$346 million in face masks were sold on Etsy in three months, company says
In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that Americans don cloth face masks to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
In the three months that followed, hundreds of millions of dollars in face masks were sold on Etsy, an online marketplace with more than 3 million sellers.
Etsy released its second quarter earnings report Wednesday which indicates that Etsy sellers sold a whopping $346 million worth of face masks from April to the end of June.
Face masks accounted for 14% of all sales for the same time period, Etsy said.
Further, the marketplace said 112,000 Etsy shops sold at least one mask and 4 million buyers visited the site specifically to purchase face masks and nothing else.
The only Etsy categories that saw more sales than masks in the second quarter were homewares and jewelry, the company said. Face masks accounted for more sales than craft supplies, apparel and party supplies.
“Our extremely strong second quarter results ... are a testament to the agility of our team, the strength of our brand, the innovation of our sellers, and the unique and special nature of inventory on our core Etsy marketplace,” CEO Josh Silverman said in a news release.
When demand for face masks spiked on Etsy in early April, the company issued guidelines for how sellers are allowed to advertise their masks.
They were warned not to claim their masks can kill COVID-19 and to not compare them to N95 masks, McClatchy News previously reported. Sellers were also told to not label masks as medical devices or to mention coronavirus or COVID-19 in their listings.
Etsy allows shoppers to flag sellers that are not adhering to the guidelines.
