It's hard to believe, but StannArts has been selling our products on Etsy for almost 4 years now. Initially, I found them to be great alternative to evilBay. Their fees were considerably lower and their seller dashboard was lightyears ahead of eBay's. We did quite well and I was happy to pay them a small percentage for the service and traffic they provided.
Naturally, they slowly started to raise their transaction fees. Okay...fine...I kind of expected that. Then, I noticed they were also taking a percentage of the shipping fees (just like eBay). That's not money that I get to keep as a seller - that's money that goes to the shipping carriers.
If you are selling small, inexpensive items on Etsy - you may not notice or mind the increased fees quite so much. However, if your products are roughly $200.00 and up...those fees are hard to ignore. Then you're looking at $25 - $45 or more (per sale).
But wait...there's more!
Once you generate $10,000 or more on Etsy you are mandated to enroll in their 'Offsite Ads' advertising scheme. For us, it results in an additional $30 fee (per sale) whenever someone sees a StannArts product (sponsored by Etsy) in a Google search and buys it through their website. You cannot opt out of this program.
Free Shipping for everything!
Etsy's sales and stocks have been plummeting, so I guess they decided that it must be because sellers are charging too much for shipping. They recently changed their search algorithm so any items shipping for more than $6.00 will get buried. You pretty much have to offer free shipping in order for customers to find your products, They tell sellers to increase the product prices to make up the difference. What they don't realize is that this hurts our international customers, because now they have to pay even more for the item on top of the high overseas shipping.
Etsy Fees
As you can see, from the screen cap below, I lost $54.65 in fees for a single Bruce kit (sold for $265). This doesn't include the additional shipping and insurance fees that I have to pay since I had to offer free shipping.
Why am I sharing this with you?
We have to raise our prices SUBSTANTIALLY on Etsy (and eBay) to account for all of their fees and we wanted to let you guys know why. We haven't gone off the deep end or anything. Don't worry, prices on our website should remain steady.
We really do try and keep our prices as low as we can while still allowing us to keep the lights on. This little endeavor is not a side gig for us...it's actually our sole source of income.
We are thankful for each and every sale - whether it be on Etsy, Ebay, or directly from our site. We understand that it's convenient for many of you to purchase our products through a platform that you already use, but unfortunately, you're going to have to pay more for that convenience in 2025.
Fortunately...
One of my goals for 2024 was to start getting more sales through our website so we can wean off of these other platforms. I'm happy to report that sales have dropped considerably...on each of those platforms. More & more people have been buying directly from our site this year. This really helps us out - thank you!!!
I may very well decide to pull the plug on Etsy and eBay altogether before the end of 2025. We'll have to see how things play out, I guess. If you can't find us on Etsy - this is why. I just didn't want anyone to think we closed up shop.
Thanks, guys!!!
Happy New Year!
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