What strong community communication tools are you referring to?
As far as I can see, actually cultivating community has been a big shortcoming for Etsy. The 'teams' section of the site is very underdeveloped (it's been the same for years and isn't tied into the rest of the site very well). The forums are frequented by the a small group of focused people, mainly all sellers, and the tone on there has been very negative for years. The in-house messaging system ('conversations') is extremely lacking, with no serious organization tools for your messages. The shop/item favoriting system doesn't function as a social networking 'friends' system, it's geared only towards shopping.
Etsy sellers tend to network through their own blogs (mainly on blogger), independent craft blogs, and use Twitter for communication.
As far as I can see, actually cultivating community has been a big shortcoming for Etsy. The 'teams' section of the site is very underdeveloped (it's been the same for years and isn't tied into the rest of the site very well). The forums are frequented by the a small group of focused people, mainly all sellers, and the tone on there has been very negative for years. The in-house messaging system ('conversations') is extremely lacking, with no serious organization tools for your messages. The shop/item favoriting system doesn't function as a social networking 'friends' system, it's geared only towards shopping.
Etsy sellers tend to network through their own blogs (mainly on blogger), independent craft blogs, and use Twitter for communication.