Etsy Strike
This week my Etsy shop is closed. Like many other people selling on Etsy, I am striking in response to the latest in a long line of fee increases and policy changes that are making Etsy an increasingly difficult place for artists and makers to sell their products.
As you may know, I sell my work here on my website and also on Etsy. Etsy is where I first set up an online shop and it gave me a straightforward way to start selling my work online.
However, over the past 5 years the fees that Etsy charge their sellers have increased and their policy changes have meant that Etsy is alienating more and more the artists and makers that form the community of small businesses on Etsy.
These are the fees Etsy charges:
Listing fees - every time a shop owner lists an item for sale, they are charged a fee
Transaction fees - Etsy takes a cut of every sale we make and this includes a fee for additional things like gift wrapping and essentials like postage (they take a cut of the postage fees charged)
Offsite ads - for shops who have never made £10,000 or more in a one year period since 2019, Etsy create ads for your products but if anyone buys a product as a result of clicking on one of these ads, Etsy will take 15%. You can opt out but the default is that you are opted in. However, if you shop has ever earned more that £10,000 in a 1 year period since 2019 they take a lower fee of 12% and you are unable to opt out.
Payment processing fee which varies depending on your bank’s location.
As well as all of this, Etsy will rank products and shops lower in search results if they aren’t paying for Etsy ads and if they aren’t categorised as a ‘Star Seller’. What is a Star Seller, you ask? Well, to become a Start Seller you must do the following:
Respond to private messages from customers within 24 hours
Consistently get 5 star ratings
Dispatch on time and include tracking with every order.
These metrics are checked and wiped clean at the start of every month and they aren’t attainable for small businesses like mine. Tracked shipping within the UK for a single greeting card would cost more than the card itself - oh and you also have to buy the shipping labels through Etsy, of course.
Occasionally, customers will be really happy with a purchase but still give ‘only’ 4 stars, which is fine but that’s not something I can control.
If that wasn’t enough, we’ve also been encouraged to offer free shipping to the US on orders over a certain price, even though doing so would mean that we either have to increase the price of the products for everyone in every country, to cover the cost of the ‘free’ shipping , or we pay for the shipping out of our own pocket and make very little (if any) profit on those sales.
From today , in spite of huge profits over the past couple of years, Etsy are increasing the transaction fee imposed on sellers from 5% to 6.5%, once again, making it increasingly difficult for small businesses to survive on their platform.
I have stuck with Etsy this far for a few reasons but if they continue to squeeze artists in this way then I may have to reconsider that.
If you would like to support the Etsy strike or find out more, please visit https://etsystrike.org/