This probably would come as a bit of a sudden notice for some people- but I decided to join in the end on the Etsy Stricke because of the increase on fees, between other things (you can check more about it and how to help here)
For this, I am offering, specially for the current acrylic commissions, purchases through my online shop! You can check it out here!
And also because of that, apart that I will be going on a small vacation, I will be having a longer time to order your commissions! Now until April 19th, so if you’re interested you can send me a message or purchase directly on my shop nwn
Thank you all for reading!! And again sorry for this much information on a short period of time- love you all-
hey everyone! I’m going to be closing my shop from april 11th to april 18th in solidarity with other etsy sellers to protest etsy’s latest seller fee price hike and certain new policies you can read about below! you know I’m always complaining about their fees and how I prefer to be paid outside of etsy whenever possible. I hope you’ll join me and not cross the picket line from april 11th to april 18th! you know where to find me if there’s anything I have listed that you want to buy or you have an idea for a commission!
“Etsy made bank over the pandemic. In 2020, they more than doubled their gross marketplace sales. In 2021, they kept those pandemic sales gains and broke their 2020 record by $3.2 billion dollars.
“On April 11, 2022, they plan to increase our transaction fees by 30%.
“Etsy’s last fee increase was in July 2018. If this new one goes through, our basic fees to use the platform will have more than doubled in less than four years. These basic fees do not include additional fees for Offsite ads - which started during the first wave of the pandemic.
“Etsy was founded with a vision of ‘keeping commerce human’ by ‘democratizing access to entrepreneurship.’ As a result, people who have been marginalized in traditional retail economies – women, people of color, LGBTQ people, neurodivergent people, etc. – make up a significant proportion of Etsy’s sellers. For many of us, Etsy makes up our main source of income.”
*Alot of disabled people sell - and buy - on Etsy too. Etsy has basically looked at their majority-minority sellers and gone “How much can I screw these people over?”
The Etsy Strike isn’t just about the platform increasing its fees for sellers, although that’s a wild move for the company to make after bringing in record profits for two years straight. Rather, it’s about how these fees are structured to hurt small businesses.
In essence, Etsy is forcing independent artists to operate according to the same business model and practices as Amazon. The most egregious instance of this is the platform’s insistence that we offer free tracked shipping.
Shipping costs rose steeply during the past two years. The pandemic also resulted in significant delays, and the new regulations regarding shipping packages to and from the UK haven’t helped. To ensure “customer satisfaction,” Etsy now penalizes sellers who don’t include tracking on every order, even if it’s just a single sticker. In addition, Etsy is aggressive about its policy of burying the listings of sellers who don’t offer free shipping.
What this means is that sellers are expected to absorb the rising costs of shipping. We are encouraged to purchase mailing labels through Etsy, which generally overcharges and also levies additional shipping fees on the seller. To give an example of what this looks like in practice, an artist would be expected to pay about $4 in order to mail a $3 vinyl sticker. This is exponentially worse when it comes to international shipping.
In other words, this protest isn’t about paying a few more dimes to Etsy for storefront rent. Rather, it’s about how Etsy is forcing small business to choose between losing money or raising their prices to levels that would substantially decrease sales. Artificially inflated prices also effectively shut out artists and crafters who don’t already have substantial online followings.
This is only one of many instances of how Etsy’s recent policies and fee structures hurt small businesses and independent artists. The situation is especially upsetting because it doesn’t have to be like this. Although Etsy was never without its flaws, the platform was relatively welcoming to part-time and amateur sellers, and this inclusive environment resulted in record-breaking profits for the company.
Unfortunately, this profit has led Etsy to consider licensing itself as a storefront for large international distributors such as AliExpress and Rakuten, who are already operating on the same scale as Amazon. This is especially unfortunate because Etsy forbids independent sellers from reselling professionally manufactured goods, thus creating a double standard that puts actual artists at a distinct disadvantage.
Etsy is a major platform for independent creators, especially as competition to table at in-person conventions is at an all-time high and platforms like Gumroad and Kickstarter are quickly losing their viability. Even if you doubt the efficacy of a grassroots strike against a giant multinational corporation, I think it’s still important to stand in solidarity with the artists, crafters, and other creators who are taking a stand against the entire online marketplace becoming like Amazon.
hey everyone! I’m going to be closing my shop from april 11th to april 18th in solidarity with other etsy sellers to protest etsy’s latest seller fee price hike and certain new policies you can read about below! you know I’m always complaining about their fees and how I prefer to be paid outside of etsy whenever possible. I hope you’ll join me and not cross the picket line from april 11th to april 18th! you know where to find me if there’s anything I have listed that you want to buy or you have an idea for a commission!
Kaizu and I will be participating in the Etsy strike coming up from April 11th to the 18th!
Our shop will be put on vacation mode so sales will not be possible.
The Etsy strike is to protest the recent increase in fees. Etsy has announced record profits but still increased fees by 30% and have over the last few years been making the site inhospitable to small creators.
Please help support this strike by not buying anything from Etsy during the week of April 11th.
Please spread the word if you can! Crim and I are putting our shop on hiatus— and if you’re a creator on Etsy, and can afford to do so, we hope you do the same!
