Etsy CEO Says This Many Shops are Now Selling Face Masks on the Platform

If you’ve left your house during this lockdown to do any essential shopping, you more than likely have seen people wearing face masks.

The CDC recently recommended that people were face masks during the coronavirus pandemic. With many people needing a mask, they have turned to e-commerce marketplace Etsy.com.

There are now 20,000 shops on Etsy selling face masks, said CEO Josh Silverman to CNBC on Wednesday.

“Our sellers are able to produce hundreds of thousands of masks per day,” he said on “Closing Bell.” Silverman pointed out however that masks bought from Etsy will not prevent people from contracting COVID-19.

“The CDC itself has said a fabric face mask is probably better than nothing but please do not assume that this keeps you or the people around you safe. It’s an additive measure. It’s not preventative,” he stressed.

Etsy began to see “overwhelming demand” for masks from shoppers last week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending Americans wear a cloth face covering to protect against the coronavirus, said the CEO.

There about 2.7 million Etsy sellers “who are crafts people,” Silverman said.

This has become an opportunity for Etsy sellers who may be experiencing a decline in demand for their other products to continue generating income, Silverman said.

“For example many people might be making wedding dresses, and the wedding season is pretty hard-hit right now so they can shift to making fabric face masks instead,” said Silverman, who was the former CEO of Skype.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Etsy Inc. (NASDAQ: ETSY) and have not been compensated for this article.