What: Etsy is one of the oldest and most widely used sites to sell crafts, art and hand-made items, which is both a benefit and a detriment.
Expected pay: variable
Husl$core: $$$
Commissions & Fees: 20 cent listing fee, plus 6.5% + 25 cent, transaction and payment processing fees (for U.S. sales/sellers; fees vary in other countries)
Where: Nationwide
Requirements: Be age 18 or age 13, with parental permission.
Review:
Etsy is one of the oldest and most widely used sites to sell crafts, art and hand-made items, which is both a benefit and a detriment. It’s helpful, of course, because they have a community of shoppers to view and, possibly, buy your goods. It’s a problem because it also means that there are a lot sellers competing for page views and there’s no guarantee that you are going to make a single sale.
You can pay extra to advertise, but there are no guarantees there either. That said, the site charges just 20 cents per listing, so you can list 5 items for sale for just $1. If you sell anything, additional fees will kick in — a 3.5% transaction fee; a 3% plus 25 cent payment processing fee; plus shipping.
The biggest complaints that sellers have is that Etsy sometimes boots people off the platform without warning or appeal. When it does so, it can hold buyer payments for up to 6 months. (This is spelled out in the terms and conditions.) This is particularly painful if the seller has orders outstanding that need to be filled while their pay is being held. While this is a legitimate issue, it appears to hamper only a small fraction of the site’s sellers. Etsy was ranked as the second-best sales site by eCommerceBytes, and was the site sellers were most likely to recommend to a friend. That said, when sellers have a problem, Etsy’s customer service appears to be missing in action.
Other sites to consider: Ruby Lane, for crafts, antiques, art and collectibles; Society6 or RedBubble, which are print-on-demand services that print your art on t-shirts and coffee cups; and, of course, Craig’s List, where you can sell almost anything.
What their sellers say: (from ConsumerAffairs.com)
“Today Etsy sent me an e-mail stating that My Etsy shop of over ten years is being suspended because they believe I am not making my items I sell. Further they are freezing $158.00 in my account for 180 days in case they get any requests for refunds from orders. Understand that this home based business accounts for a significant amount of my retirement earnings. I do indeed have always made my leather products by hand and consider each order a custom made product which includes the customers name and customer stamps they want included. I don’t know how much more hand made one can get! Of course I requested both a phone call from them and a reply to my email as to WHY! After reading all the other similar problems with etsy on this site, I do not believe to expect a reply.
“I had a shop on Etsy for over 12 years with stellar reviews. My husband joined Etsy 6 months ago. Etsy sent him an email notifying him that he was violating copyright for listing a sign with a movie. Although there are literally 23,000 other items with the logo, and although he removed it, a week later he was shut down. My complaint is that my shop was also shut down even though I was never notified and my shop is independent of my husband’s. I have separate bank account, credit card, etc. The only thing in common was we had the isp because we are on the same server. I sent Etsy countless emails to explain and sent proof that my account was separate but all I got was boilerplate messages that appeared computer generated. I requested a phone call and an appeal. 5 days later, I got an email that said decision was final and now I am suspended forever. No one at Etsy will hear you so thousands of good people are getting banned for life for no reason. I have never been so unfairly treated in my 57 years. Etsy treats sellers like chattel.”
“They said I was selling things that were not allowed. I disputed account being closed and they refused to let me sell again. That is not the huge issue. The issue is them saying they are holding my funds for 180 days which is seriously messed up! I had real products I was selling and am now out of my merchandise and my money and there is little I can do about it. I cannot believe any company would do this to people but then after reading everyone else’s opinion I can believe it. This is one messed up company and I will not be buying from there to help them out in any way.”
