Etsy Survey Fuels Speculation about a Fee Hike

by: Rexford

Etsy's new CEO Josh Silverman addressed fees when speaking to Wall Street analysts on Monday.

And that's all you need to know.

by: White Rabbit

I see fees increasing big time at Etsy.. double what you now pay. most likely the fee structure is already planned completely and all laid out. Timing being the question. Store- seller shop fees will be the Tough one and the biggest increase to Etsy's huge upcoming profit increases. :-) imagine what would happen IF Etsy was able to charge $15 a month store shop fees to all sellers? maybe this would be optional at first and would include massive seller benefits unlike that lame azz fake website scam and stupid Seller PR killing scheme. Pattern.

Even a loss of 50% of the sellers would be OK if the others that remained paid say $20 or so monthly. even a 50% would be no loss and in fact could help Etsy sellers that remained.

A shame but the Etsy we knew no longer exist. REAL Handmade and Vintage seller niches are a thing of the past at Etsy. What remains is a march to the bank by the new Etsy CEO.. I see this company taking off in value at the old sellers loss. Could be worse things.. just move on and adjust.

by: The End

All predictable.
Won't make the stock more valuable.
Has flushed out Josh for what he is.
New venues run by OFF WALL STREET entrepreneurs will flourish.

by: Rexford

The End says "New venues run by OFF WALL STREET entrepreneurs will flourish."

That is an absolute fact. Once money grubbing Wall Street start influencing these venues it is curtains for the small seller.   Just look at what it did to eBay.  Meg Whitman + Wall Street + Donahoe + Bain + Wenig.  Follow the money.

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

Would someone please tell me what this means:
Josh Silverman:  ''We will continue to look over time as we're adding value to the ecosystem, what's our fair share of that,'' he said. ''Our guide star that always will be, what are the things we're going to do that are going to make the marketplace stronger, and as we do that, (what is) our fair share.''

Having been an Etsian for many years,  I wish our CEO would speak English, as I am but a common person, and have NO IDEA “WHAT THE @#@#”, the above statement means.

Why do people talk like this?

What is it that is hidden in their statements, that is supposed to “Get by me?”

I have NEVER had anyone that talked like this on My payroll, for more than one WEEK.

Josh: I think you REALLY sound dumb when you talk like that.  Not only is it all broken up English, but it just doesn't make any sense at ALL !!!

I think you need some help.....

by: White Rabbit

its pretty simple.. he plans on raising prices. He is reluctant to state it publically until they post it on Etsy. He is saying that they will increase the value to the sellers and he intends to take a cut ..LOL. The truth is there will be no increase in value to most sellers except in his mind or the value will only be for certain people or groups (resellers and wholesale mass produced sellers) but... everyone will pay the "fair Share" increase. I am really surprised they waited so long to even talk of this. I expected it in August of this year- with fee increases pre fall season. I assume we will see the fee increase changes in the new year? Maybe spring as Josh is from Ebay.. they like those spring updates. :-) I really have no opinion on this except a few predictions as I posted. I think it is to be expected, after all?

by: Volvo351

A relatively few short years ago [yeah, I know - an eternity in internet time!] eBay was getting filthy rich at a 5% rake-off. They doubled that, and even that wasn't enough to sate their greed.

by: Writings on the Wall

That giant sucking sound you will hear?--It's the masses of sellers who will be leaving Etsy if the speculation proves true.  Fewer sellers = less listing fees despite an increase, fewer transaction fees. Etsy needs to realize, as Ebay did not, that sellers are also buyers. As sellers leave, they take their spending elsewhere too. Thus, the circling of the drain accelerates in a geometric progression.

by: Lowe40

Etsy was willing to to lose 50,000+ sellers in June over the forced usage of etsy pay, so they aren't going to be concerned if 10, 20, or even 50% of the sellers leave.......more will come, & they'll make more off the ones that stay until the number of sellers goes back up, then they'll just make more money.
Plus they probably have a ''back up'' to the sellers they'll lose, like they did after forcing EP on everyone.........they closed up the French online site they had (a little market, I think), offered those sellers FREE LISTINGS to open on etsy, & quickly recouped a large number of the sellers they lost from forced EP usage. The shop numbers stayed in the 800,000 range for a good while, going up & down, but not really progressing, until they closed the French site & bribed those sellers with free listings to come over to etsy, to bolster the seller numbers that weren't quickly bouncing back after they lost all those sellers in June.

