Etsy, you suck!!
Hi everyone, welcome to our new website!
Unfortunately, I’m going to start off with something that has ground my gears: Etsy! Yep, the so-called ‘handmade’ items website.
For many years, we’ve used their site to sell our dolls and artwork. But recently, they decided to change the way they run things. Including, a big rise in their fees.
Ok, we understand the pressures of running a business, and the constant want/need to make more money, but their latest fee increases are a little hard to swallow.
As you scroll through Etsy’s many ‘non-handmade' items which are promoted and pushed, you realize that Etsy has lost its way. It cares only about pleasing its investors, and very little about the real artisans that made Etsy the huge company it has become.
Most of the products sold on Etsy look as if they were bought straight from Amazon or Ebay, and then sold on to unsuspecting Etsy customers. A great deal of these items are far from being ‘handmade’, and look more like they’re mass produced in China (to name just one of many)!
Here’s why we started our own website:
Last month, our Etsy Fees jumped up by an extra $100!! (Here’s where I bleat). There are two of us. We both work between 6/7 days a week, and we feel lucky to get even one day off. Our day starts at 9am, and we finish as late as 9pm/10pm. By the time everyone (taxes, supplies, fees etc etc) have put their hands in our wallet, we probably earn around minimum wage. So when the multi-million dollar profit company we’ve dealt with for many years hits us with an extra $100 a month bill, we just can’t afford it.
This, to us, basically equates to making an extra doll a month (that could easily take several hours to make) just to pay this new increased Esty fee!
Hopefully, this’ll be the last rant, but I had to get this off my chest. We’re definitely not the only Artists on Etsy that have become disgruntled with these new fees, so we hope they can abandon the sinking Etsy ship as we’re trying to do!
Lee.