Lately, shopping on Etsy has become a nightmare for many shoppers. I've been seeing posts daily in their forums of shoppers complaining that they can't find what they are looking for, especially when it comes to shopping for vintage pieces, not to mention finding handmade items.
As a shopper I've faced the same issues on Etsy. You put in a search for "vintage" and end up finding a ton of mass produced new pieces that may have a vintage look but they most certainly aren't vintage pieces.
One of the easiest ways to distinguish mass produced items from true vintage items is when the seller has hundreds of them, or you see multiple sellers with the exact same piece that is "vintage like". Also, if you look very closely they are obviously new and unused. Now, I will admit that I have some unused vintage pieces, as do many other vintage sellers. We look for the new old stock items, because they're normally in excellent condition, but even most of those pieces show some slight signs of age.
My solution to shopping for vintage and finding true vintage: Try searching via Google search and shop with individual sellers that have their own website. Most sellers are now opening their own website stores. You could also scroll their Etsy shops to find their website hotlink, which is normally located below their About information. I found shopping is actually a lot less time consuming than shopping on a venue that's saturated with mass produced items that can't be filtered out of your search.
Myself, as well as many other sellers are going the way of their own website in the hopes of making our customers shopping experience easy, efficient and more enjoyable. Please consider supporting those individuals that are working hard to give you the best shopping experience possible!
Karen R Quinn
Owner/Designer of PowerOfOneDesigns.com