I've sold on etsy since July 1 2007. There's never been a price raise since I've been there.......I've sold on eBay since 1999, with price raises every year.

It's inevitable that etsy will raise prices, to be honest, I'm SUPRISED it hasn't happened yrs before this.  

by: epuise

@BuildingMyOwnSite wrote: " I am but a common person, and have NO IDEA “WHAT THE @#@#”, the above statement means.Why do people talk like this?"...
"people" do not "talk" like that... LAWYERS do... they put "on the record" obscure "statements" not only devised to HIDE what the true intentions ARE {thus cowardly avoiding the questioning}... and, in a vague enough manner that no one can say they DID... or DIDN'T say it...
It is what's WRONG w/ the world now...
As your grandparents would call it... 'sneaky'.

by: epuise

As with eBay... if fixed fees (listing, having a store) go UP... I will be MORE SELECTIVE (read, list less) on what I offer there... and... the items will need to be higher profit... (read, no more bargains)...
-
On the UP side... MAYBE it will purge the cheap Chinese goods.

by: pennyemporium

in reading through the comments on the Etsy threads regarding this 'price increase rumor', it seems most folks believe the increase is inevitable.  and given that sales are flat or falling on Etsy, that seems to be the only way Etsy can show increased 'earnings' to wallstreet.

the comments seem to be falling into two categories on which fee increase sellers favor; the 'stuff that sells under the one month time frame' and 'stuff that takes longer to than one month to sell, if ever' categories.

@epuise; regarding the ''cheap Chinese goods'', i would imagine the profit margin is rather high and these sellers can absorb the fee increases better. as someone said 'buy a widget for $1, slap a bow on it and sell it as handmade for $10'... a front loaded fee increase would gain Etsy more coin due to the rapid turnover of these items.  a $10 item tends to sell more often than a $300 item.  

if Etsy is thinking of encouraging the vintage and one-of-a-kind sellers to stay, a back ended fee would be a better approach as these types of items sell less often but for more money.  

at the very least, it makes Etsy sellers take a good, hard look at the fees we are paying them, and then do the math to find out if how deadly a rate increase will be to the bottom line.  perhaps adjust our offering (to those things that sell in under a month) and remove the hard-to-sell and esoteric options.  the site will only get MORE mass produced and LESS one of a kind.  

and why hasn't Etsy rolled the shipping cost into the fee structure?  won't a fee increase produce the shipping cost shenanigans we all saw on eBay before they changed that metric?

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

I said: “Why do people talk like this?''... (Referring to Josh)

@epuise said: ''people'' do not ''talk'' like that... LAWYERS do... they put ''on the record'' obscure ''statements'' not only devised to HIDE what the true intentions ARE {thus cowardly avoiding the questioning}... and, in a vague enough manner that no one can say they DID... or DIDN'T say it...

Well spoken.  Your reasons are solid, accurate, and true:  “HIDE what the true intentions ARE”, and “no one can say they DID... or DIDN'T say it...”

@epuise, you're RIGHT!  Those are IN FACT, the very reasons they talk like that.  I just have one question though.....

Why do people talk like that ???

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

Who Knows why they talk like that.....  Just to hide & keep secret everything they're doing?.....  I guess.  Delaying the truth must increase the congratulatory applause from the peasants, or more likely decrease the db of the vocal criticism.

Fees will of course go up.  Why else do a survey or test on Etsy?   An answer is needed for a ''Question Pressing on the minds of thousands of Etsy sellers''.....

