ETSY PROTEST "Etsy's Q2 2022 was disappointing" / Transaction Fee Increase

[#1]

ETSY PROTEST: "Etsy's guidance for Q2 2022 was disappointing."  This is what happens when you attack and ignore sellers.

Etsy: Poor Guide, Too Richly Priced, Avoid: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4507158-etsy-q1-earnings-poor-guide-too-richly-priced-avoid

Has Etsy Finally Bottomed?: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/423794

E-Commerce Problems Strike Again. EBay and Etsy Fall on Earnings: https://www.barrons.com/articles/oil-russian-crude-eu-export-ban-51651523249

Etsy Lowers Revenue Expectations By $64+ Million In First Quarter of 2022. 

NEXT STEP!

Tell Etsy to stop ignoring us: https://etsystrike.org/letter

Cancel the fee increase. Work with sellers, not against us!

Sign the petition at: https://www.coworker.org/petitions/cancel-the-fee-increase-work-with-sellers-not-against-us

We’re going on strike on April 11 to call on Etsy to hold itself accountable to sellers and buyers. Sellers will put their shops on vacation mode in protest. Buyers can show support by agreeing to boycott Etsy from April 11-18.

These are our demands:

1: Cancel the fee increase.
Increasing seller fees by 30% after two years of record sales is nothing short of pandemic profiteering. After the planned increase, our fees as sellers will have more than doubled in less than 4 years.

2: Crack down on Resellers
Etsy needs to provide a comprehensive plan for tackling resellers (people selling mass produced goods that they have not even designed themselves) on the platform. This plan must be transparent so that sellers can hold Etsy accountable.

3: “Golden” Support Tickets
People are waiting months to appeal computer-made decisions that stop them from accessing their own earnings, or running their business entirely. These people should have an automatic fast track through Etsy’s infamously slow support system. Etsy can’t bill itself as a folksy, handmade utopia while AI bots terrorize sellers whose livelihood depends on reaching buyers on the platform.

4: End the Star Seller program
Passive aggressive efforts to influence seller behavior are counter-productive and result in a worse customer experience. Rather than making us mad at buyers who leave glowing 4-Star reviews, or making us feel that we can no longer offer letter class shipping on items like cards and stickers, Etsy should leave us to individually do the best we can for each and every customer in each and every situation.

5: Let All sellers opt out of Offsite Ads
We should be in control of which listings to advertise, how much we spend on ads, and whether to advertise at all. There should be no level of “success” that forces sellers to foot Etsy’s advertising costs, unless we choose to. That “success” level being well below the federal poverty line only adds insult to injury.

Sign the petition at: https://www.coworker.org/petitions/cancel-the-fee-increase-work-with-sellers-not-against-us

MORE INFORMATION ON THE ETSY BOYCOTT STRIKE AT:

https://etsystrike.org/category/we-should-be-angry/

From Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy:

Dear Seller Community, 

At Etsy, we’re focused on building a marketplace that allows sellers like you to turn your creativity and passions into real, money-making businesses. Last year, active sellers increased their sales by 23% on average compared to 2019*, and in 2021 alone, we showed more than 90 million active buyers worldwide that there’s an alternative to big-box, automated shopping.  

Together, we’ve made Etsy the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. 

We plan to make significant investments in marketing, seller tools, and creating a world-class customer experience so we can continue this tremendous growth. To support this goal, on April 11 we will increase our current 5% transaction fee to 6.5%.

This change will allow us to make improvements in three key areas: 

• Bringing more buyers to Etsy: Last year, we spent nearly $600 million on marketing. This year we’ll be investing even more, including the TV commercials, influencers and tastemakers, billboards, podcast advertising, and email marketing that bring new buyers to Etsy.
• The support you need: We’ll grow our support team by more than 20% this year so you can get help more quickly and easily, including faster email responses, expanded access to live chat, and prioritization of your most urgent requests. 
• Keeping Etsy unique: We’ll build on last year’s roughly $40 million investment in the teams and technology that help make our marketplace a safe and secure destination for handmade, vintage, and special items. This year we’ll expand our efforts to remove listings that don't meet our policies and help you resolve issues with buyers. 

