But probably the last time for me.

“Now, we’re planning to invest even more in bringing buyers to Etsy, building seller tools, and improving your seller experience. To help make this happen, we’re updating our fees, and we’re adding some new features. 

Effective July 16, Etsy’s transaction fee will increase from 3.5% to 5% and it will also apply to the cost of shipping. All other fees, including listing fees, will remain the same.”

This was the email that Etsy sent out to it’s sellers on Thursday, June 14th.  They’re giving sellers about one month of notice that their fees are going up, and not only are they going up on sales, they’ll now apply to shipping.  They’re also offering different levels of a monthly subscription, neither of which would be feasible for most small shops.

So within the first half of this year not only have they taken away the in person sales, forced people who sell in person (like I do, and get most of my sales in person) to use Square, then leach fees off those sales as well, now they’re also raising their fees.  I’m not going along with this.

Etsy is mostly made of small business owners and hobby makers like me.  I don’t think most people are living off their Etsy stores.  That’s why I’m disgusted that Etsy, that as of 2015 was worth $1.93 BILLION dollars, feels like they need more money from us.  I understand that businesses grow, but there are literally new Etsy shops coming up every single day, and people know Etsy as a place to get handmade items and shop small online.  They’re not hurting.  This is literally the top siphoning from the bottom.

Currently my last expiring listing will expire in September, but I’m not waiting until then to go over to a new shop.  Since Etsy essentially forced me into making a second site with Square, I’m going to take advantage of the online store over there.  The fees aren’t as high, there is no listing fee, and the listings don’t have to be renewed every 4 months.

What I’m planning on doing is putting my shop into vacation mode right before this fee change goes into effect, and officially have my Square shop open before that time.  I’m hoping to have it online before the end of this month, maybe even the end of this week!

I’m disappointed that I am going to lose random people searching Etsy and finding my stuff, but this is a step too far that isn’t worth it anymore.  I really think that Etsy is going to regret this decision, because I’ve seen nothing but uproar over this.  The only people that this won’t hurt are people that are larger shops that make a livable wage off their online sales, and even those people are going to have to raise their prices.

Speaking of random people on Etsy searching and finding my shop, I’ve had a suspicious spike in stats lately.  I may sound crazy, but I think I remember the last time that Etsy made a big change earlier this year taking away in person sales capabilities, I had another big spike.  And even before that when they changed how stats are registered, another spike in stats, listing likes, etc.  So how crazy does it sound that Etsy is making fake accounts to boost stat spikes on smaller shops to make them feel dependent like “oh maybe my shop is taking off!” and less willing to go off the site?  I know it worked on me before, but I’m not having it now.

Anyhow, I hope you’ve all had a great week!  Until next time, happy sewing!