Are your fans passionate enough about your brand that they would make your ads for you?  If you are Etsy, than the answer is yes thanks to their Handmade Moment contest. I don’t know about you, but if I saw this on TV, I would have never guessed it was “Handmade.”

Right after I posted about Etsy supporting handmade entrepreneurs, I came across an article on Instapreneurs in this month’s Wired. The article points to several new sites that allow aspiring designers to sell their wares without worrying about manufacturing, selling or even fulfillment.  Basically they allow the creation of instant businesses based on nothing more than a design.  Zazzle features “a dizzying array of user-designed products from posters to tennis shoes”, StyleShake is for custom-clothing, and Spreadshirt is for individual t-shirt shops.  Sites like these are removing the traditional barriers to entry and in the process taking away the competitive advantage of large manufacturers and retailers.  It will be interesting to see how these play out and if they can traction like Threadless or CafePress. 

I have been a huge fan of Etsy since they launched back in 2005.  For those of you not familiar with Etsy, they are like a homemade eBay.  They describe themselves as “an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.”  I particularly love their mission of “enabling people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.”  Now I’m not exactly an artistic person myself, but I am a huge fan of anything unique, especially when it comes to buying gifts.  Etsy is perfect in this regards and I’ve found myself wasting hours browsing through the site.  My girlfriend has also fallen in love with the site, so much so that she was inspired to open her own shop called CindyLou4u.  If you are looking some really cool handmade jewelry (not that I am biased or anything), then you should check it out.  And you can win me some major points if she makes a few sales thanks to my blog!