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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.
Best advice for your social media? Don’t promote other sites you have no control of like Etsy. Get your own site through Squarespace or Shopify and only promote those websites. When you promote an Etsy shop you have no control of how potential buyers are pulled out of your shop and into others, how less expensive ‘you may also like’ items are shown, and essentially, you are working as a free round the clock advertising agency for a website that hasn’t done anything for you for free, ever.
Want to hear about Etsy’s latest “dirty little trick?” They have introduced a filter for “ships in one business day” and “ships in 1-3 business days”. When buyers select this the search defaults to showing them only shops/items in their own country.
Many international sellers ship within 1-2 business days but they are being left out in the cold by this sneaky little trick which is “localization” by the back door.
What this means in practical terms: Etsy international sellers are losing their USA customers and increasingly their listings are being shown only to buyers in their own country. For smaller countries where Etsy is not well known this is proving to be catastrophic.
International sellers pay the same fees as USA sellers but have NEVER received the same facilities – which Etsy calls “privilages”.
Etsy is no longer a global selling site.