Supplies & Vintage on Etsy

I decided to check to see how many pages of items each category on Etsy contained. This was done on April 19th. These are the top 10.

1. Jewelry-21,531
2. Art-9132
3. Supplies-8028
4. Accessories-4626
5. Children-4215
6. Paper Goods-3728
7. Bags & Purses-2942
8. Vintage-2675
9. Clothing-2432
10. Housewares-1902

As you can see Supplies is 3rd and Vintage is 8th. A lot of people wonder why supplies and vintage are even on Etsy and some are beginning to think because they are allowed they are taking over Etsy. From what I can see jewelry is doing a good job of that!

On another note, since supplies seem to be doing so good, shops that sell handmade are opening supply shops because that is what is selling. So what happens when that many more shops figure this out and do the same? I had made a comment to support that since our handmade items weren't selling maybe we should get on the bandwagon and start a supply shop!

Admin say they have something in the works in order to define how supplies and vintage will be managed on the site but it won't be implemented until the end of the year sometime.

I read the forums a lot and see all the different viewpoints on the subject. I am not sure of the exact number of members but I do know that most do not frequent the forums and that most do not state their opinion on them if they do. So who truly knows how the rest of the members feel on this subject.

So the question is, is Etsy the right place for supplies/vintage or should they just be handmade period? Should Etsy continue allowing supplies so that people that live in small towns or people looking for unique supplies/vintage items can do all their shopping in one place? Should Etsy leave them be, due to the fact they are making money off of them?

My feelings on this are if you are going to keep them on Etsy, limit what is a supply. Now some might say to a crafter/artist everything is a supply! That might be true, yet I have saw items that are marked supply/commercial that can't actually be used in the making of an item, so I
believe they should not be allowed.

I mainly focused on supplies as I believe that they are the items that are discussed the most.

Please leave a comment on your feelings about this subject. I moderate my comments but will publish all viewpoints!