We’ll also make significant investments in services and tools that will make it easier and smoother to grow your business. For instance, we’ll be launching a new seller app with enhanced features that make it easy for you to manage your orders, connect with buyers, and understand how your business is doing.

These are some of the great things we’ll invest in to keep Etsy a beloved, trusted, and growing marketplace. We don’t take fee changes lightly, and we believe that these investments will enable Etsy, and our seller community, to continue to grow.

Thank you for making Etsy a one-of-a-kind marketplace.

Josh Silverman 

CEO, Etsy 

We’d love to hear your thoughts on ways we can continue to invest in your shop’s success. Please share your ideas in this survey. 

You can see our updated Fees and Payments policy here. 

*Based on internal analysis of sales data of active sellers over a 12 month period, as of 12/31/19 and 12/31/2021.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT TRANSACTION FEE INCREASE AT:

https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6742978/Etsy-Feedback-Survey-pxhln785q5?source=fa

JOSH SILVERMAN'S EMAIL jsilverman@etsy.com

[LetiMarket]

Is it a another cool platform ? I will quit etsy this is too expensive for me

[CMHandymade]

@LetiMarket, I think Facebook shops is cool. It's a social media and reach is massive. Ads are very effective

[MississippiSpoon]

don't you think, sales increase was due to the pandemic and not your adds. feed someone else that line of ....

[CMHandymade]

@MississippiSpoon, what's "...." to you is not "...." to other sellers. For you, the increase don't hurt your business, but to others it DOES!

[MississippiSpoon]

CMHandymade think you misunderstood my comment.

[CMHandymade]

My answer in response is to diversify as a seller to more marketplaces/my website where I control fees. 

@Mike, do you have these activities on Facebook too? I hope you do.

[MikeKrausArt]

@CMHandymade For business, it's always good to diversify for situations just like this...

[Biomimi]

I joined the strike but I don't think it really made a difference. I didn't hear any news from Etsy about the strike or potentially lower fees. Did you guys?

[CMHandymade]

@Biomimi I haven't heard. Not sure how much of a difference it made.

[MikeKrausArt]

ETSY PROTEST NEXT STEP!

Tell Etsy to stop ignoring us: https://etsystrike.org/letter

[BandannaHeaven]

In response to this post regarding resellers. I've notice several shops offering stretch caps.  One of the shops has over 30,000 sales!  They are sold bold they use the same stock photos on Aliexpress!  These caps are sold on other sites with the same photos!  One shop sells turbans using the stock photos on Aliexpress also along with another shop in Florida that sells slouchy caps with the stock photos only they've added glasses to help ''disguise'' the photo!  This is beyond ridiculous!  Then trying to ''stick'' sellers for more money to do the job they were originally suppose to do!  This is greed pure and simple-everyone,(JS & board), are all trying to be Jeff Bezos!

[SunshineAnnies4U]

Fees on top of fees on top of fees seems illegal to me.  Fees on shipping? I don't use etsy shipping, so why should they get a fee for the price of shipping alone ,ON TOP OF a fee for the total sale price? And then when they say it used "offsite ads" (how do we really know? I've had people tell me they did not ) we are charged a THIRD TIME .  I just had a sale today. Item total $21.78. Fee total $7.61.  THIRTY FIVE PERCENT. disgusting greedy unethical .......  what's that word... usury

[MikeKrausArt]

@Biomimi @CMHandymade We will probably see the results with Etsy's First Quarter 2022 Financial Report on May 4th after the market closes.  It will be interesting.  In November, Etsy stock was trading at $294.38 and it's plummeted down to $93.18.  

[CMHandymade]

@MikeKrausArt, very good observation. Last week I read an article that made similar projectory. So we shall soon see.🧐

[MikeKrausArt]

"Etsy's guidance for Q2 2022 was disappointing."  This is what happens when you attack and ignore sellers.

Etsy: Poor Guide, Too Richly Priced, Avoid: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4507158-etsy-q1-earnings-poor-guide-too-richly-priced-avoid

Has Etsy Finally Bottomed?: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/423794

E-Commerce Problems Strike Again. EBay and Etsy Fall on Earnings: https://www.barrons.com/articles/oil-russian-crude-eu-export-ban-51651523249

Etsy Lowers Revenue Expectations By $64+ Million In First Quarter of 2022. 

[MikeKrausArt]

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