new terms of service that Etsy has recently released which has the 3D printing community in a bit of an uproar. There is a lot of confusion and uncertainty of what this means for the future of 3D printing and stores such as ours. So I felt compelled to make a posting about it.

Just to clarify up front, this post is not intended to be another explanation of the change. Nor is it a condemnation of what Etsy has done (nor is it a statement of support obviously). I'll leave such debates to the experts and the main drivers of the industry. No, this post is our current perspective on the matter and what it may mean to us and how MItz & Simz is positioning itself for the future.

As you know, we started this business just about 2 years on Etsy. We got into the game of 3D printing a bit late, but I think we have managed to find a good foothold with a strong customer base and steady / regular upwards growth (we are ever grateful to our customers!). And in the early days, Etsy was phenomenal to get the designs of our amazing artists out to the community of D&D enthusiasts. It was a great place to be found by customers and the toolsets were helpful to get things going.

But, as we grew slowly and steadily, we found that we wanted to do more as I've written about in other blog posts. And so a year ago we branched out to this web site because while Etsy was great, it was limiting in a certain way and the excessive fees were really cutting into our bottom line. Which is a bit ironic really because the great thing about such a Marketplace as Etsy is that it helps small businesses and entrepreneurs and artists / artisans to get their items out to a very wide audience. But the fees can be suffocating / strangling. So when we reached a certain point in size, we used our base to then launch the new website. 

And this is good to remind everyone of what Mitz & Simz is. It is a passion project. It is a side hobby which I / we run as a side business while we still manage our regular day jobs (primary sources of income) and other aspects of our lives. Its an extra curricular activity which thankfully is growing ever bigger (slowly, slowly, catch a monkey they say). And this ethos of being a small business is what we feel is our appeal and we extend that appeal to predominantly supporting independent small artists / studios. Its totally aligned with our mission statement. And being a small business with minimal overhead (ok, Mitz and Simz do like to have their special treats, but who are we to deny our lovely feline ladies what they love, right?) and this helps us to keep our prices low. And we have to do so because it is quite a competitive market but we of course still need to turn a profit.

So it is a delicate balance. Larger 3D Printing shops could perhaps have more overhead (due to more people to spread the profits around) and their prices may be higher. But let's be honest, as I wrote in other posts, the tech is generally common (at Mitz & Simz we regularly refresh our tech - we started with a Mars 3 Pro with ABS-Like Resin from Elegoo  but now we are running with Saturn 4 Ultras and Elegoo ABS-like 3.0 Pro resin - but more on this in a subsequent post). So shops should be regularly refreshing their tech. 

For us, then we like to feature our USP as the wide range of models from perhaps underrepresented artists together with a personal approach to our customer service which we hope people have noticed. We don't always get everything right but if we do get something wrong, we do what we can to make it right. We are human after all. Well, human and feline! 

Of course this is no means meant as a criticism to other 3D printing shops. There are many excellent ones (we are a large community). But to stand out, we need to establish our own identity because if our tech is the same (or should be?) then it comes down to available inventory (no shop can possibly sell all available models - there are just so many), our branding (many shops are diving into obvious heroic, fantasy, etc themes but we wanted to be more personal / intimate and so our branding is within the space but inspired by the kitties), and our customer service. We always love to reach out to customers and hear from them and get engaged. Does it take more time? Sure, of course. But its meaningful. Playing a tabletop game is about bringing people together (to slay monsters and run epic adventures) and to us, printing and buying miniatures should be an extension of that. Will this limit our growth in a way? Perhaps, eventually at some point, but while we want to get much bigger (we have loads of room to grow), our mission is not to conquer the market - its not a realistic objective. So we want to stay personal and intimate and I guess continue down the more artisanal approach? 

