Dive Brief:

• Etsy will expand its two-year-old program allowing sellers to contract out their manufacturing to make it easier for sellers to find manufacturing partners.

• Since 2013, some 5,000 sellers have partnered with more than 7,000 manufacturers, most within their own countries.

• Etsy Manufacturing will help sellers find manufacturers through a database of various printing, apparel, textile, and other manufacturers that Etsy Manufacturing has vetted for reliability, ethical standards, and other features, and will collect fees for any transactions.

Dive Insight:

This is the side of Etsy that is focused on helping small sellers grow their businesses. It’s a niche that may have been possible through the old-fashioned guilds of the Middle Ages, say, but that is largely absent in our mass-production world. And as such it's a growth opportunity for the marketplace.

The questions are how much of a problem this really solves, and whether the fees Etsy has conjured up fit well with the benefit. It may all depend on how difficult it is to find a machinist, a fabricator, or a sewist that can produce hand-made items in greater bulk.