Free Delivery is something a big department store can afford because they buy their products in bulk at wholesale prices. A lot of Etsy businesses are not able to compete with those practises. Many of us sell products that are handmade from sustainably sourced materials, they are one-offs and unique.

Etsy started out as the place to be for small, independent businesses. But now it’s just another big retailer making money out of the small businesses  who list their products, regardless of whether we actually sell anything. They claim to support small businesses, yet they allow big corporate ideas to dictate the terms of our sales. 

When Etsy started it was a great place for genuine handmade products. The products were made by the owners of the small businesses that they were listed by. That all changed when Etsy got greedy and saw the potential in allowing businesses to buy-in their products. Since 2013, when the ban on buying in was lifted, Etsy has being flooded with poorly made, mass produced tat! You have to sift through this tat to find the genuine, hand made craft items that were the backbone of the site when it first started. 

Unless I’m prepared to spend hours making product videos and offering my products at cheaper prices so they compete with other similar products (that aren’t similar at all), I doubt I’ll ever make any sales on Etsy. Mostly because I'm stubborn and refuse to play by the Etsy 'rules'. I’ve had an Etsy account for years and all I’ve sold is one digital crochet pattern.

All my products are handmade, using sustainable materials and my prices reflect that. Etsy doesn’t allow for that when they offer a selection of products in a search. We all get lumped into one batch and a lot of people will simply go for the cheapest items, without knowing they are probably buying cheap, mass produced, poorly made tat. 

I did a search using the term ‘Crochet Top’ and 66,917 items were listed! It was page 15 before I found one of my tops. What chance do any of us have of actually selling anything in this over crowded marketplace. It’s virtually impossible. 

When you go shopping to an actual bricks and mortar shop, you may have the choice of three or four of your favourite shops to choose from. You’ll go into these shops with an idea of what you are looking for and as long as you find one that ticks the boxes for you, the chances are you’ll buy it. When you are presented with thousands of choices, how do you choose? Do you even have the energy to sift through them all and actually buy something?

I have a few items on Etsy at the moment, they are set to expire over the next couple of months. When they do I’ll be closing my Etsy shop. It’s a total waste of time for me, it’s another expense that doesn’t pay me anything back. 

As a small business I need to invest in marketing that actually works for my business. Etsy doesn’t work for me. I’m sure it works for a lot of people, but I’m also sure those businesses bow down quite a lot to the demands of Etsy in order to make their shops work. They don’t have control of their business, Etsy does. At least I control the shop on my website, I decide if I want to offer free delivery, or add a discount code - when I want to, not because I’ve been made to feel that I have to.

The bottom line is, Etsy started out as a champion for small business but now it is a massive corporate dragon breathing fire over its sellers. It’s lost its soul and its purpose. 

*https://www.thelist.com/197941/the-untold-truth-of-etsy/?utm_campaign=clip