Thousands of sellers plan to boycott Etsy after announced fee hike
Tricia Robinson was attempting to save her cat’s lives when she joined Etsy in 2013.
“My cat got really ill and I was getting vet bills through the roof and I couldn’t afford to pay them,”Robinson said. “So I created an illustration that was inspired by him and I sold it.”
Robinson realized that the platform could be used to sell more of her work, and make a living selling it.
After receiving her first Etsy payment, the Montreal artist said she was struck at the difference between the amount she sold and the amount that was being deposited to her account. She began to pay attention to the Etsy fees charged sellers on the platform.
At first, she was fine with it.
“It kind of became this thing of like, okay, well, I’m making money as an artist. I have access to this online marketplace. It’s pretty cool for the most part,”She spoke.
Etsy was created in 2005 to allow artists and craftpeople to sell handmade and vintage goods online. It has helped artists become entrepreneurs and attracted millions of sellers and buyers.
Robinson said that she noticed her margins shrinking over the years due to Etsy’s growing popularity. A policy that was implemented in 2019 encouraged sellers to offer free shipping on orders above $35 US. It also promised to optimize the shops for U.S buyers. Robinson initially refused to opt in but she eventually accepted the offer after seeing her US sales disappear.
She said that offering free shipping was taking away at least half of her profit margin. Robinson was then forced to quit the platform.
“[Etsy] was this really great marketplace that did celebrate handmade and local small business,”Robinson. “But they’re not like that anymore.”
Now, Robinson is one of thousands of sellers who have said they plan to boycott the site from April 11 to 18 after the site announced it would be hiking its transaction fees from five to 6.5 per cent.
Petition to raise fees
This is after Etsy’s strong fourth-quarter earnings, which exceeded expectations.
The announcement led Kristi Cassidy, a seamstress from Westerly, Rhode Island, to start a Petition after posting on Reddit calling for an Etsy sellers’ union. Cassidy said that more than 11,000 sellers have expressed their intention to join the boycott.
“The post was basically asking when does this end because it’s just getting worse and worse and I don’t think it’s going to end unless we do something,”She spoke.
The petition also lists other demands, including letting sellers opt out of off-site advertising, which generates sales that Etsy charges sellers more for.
Cassidy claims that Etsy charged her $100 for a dress she sold from an off-site advertisement.
A spokesperson for Etsy stated that the increased fee will allow them to invest in marketing, customer service, and removing listings that do not comply with company policies.
“Our revised fee structure will enable us to increase our investments in each of these key areas so that we can better serve our community,”The statement is as follows:
Expert: Company under shareholder pressure to increase profits
David Clough, a University of British Columbia professor, said that Etsy has always had an open and honest relationship to its sellers.
Clough claims it has become strained over time.
“Since 2018, they’ve raised their fees twice, which suggests they’re trying to perhaps profit at the expense of their marketplace sellers,”He said.
Etsy became a publicly traded corporation in 2015, making it vulnerable to shareholder pressure.
Clough claims that raising transaction fees will help the company increase its bottom line, as it has over 5 million sellers on the site.
“As they’ve expanded their user base, it becomes harder to grow revenue by adding more users. So this makes them look for other sources of revenue.”
Etsy’s fees are still lower than e-commerce competitors like Amazon, which charges eight to 15 per cent in addition to other fees.
Still, continuing to raise fees could risk Etsy’s reputation as they deviate further from the initial values of the company that allowed small businesses to make money, he says.
Clough believes that the potential impact of the boycott on Etsy could be positive. He says it could encourage more dialogue between Etsy and sellers as a whole.
“If they face pushback from sellers for this raise, then it makes them think twice about raising the fees down the line,”He said.
Cassidy states that she hasn’t been in touch with Etsy about the petition or the boycott.
And while she’s not counting on Etsy rolling back its fee hike, she says she’s excited about building a community of sellers that want to advocate for better pay and company policies.
“The things that we could do together, it feels limitless,”She spoke.
Source: CBC
