Wow!  I’m coming down from a serious craft high to write this.  For the past two hours or so I’ve been browsing around the EU version of Etsy.  And I could easily spend so much more time there now that I’ve figured out and fallen in love with their system.  DaWanda, you had me at “hallo.”  ”Bonjour” or “hello” will do too.

DaWanda made its debut as a Berlin-based site in 2006.  Founders Claudia Helming and Michael Pütz noticed that there were numerous people in their community producing handmade items, but no organized way for them to reach interested buyers with the same currency.  Once the site was up and running in Deutschland, the English and French incarnations soon followed.  Today, there are more than 250,000 registered users…around 35,000 of them make and sell the approximately 350,000 products that are posted at any given time.  By the looks of things, those numbers will keep growing as DaWanda’s popularity extends beyond European borders.  My unscientific search turned up quite a few crafters from Asia, South America and the United States.

That same search also turned up an incredible amount of handcrafted goodness.  The friendly folks from DaWanda asked us to put together our own “pinboard,” which is somewhat similar to an Etsy treasury.  At first it seemed daunting to sift through thousands of pages, but the search functions were quite helpful and in no time I’d already amassed more items than they’d asked for.  There’s no doubt that I could find even more to showcase from the unique offerings assembled all under one happy multinational roof.  Cross-cultural good feelings abound, evidenced not only in their trilingual set-up, but in the name that they chose.  They picked DaWanda, an African woman’s name, because “it stands for something lovely and unique – one of a kind.”  And they welcome sellers and shoppers from all over the world.

Even though I’ve yet to make an actual purchase, Ich liebe DaWanda!  The ease of navigation and the quality/variety of the merchandise have helped feed my craft cravings.  I encourage you to check it out for yourself and report back!  Make your own pinboard and share it with the class.  Need some inspiration?  Take a gander at the Hello Craft contributions:  hello DaWanda and Foxy!

So long!  Farewell!  Auf Wiedersehen!  Adieu!

And, as always, please feel free to talk about your experience with DaWanda in the comments below.  Do you sell there?  How does it compare to Etsy?  Have you made a purchase?  Want to show and tell?

extra special thanks to Azra Ahmed, English Community Manager and goodwill ambassador