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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/.
Etsy is no longer a global site.
Many international sellers have seen their sales halved by such ill conceived policies as localization. That’s where Etsy institutes policies which encourage buyers to purchase within their own countries. The problem is that Etsy as a marketplace is little known in many countries outside the USA. So sellers who hitherto had healthy US sales have seen them slashed.
There are also sneaky measures instituted in search whereby the selection defaults to the buyer’s own country when they select for sellers who can ship in 1-3 days. This again is localization by the back door. Many international sellers offer expedited courier services which can deliver to the USA is 2/3 days and worldwide in 4/5 days.
As usual when pressed for clarity, Etsy cites corporate gobbledegook and claims that “buyers have told us” XXX. Which buyers? When? I am also a buyer but I was never asked about localization.