Etsy

Since it launched in 2005, the Brooklyn-based company has grown steadily. The site has 25 million members, employs more than 400 people in the U.S. and abroad, and has helped facilitate transactions in nearly 200 countries. Members’ sales reached $895.1 million in 2012 and sales are expected to reach over a billion dollars. This is partly because etsy only takes 3% of every sale and charges a mere $.20 to list on their site. One person makes almost a million dollars a year solely through selling leg warmers and scarfs. ThreeBirdNest receives an average of 150 orders per day, with most orders consisting of three items. Around the holidays, that number goes up to 700 to 1,200 orders per day. This January, the business raked in a total of $128,000 in sales. In the three years since its launch, it has made 100,000 sales on Etsy alone. She claims to have taken on 15 employees since her launch, but attributes all of her success from social media marketing. Cases like these are part of the reason for esty’s success, the idea that any person’s products have the potential to take off.