“Where do I begin? Etsy is sold as a crafter/dealer centric “community ” where sellers of handmade and vintage goods meet with like-minded buyers. They provide a “forum” for questions and discussions about the Etsy experience but that is where their customer service ends. People with valid grievances are kicked off the forum right and left (I myself am banned for pointing out several fallacies). Now I’m faced with a review extortion by a buyer who has had 4 items for 5 weeks, wants money off and wants to keep the items! If I don’t comply Etsy will allow her to whack me with a bad review for each item. There is no preemptive action I can take short of allowing this buyer to rip me off by refunding her and allowing her to keep 400.00 worth of my merchandise. Merchandise she says is defective… But wants to keep. The review process is skewed anyway. Buyers have to wait 19 days to leave a review and even a deliriously happy customer will have moved on by then. But… Etsy also allows buyers to EDIT their reviews for 100 days. So you’re basically held in limbo for 100 days after making a sale. This is frankly intolerable. Stay away from Etsy. It’s a money funnel right into their pockets. Not yours.”
From Reseller Ratings:
“If you’re thinking about selling on Etsy please be aware that, if you email with a question or concern (have to email because there’s no phone number) and if you’re lucky enough to get any reply in the following week or two, Etsy will send you an obviously canned and entirely unrelated response. If you write again they’ll repeat themselves and tell you that they won’t be responding again. If you complain in the community forum they will “muzzle” your account so your not allowed post messages. And if you express any further concern they will invent a reason to close your shop entirely, and keep any funds that were in your shop account. The internet it loaded with sellers and former sellers who have had similar experiences with this site. “
From SiteJabber:
“In retrospect – if you want to have buyers take advantage of you – get something for nothing and then YOU pay high postage and other fees with very little real ETSY traffic – go ahead and open one of these shops. My sincere advice is take your money and dreams to another platform – Amazon, shopify and rubylane are more professional outfilts that value sellers just as much as their customers. I am soo angry with their absolutely obtuse dispute resolution…I can’t put the words online. I am sorry I started there and invested so much time and effort. Amazon is actively recruiting ‘hand made sellers’ and ETSY will soon realize the hard way that hand made sellers will move to other platforms when WE are not satisfied with their customer service. DONT SET UP A SHOP ON ETSY.”
From the Better Business Bureau:
“Etsy customer service is AWFUL! They are holding my funds in my account and every time I email and get a call back, they lie about the disbursement date. I even have emails where the rep emailed me back one date and then another rep has said something else. I’ve heard 3 different dates vs what’s listed on my account. When you ask to speak to someone in management, they act as if they have to “find” somebody or escalate it to someone else on their customer service team when it’s not what you asked for. I will be so glad when they release my funds so I can pay them their fees and close out my account and I will never sell on that platform again. Ever.
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Do not sell on Etsy! Once you get involved with the muppets on their so-called “marketplace integrity” team your card is marked. They will then watch you for mistakes and use any excuse to permanently suspend what they call your “selling privileges”. No they are not privileges – they are services for which you have paid them up front! If they suspend your shop permanently then any up front payment you have made to list items for 4 months will be lost, because they will not refund for that part of the term that your shop is closed.
The so-called marketplace integrity team are poorly trained and poorly educated. Their communications are a mosaic of snippets pasted together, and do not address the questions being asked or matters being queried.
None of their communications address you by name and come across as if they were written by a robot. None of the people you communicate with or appeal to have any experience of running a business, or of handmade or vintage items. So if there is some difference or dispute about whether something complies with their policies they are incapable of negotiating, compromising or discussing a difference of interpretation in an adult manner.
The rules on Etsy are applied in an arbitrary manner. Some shops get suspended for having one or two dubious items in their shops while with others the entire store is filled with copy write infringements, or fake vintage and handmade from Ali Express. If some spineless snitch flags a vintage item as “new” then it’s up to YOU the shop owner to prove it was vintage by showing a picture in a reference book. Who uses printed reference books any more? They are out of date before they are published.
Elsy also has some very unfair policies aimed at sellers who are outside the USA. Your listings will be hidden and mainly just shown to buyers in your own country, which is obviously unfair to sellers from a country with a small population. This policy is called “localization” and yet Etsy claims to be a global platform. Etsy now takes a % of shipping costs which is a service which they do not provide. Etsy is now pressuring sellers to offer free shipping by dishonestly burying the shipping cost in the item price. Again this especially impacts international sellers who must cope with already high shipping fees.