Sellers told us that:
''This will serve to enhance the ''Etsy Experience, and contribute to the growth of their revenues in the future, while giving them more choices in methodologies concerning how they interact with Etsy''.

by: Nuts2U

I hope it's not lost on anyone that before Josh Silverman took over Etsy, he was the general manager of Shopping.com [an eBay company with pay-per-click seller fees - can you say "click farm scam"?], CEO of Skype [another eBay company, with one of the most hack-ridden apps in history], and a defendant in the Craigslist lawsuit against eBay for stealing CL software to build a competing classifieds website, Kijiji. So NO, he isn't interested in the needs of Etsy sellers and YES, he intends to steal from them to feed the shareholders.

by: Etsy Seller

By PennyEmporium "if Etsy is thinking of encouraging the vintage and one-of-a-kind sellers to stay, a back ended fee would be a better approach as these types of items sell less often but for more money."

There is no way in h*ll most sellers can afford a monthly fee, when some months they have no sales.
A bigger percentage of the sale price would be reasonable, imo.
Listing fees could stay the same or lessen the amount of time they are in effect, like three months instead of four months.

A monthly fee just to have an open shop with no advertising of Etsy done on any venue (except in Europe, and why is that?) will drive away many more than 50K of shops - even more than half of what is now open.
Many shops use Etsy to drive their buyers to their websites. Shops use IG, FB, Twitter and Pinterest to advertise their Etsy shops. But Etsy MUST begin to advertise the entire venue on TV and magazines. And God bless the Today show and Martha Stewart for always showing products found on Etsy or no one would have known about it at all!

by: Transferware Odds and Ends

"Etsy's new CEO Josh Silverman addressed fees when speaking to Wall Street analysts on Monday."

That says it all, its more like - "How can Etsy rip off the hard working sellers to make the Shareholders more richer"

Bottom line, like any company that goes public, were the pea-ons that make nothing from our hard work only to make shareholders richer, what do we get, certainly not any more exposure, sickening if you ask me.......If your gonna raise fees, or commission, than they might better make sure we are getting exposure to sell out items, otherwise, people are gonna get fed up with this practice (like ebay) and leave.....

by: Crafteme

So much for the confidentiality agreement that the "snitch" signed when they entered the survey.  

by: Flying Childers

No question about it- fees will be going up.  I think anyone with half a brain knew that was coming.  I don't expect "fairness" from Robo Josh on any level, just like I never expected or got any "fairness" from Robo Chad.

Etsy has their program all figured out and there's no stopping them now.  The only people they care about are the stockholders and looking good on Wall St.  Thanks to all the people who posted comments about Robo Josh's past- they are very informative.

When the time comes it will be up to each of us to  decide whether or not it's worth it to maintain a presence on Etsy.  For what it's worth, I can tell you that having had numerous brick and mortar stores, Etsy is about 99% cheaper than having a physical presence on Main Street.   However, that can be said about any online platform, even Ebay.

I don't think we can expect any "mercy" from the robots who run Etsy.  Anybody who talks like that is obviously not a human.  They've been well trained by their Bluebird AI to act only in the interests of the BOD and shareholders.  If 75% of the sellers left, they'd probably still make money off of their Chinese replacements.

The fools who run Etsy honestly believe that they can compete with this:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/11/alibaba-smashes-its-sin
gles-day-record/

by: SammyCat

First off, an increase of 5% means almost 10% for anyone outside of the US when you take into account processing and exchange fees.

Secondly, I don't mind an increase IF we're going to get something out if it.  

I want to see:

- the search function fixed
- Etsy spending something on advertising instead of relying on sellers to do it for them
- I want to see Vintage given as much attention, respect and exposure as all others
- I want to see this free shipping nonsense sorted out

Reality is that Etsy already has a pay-per-click that is optional.  No one has ever proven that taking out ads makes any difference whatsoever.  

So, if this is really about creating a better selling experience instead of just padding the profit for their wall street types, I say fine -  but we want something out of it.