You may have heard on social media last week that there was a strike against Etsy. The strike was in part a protest against the new fee structure that went into use on April 11th, a 30% hike in commission fees for the platform. Sellers closed their stores using vacation mode and asked buyers to skip ordering from the site for the week as a protest against the fee hike as well as recent changes in seller policies that hurt smaller sellers like myself.
I spent a lot of time thinking about my Etsy shop last week and have decided to shift to selling directly through the Ninth Wave Designs website. The changes in fees, the policies about shipping and the Star Seller program policies have combined into a less supportive and more expensive venue for my small online business. While the Etsy corporation has seen record profits throughout the pandemic, their policy changes have hit me hard at a time when I need the extra income the most. I have gone from feeling that Etsy was a service that worked for me to being micromanaged in ways that make it clear that Etsy think sellers work for them. I didn’t do all the work of starting my own business so that I can make more money for a greedy corporate entity like Etsy.
I will continue to sell through Etsy for now as I transition to my own website based store. In the meantime, I am fully set up to invoice through PayPal, so if you would like anything I have listed on Etsy but would prefer to purchase from me directly, send me a message using the contact form on this website, or DM through my social media accounts and I will set things up for you. I will be limiting shipping to US addresses for now until I can work out the details on international shipping and VAT.
I will post updates soon on this new venture as things progress. I’m excited to see this come together, and I hope to have things up and running by the first of May. Sign up using the form below if you would like to be on my newsletter mailing list. You will receive at most one email a month, so I won’t spam your inbox and I will never share your email address with anyone.
