Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Etsy was growing nicely by connecting craft makers with customers looking for something a bit more out of the ordinary than mainstream e-commerce fare. During the pandemic, e-commerce got a huge boost. But Etsy absolutely skyrocketed, growing at more than twice the rate of overall e-commerce.

It certainly helped that Etsy was a natural fit when people wanted unique face masks, but its growth has been impressive across all product categories and continues. In Q4 2022, Etsy's marketplace sales volume was up 144% over comparable pre-pandemic levels.

Etsy is one of several powerful platforms getting now the most investors’ attention. Few e-commerce companies go head-to-head with Amazon and survive. Etsy not only survived when Amazon rolled out its own handmade items platform; it won. But this could still be the early days of an excellent long-term growth story.

Because of its platform and brand strength, Etsy's market opportunity is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and with about $13 billion in sales on its platform in 2022, it has just started to scratch the surface. And with the stock falling significantly in the recent growth stock downturn, now could be a great time for patient long-term investors to take a closer look.