Amazon.com, Inc. has entered the hand-crafted goods market with the launch of a new service Thursday.

Called Handmade at Amazon, the service launched with a lineup of over 80,000 items from about 5,000 sellers in 60 countries. Listings in the service are filed under categories including Furniture, Jewelry, Home Décor, Artwork, and a number of others.

“You can think of it as a factory-free zone, a mass-produced-free zone,” Amazon Vice President Peter Faricy said in an interview with The New York Times. “For the first time on Amazon, we’re going to have a picture of the artist, a little icon of what state they’re from, what country they’re from.”

“We’re going to launch with an experience that’s very different. Customers are going to see the difference.”

Etsy

If the new service sounds familiar from the outset that would be because it’s basically a clone of Etsy, Inc. the handmade arts and crafts marketplace that went public earlier this year.

Investors saw the similarities as well and dumped Etsy stock, driving the price down 4.3 percent to $13.57, not a good look given it floated at $30 per share.

Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson responded to the challenge by Amazon in a statement, saying “We believe we are the best platform for creative entrepreneurs, empowering them to succeed on their own terms.”

“Etsy has a decade of experience understanding the needs of artists and sellers and supporting them in ways that no other marketplace can. Our platform attracts 21+ million thoughtful consumers seeking to discover unique goods and build relationships with the people who make and sell them.”

Although there is no question that Etsy is the market leader in the space currently, when it comes to Amazon you’re comparing a mouse to an elephant; Amazon has the scale and customer base to make just about anything (excepting smartphones) work, particularly when it comes to retailing goods.

However, at the beginning Etsy does have one slight advantage, and that’s how much they charge sellers: Etsy charges a 20-cent fee for each item a seller lists on its site and takes a 3.5 percent cut of the sales, while Amazon takes a 12 percent cut of sales but has no listing fee.

The aspect of community and personalization may also work in Etsy’s favor given the company is dedicated to the one market versus the giant which is Amazon, as ultimately Etsy support staff will know what they’re talking about.

All that said, you’d be betting on Amazon killing a good portion of Etsy’s business within the next 12 months, no matter what advantages Etsy may have.

 Image credit: Amazon.