Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the ambivalence of emerging online marketplaces like Etsy, VonDir, DaWanda & Co and asks if they bear the potential to diminish uncertainty in neo-liberal contexts or if they do not much rather create more uncertainties for makers and sellers involved.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the ambivalence of recently emerging social-commerce-type online marketplaces like Etsy, VonDir, DaWanda & Co, by drawing back on data obtained through netnography as well as interviews. Attracting people who "live the handmade life" these virtual marketplaces seek to establish alternative economies and foster a direct and personal relationship between producer and consumer by providing an opportunity for handcrafters to sell their unique products to a clientele that also appreciates their effort and devotion.

The key components of selling handicrafts as a kind of non-standard work - flexibility, creativity, self-responsability - can be subsumed under what Boltanski/Chiapello (2005) call the New Spirit of Capitalism. Additionally, apparently situated outside of dominant economies, these forms of alternative entrepreneurship and markets, however, are perfectly integrated into them, as Kuni (2008) argues, for they compensate the weariness of mass-produced and -sold articles. Furthermore, by juxtaposing thousands of market stalls in the virtual world, competition has a global scope, thus making it is considerably harder to sell. Last, although anyone can become an "enterprising self" (Bröckling 2007) in these marketplaces, given the skills and creativity to make things, the majority of sellers (96% on Etsy, 85% on DaWanda) is still female.

The question therefore has to be asked if this strategy of resistance - as originally intended by the founders of Etsy and Co. - can diminish uncertainty in neo-liberal contexts or if it does not much rather create more uncertainties for makers and sellers involved.