According to BusinessWeek.com, when popular internet marketplace Etsy changed its guidelines on outsourcing restrictions, an uproar broke out among the crafting community. By allowing sellers to hire additional staff to help with administrative tasks (shipping, transactions and even manufacturing products designed by the shop owner), larger sellers will be able to make more revenue than a shop owned by a single owner.

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The changes let Etsy accommodate bigger sellers, which bring in more revenue. (The site takes 3.5 percent of each transaction and 20¢ per listing.) “They’re seeing more and more people [whose] businesses are growing,” says Tim Adam, an Etsy seller who runs the Handmadeology blog. “Etsy wants to keep those people and grow up other businesses that could be like that.” The more lenient guidelines mean that smaller Etsy sellers may have trouble competing, Adam says. Someone making glass beads by hand, for example, couldn’t match the price of a seller who designs beads and “could have those manufactured for nothing,” he says.

Full story, Etsy’s New Rules Open Doors to Bigger Sellers, at BusinessWeek.com.

(Feature Photo: greenchildcreations at Etsy.com)