Which leads me back to the main topic at hand and the inherent irony that is Etsy and our 3D printing industry actually. Artists are great and the tech is great. But there still has to be rules to follow. And to us, it is important to follow the intellectual property rules and give the necessary credit to the artists that they are due and compensate them appropriately. This is why it is important to us to maintain our Merchant Licenses with our artists. This gives them income to continue to create their artwork and for many of them, they are not in a position to print them themselves. This is why shops like ours then help them get their wonderful artwork out into the community to be enjoyed. At the end of the day that is what this is about.

This is why if someone asks for a custom print we ask where they got the file from and to ensure the artist go their due credit. And this is why certain models we don't have listed in the shop (like mainly MZ4250 but we can print his non-commercial stuff as custom jobs on demand). And this is why we don't carry obviously licensed stuff like Marvel / etc. There are indeed a lot of shops advertising controversial items and that sort of detracts from the spirit of the thing, I suppose. But it is a large philosophical debate especially as we rush towards the age of AI and what does intellectual property and copyright mean. That discussion is beyond the scope of this post but I would make an analogy to address the point. What is happening to art now is similar to what happened with music as it evolved from record to tape to CD to digital to streaming. And each technological advancement has forced business models to change. And the same may be necessary for this industry. While AI has its value, I for one still much prefer to support real human artists producing real art. The deeper philosophical debate on AI is also far out of scope of this post.

Is Etsy's aim to crack down on clear infringement? Possibly. Again, I'll leave the debate to others more knowledgeable in the space. Suffice to say, as noted above, our position is clear on trying to be compliant.

But what about other aspects that are being raised? Render images. Well, this is a tricky one. As part of the Merchant License agreements, we have to reference the original artist's work. And why shouldn't we? It is however undeniable that an actual image of the printed item would benefit the customer. And we have aspirations to try to improve upon this (one small step was the Image Gallery - Image Gallery – MitzNSimz - of our painted items). But it is very costly and time prohibitive for a small shop like ours to print everything we offer in our listings (again, one of our USP's). While it would be cool to do so, it just isn't possible for us to realistically do that. But we will try over the coming months to do that.

But with our current Etsy relationship, we still kept it on even though we launched this other site. Why? Well, it brings in a lot of traffic still. We are working to grow our traffic on the website but most of our orders are still through Etsy. Our prices on Etsy are higher. And we haven't been putting new listings on Etsy lately. We have done research to find tools to help do that and we think we found something that can work, but given the current situation, we will hold off on that for the time being. And our prices are higher on Etsy because the fees are higher. Plain and simple. So we hope to continue to drive more traffic to the website as it is a win-win for both us and our customers. Same great products and customer service, lower prices for the customer and increased profits to us. Everyone wins except for well Etsy.

And this is what may happen. It is very unclear how they would police or enforce this change to the policy. It may be a blanket shutdown. Or something else. We just don't know. But if Etsy does do that, it will affect quite a lot of shops and small businesses. Surely Etsy won't do that as I would venture to state that the vast majority of shops are in the same boat as ours - complying would be extremely difficult. 

What is Mitz & Simz position then? Well, keep calm and carry on. No rushing to making changes or freaking out or anything. Staying the course. And our business plan is not exclusive to using Etsy as a platform. This site is our future and we will want to continue to grow. Probably finally also branching out to Instagram direct sales and Facebook market place. Maybe Pinterest. Who knows. But our vision is to keep Etsy if possible (and if thing stabilise, then to finalise the possibility to synchronise our listings across the platforms - but sorry, Etsy would still be always more expensive - its the fees). If Etsy's change does impact us, then while unfortunate, it will not mean any change for our mission. We will keep the web site and we will continue to evolve and grow and we will continue to bring the great models from our artists to our amazing customers. We want everyone to enjoy them as much as we do. And we want to continue to maintain our personal and intimate connection with our community. 

Let's see what the dice have in store for us and see how it unfolds. We hope more customers will move over to our website (or other websites of stores they enjoy that carry models that we do not). 

So until then, keep rolling, keep painting, and keep adventuring. Mitz and Simz is not going anywhere and we intend to keep growing slow and steady. 

Thanks and stay amazing!

-Pete & Mitz & Simz