Some Etsy sellers say they are stopping sales of their items on the site for a week to protest the increased fees charged by the e-commerce craft market.
As of Monday, Etsy sellers will have to pay a 6.5% commission for each transaction, more than the 5% in effect since 2018.
Protest organizer Kristi Cassidy said thousands of Etsy sellers, a fraction of the site’s 5.3 million sellers, have temporarily stopped selling their items. Cassidy, which has been selling gothic and punk costumes on Etsy since 2007, has also launched a petition that has so far garnered more than 50,000 signatures from buyers and sellers. About 20,000 are sellers. Cassidy said it’s hard to estimate the exact number of sellers who have actually stopped selling on the site.
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Cassidy and others are also questioning Etsy’s advertising policy implemented in early 2020. It requires sellers who earn at least $ 10,000 a year on Etsy and have their products advertised on social media outside of Etsy’s site. and search engine partners pay a 12% advertising fee on sales made through ads.
Cassidy also said that Etsy should repress resellers, people who sell mass-produced products that they have not designed themselves.
Raina Moskowitz, New York-based chief operating officer at Etsy, said the new fee structure will allow the company to increase spending on marketing, customer support and eliminate listings that do not comply with its policies.
“The success of our vendors is a priority for Etsy,” he said in a statement.
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Etsy, best known for selling handmade soap and jewelry, was one of the few beneficiaries of the pandemic, as more people stayed home and made items or searched for homemade items online.
But it is now under pressure to increase its bids to compete better with Amazon. As part of its growth strategy, it made two acquisitions last year. He bought Depop, a popular app among young people who want to buy and sell used clothes and vintage fashion from the early 2000s. He also bought Elo7, known as the “Etsy of Brazil” for its popular market for clever designers.
Let’s talk about unionization
Cassidy said the protest at the rates is just the beginning. He told The Associated Press that he really wants to “build a union equivalent” for Etsy sellers and said he was inspired by the warming up of the union’s business organized by companies like Amazon and Starbucks.
“As individual artisans, manufacturers and small business owners, it may be easy for a giant corporation like Etsy to take advantage,” Cassidy wrote in the online petition. “But as an organized front of people, determined to use our diverse skills and unlimited creativity to earn us a fairer deal, Etsy won’t have it that easy to push us.”
The mother of two young children, based in Rhode Island, said her income last year dropped to a third of what it was in 2019, partly to blame for some of the moves Etsy has made.
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