[ID: a graphic with the Etsy logo, a white capital E on an orange square, with a slashed circle ‘no’ symbol over it and small triangles around it for emphasis on a dark gray background. Below it is the white text, “Etsy strike! [underline] April 11th to April 18th. [end underline] Please refrain from buying from Etsy during these dates. Our shops will also be closed for that week.” end ID]
etsy sellers who can afford to are suspending their shops this week in protest of yet more fee increases, and are requesting shoppers also boycott in solidarity (or ideally use alternate channels where available)
Babies don’t forget there’s an Etsy boycott from April 11-18 to protest the higher service fees recently instated for shop owners despite the fact that the company reported record profits last year. Etsy is usually one of my go-tos but I am absolutely going to stay off for the week. Without its vendors (many of whom are independent artists/creators) Etsy is literally nothing, and if these new policies are undermining their ability to stay on the site without risking their financial stability then they 100% deserve our support. No Etsy this week!!!
For those unaware starting tomorrow April 11th 2022 until April 18th Lem0ns Creates will be joining 5000+ other Etsy sellers and striking by putting our store on vacation mode for the week. We will be back on the 19th!
well i can’t do the etsy strike thing, as a seller, as i don’t own the store, but what i can do, is that the boss has been wanting me to raise prices on there, so i just jacked all our prices up a bunch. might go back through and do it again.
Firstly I just want to remind you, never click on an Etsy ad, ever; if you do, clear your cookies afterward. if you buy from my shop with a click from an Etsy ad of any kind in your browser history, they’re dinging me an enormous percentage fee off whatever you buy. I have a repeat customer who’s now ordered from me six times, and Etsy charges that fee every time she buys, because she clicked on an ad sometime before she made that first purchase. that’s how it works.
but secondly– i haven’t seen many people talk about this but one of the unpopular things etsy’s done is they’ve instituted this new “star seller” status thing, right, and it’s exactly the same mechanism as the metrics Amazon uses to nebulously weight a seller’s virtues in a way that makes them turn up higher in searches and stuff (or, ~*ooh*~, get the buy box), and on Amazon it’s very explicitly not transparent and the seller is not allowed to know the criteria (and in fact in many cases the criteria are that you have paid for placement), but if they have jumped through all these hoops to meet metrics, then they’re eligible and in the running, and if they don’t meet those metrics ( again, this is the existing system on Amazon), they’re dropped entirely from search results, or removed as a seller. (Source: I am also a seller on Amazon. I sell different stuff on Etsy, but I’ve been on both for many years.)
Etsy keeps saying this is optional and it’s fine and it’s not going to get you shadowbanned or whatever, but–
one of the things they want, just like Amazon, is 24 hour response time to all messages.
Think about a five-day work week. Think about a part-time Etsy seller. There was a help question related to that, where people were like “how am I supposed to do this,” and Etsy’s official response to that was to encourage sellers to install the app on their phone, so that they could answer questions anytime, anywhere.
yeah. fuck your work-life balance, right? if you don’t have staff, you’d best be answering Etsy questions from your kid’s soccer game or from your dialysis machine or wherever the fuck you are, Etsy does not care and there are no excuses. and you know it’s a matter of time before Star Seller status does, in fact, determine whether you show up in searches at all. This is inevitable.
so, pretty transparently, Etsy is trying to horn in on Amazon’s niche, and is therefore optimizing things for the large-volume resellers that built Amazon. That’s where the money is, because it’s all markup on mass-produced crap produced overseas exploitatively. It’s not about letting small producers connect directly with customers to earn a living, it’s about making middlemen and stockholders rich.
like this isn’t even getting into the fee hike, this is just the experience of attempting to sell things on Etsy.
Fuck yes!!! I will absolutely be participating in the Etsy strike. This fee shit is ridiculous. A zine I sell for $3 will get $0.70 taken out just for Etsy fees – three separate fees! listing fee, transaction fee, and credit card processing fee. And that’s before postage and copies – I’m way in the red on zines, which is whatever since I’m not in zines to make money. But I am also not in zines to help a slimy corporation make money while I’m not even breaking even. Not to mention, lots of people dodepend on Etsy as their primary source of income. These fee hikes are absolutely hurting the individual sellers and small businesses that Etsy claims to give a shit about. It’s almost as if, hmm, creators & craftspeople are being punished for trying to bootstrap their way into the American dream… IMAGINE THAT!!! Please support sellers! Support the strike! Boycott Etsy April 11th-18th.
Well, part solo. The Etsy Strike of the past week made me decide to set up a shop on my own webhosting to see how it goes. I’ve made sure to continue my 20% off Pride jewellery, and I’m also offering a 10% off coupon for everyone’s first order. Check it all out, yo <3
Hey folx, this week is a general strike on Etsy by sellers. Please check out the website for our demands. Please sign the related petition. PLEASE boycott shopping on Etsy this week. And, if you’re so inclined, tell Etsy on their social media outlets that you are against their treatment of sellers.
Whatever the case, any help given is appreciated. Spread the word, and tell Etsy to quit ripping off us creative folx that make the platform aight.
I am bowled away by these gorgeous infographic photos by @kittynaut!
My etsy shop will be closed through the end of the month, first to observe the strike and then second because I am travelling, because like most etsy sellers I am just one human running a tiny business out of my bedroom. Please don’t buy anything from etsy while the strike is running and if you have a shop, and can afford to, please consider closing it for the week.
