Our Etsy shop is closed to protest the drastic increase of Etsy fees and their far too relaxed rules on seller requirements. They are earning record profits but digging deeper into the pockets of small businesses. Our website is open and from this day forward will be 5-10% cheaper to shop on versus Etsy.
WHY THE STRIKE?
Thousands of shops worldwide have joined forces to take a stand...here's why...
Etsy is hiking fees for small businesses and hobbyists. Fees will increase 30% going from 5% to 6.5% of the total sale. The total sale is the purchase price as well as shipping, yes they take money off of shipping too. While this might not seem like a lot they already force shops do mandatory advertising. If someone clicks an ad and buys any item (not even an advertised one) within THIRTY days of the click the shop is charged 12-15%. As well as a 3-4% processing fee. This means Etsy can take up to 25.5% of the sale plus the listing fee.
Say Morticia makes a sale or $20, after all fees she could wind up with about $14.65. Let’s say she made 100 of those sales. Listing price would be $2000, but she would take home $1465. Etsy pockets $535. It feels icky 🤮
This fee hike is coming off the tails of Etsys quarterly financial. Showing a 16% growth of millions. For the past three years Etsy has grown by 200 million each year. Their 2020 annual revenue was 1.72 billion. Their response to their growth? Charge more to small businesses.
With this you may be wondering…Witchy why don’t you just leave Etsy? I wish I could. While the majority of customers have moved with me when I started my website in 2020, many still remain on Etsy. It is a great platform to finding new customers. I am grateful to it for giving me my start, it was an integral role to the growth of my business. And I plan to stay there…for now. Up until the last year I had LOVED being an Etsy seller, but it is a bit of a downward spiral at this point.
I am putting this out there on behalf of all small businesses. What I ask of all you lovely creeps is to see if creators and makers also run a website, if they do…shop there! Fees are dramatically less for them on their own websites.
Ultimately sellers are going to have to increase their Etsy prices to account for this. Which in the end hurts the purchaser. I don’t want that. It’s your hard earned dollars and I’d prefer you keep the extra bucks rather than pad a CEOs pockets.
IMPORTANT: If one of your fave shops is active during this strike please continue to support them, for some this is their main or only source of income. The strike is important but so is their livelihood!
Sign the petition here --> https://www.coworker.org/petitions/cancel-the-fee-increase-work-with-sellers-not-against-us
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Meg,
The Witchy Stitcher