Is Etsy the Next Victim of the Retail Apocalypse?

After racking up $2.8 billion in sales in 2016, peer-to-peer marketplace, Etsy, just posted a $421,000 first quarter profit loss, which has triggered a number of major changes at the company, including the ousting of its CEO.

The web service, which is used by scores of independent sellers to pedal homemade, vintage, and otherwise obscure goods to a near-30 million person user base, has replaced CEO, Chad Dickerson, with Josh Silverman, a former eBay executive who has experience in “technology, advertising and personalization” – all things Etsy is trying to improve.

In light of the changes, Forbes sat down with Cooper Smith, research director of digital think tank L2, and Luigi Ferguson, assistant vice president of SEO at Ansira, a data-marketing firm, to discuss the website’s future.

Topics ranged from core issues (what Smith called “an identity crisis”), unfair comparisons (the platform only has 10% of the user base that Amazon does, and their $2.8 billion in gross merchandise volume last year pales in comparison to eBay’s $84 billion), potential suitors (Amazon and Walmart, because duh), and what Silverman can bring to the table.

For anyone interested in the possible fate(s) of the internet’s original handmade marketplace, it’s definitely worth a read.

Check it out at Forbes.

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