Interview: Handmade Goods on Etsy Rake in $1 Million/Month in Revenues

Robert Kalin is only 28 years old, but his person-to-person e-commerce business, Etsy, is generating $1 million dollars in revenue a month. The 4 year old business is "your place to buy and sell everything handmade." Although, the website competes with eBay, the site sold nearly $100 million dollars worth of handmade goods in 2008. The company has raised over $30 million in financing.

Michael Arrington, from TechCrunch, just interviewed Robert at the World Economic Forum:

Etsy has been raking in money through three different revenue streams:

1. 20 cent listing fee
2. 3.5% sales fee
3. In-house advertising program

Not surprisingly, sellers are made up of 97% woman. I wonder what the equivalent site for guys would be?

There's a lot of jewelry on the site, but I stumbled across this Steampunk Airship Tracking Green Lamp. It gives you an idea of the unique type of items that are sold on the site.

This device was used by sky pirates to detect Royal Fleet airships by means of picking up the high frequencies put out by their Tesla generators, a Strong green glow means and airship was within range of attacking.....This globe style lamp features glass and brass with patinaed surface, Powered by a Green LED in the base of the tube, running off of three button batteries (included) Very bright! A brass gear accents the top as well. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed creating it. Measures aprox 5 1/2" tall x 4 1/2" wide. A perfect gift for the Steampunk collector.