The weather is flip flopping right now between bearable and suffering summer weather so we haven't turned on the AC yet... which means it makes it really hard to work with clay since it just turns to mush in my hands and it's not fun to wear gloves. So I guess I'll take this opportunity to catch up on some stuff here.
Back in April, Etsy implemented their fee hike, a whopping 6.5% fee for all transactions for each item PLUS a 6.5% fee on the shipping costs... So as you would imagine, a lot of people protested the fee hike, and even I closed my shop for a week to show my support with other indie artists. It actually made the news in some places. First things first... I've been on Etsy for a long time. Since 2009, to be exact. While I didn't always have things in my shop at first as I found it really hard to get sales, mostly because I wasn't posting as much on social media and didn't really care about promoting my shop, because I sold mostly at local cons, until the pandemic hit and cons were cancelled. From about 2018(?) onwards when I started doing more cons and started to post more on social media I'd say was when I started getting seady sales on Etsy.
And this leads me to say, I kind of saw it coming. I was wondering when Etsy would increase the fees, because how long were they going to keep the listing fee as 20 cents per listing? But instead they were even more greedy and instead of increasing the flat rate, they hiked the transaction fee from 5% of the sale to 6.5% of the item cost... which is a 30% increase. If you sell higher priced items, that's quite a bit. Considering how big Etsy has gotten. I'm glad the strike got so much attention but honestly, Etsy has been pissing me off for a while now. And I never bothered leaving because I thought I didn't have enough sales to justify moving to my own stand alone site. But you know... I don't think my crafts ever fit into Etsy's whole minimalistic aesthetic. Their homepage is perfectly curated for home decor, rugs, candles and "normie" things... not really kawaii fanart accessories. Despite there being tons of kawaii artists on there, if you search for them. They seem to have no problem with the hoards of resellers though. More and more, the marketplace looks like it consists of resellers than actual handmade goods.
But you know what? Now that the strike is over, it's like it didn't even happen. I went back to Etsy and increased my item and shipping costs to make up for the fee increases. People didn't seem to mind and I had one of my most successful launches to date. Because at the end of the day, if you don't make a lot of sales and you're just doing this as a side gig, Etsy is still cheaper than the cheapest option on Shopify. I had to crunch a lot of numbers and for me, I don't really trust that I have that loyal of a following to consistently meet a sales target every month to break even. And for the record, I don't think I'd like the pressure. The reason I've had so much fun recently with crafting is because I can do what I want without thinking if it will sell or not. Of course, I'm thankful for Etsy for giving me an easy platform to grow. Not that they've really grown - all the features they implemented throughout the years, the Star Seller shit, didn't help me at all. In fact, it went against me by forcing me to meet unrealistic demands as a seller. I've actually complained about Etsy before not long after I started. And even more recently a bot got my Studio Ghibli items taken down because of "copyright infringement" (but it's totally okay for resellers to do it!!!) but I didn't even bother to blog about it because it was so fucking dumb. There are millions of people selling Studio Ghibli inspired handmade crafts on Etsy... why the hell was I targeted? And it cost me my listing fees?? Thanks for pocketing that, Etsy!
At the end of the day, Etsy knows that the majority of people will continue to use their platform, which is why they saw this opportunity to increase fees in the first place. Good for them. But if you're a person that consistently has a large, loyal following on social media and is completely driving your own sales - why the hell are you still on Etsy?!
Anyway, this past weekend a lot of cons were also taking place. It would've been Anime North's weekend if they hadn't postponed it to July this year. It's definitely going to be weird (and suffering because of the heat - there definitely isn't enough AC in that venue). I got my refund a while back so I won't be selling this year (the only other year I haven't sold was in 2007, my first year and also 2016 when I was too busy with a new job and didn't have time to craft). This year I'm thankful that I can say that I can just sell online because the cost of food + hotel + table fee is just the same amount as the Etsy fees. I guess this means I've retired from selling at Anime North. It's been a good run!
And on top of all this, I've been house hunting... it's very difficult in our area. And plus the struggles of living with your mother in law. I feel bad for my mom who has to listen to me rant all the time. But I need someone to rant to, at the very least, because it is really mentally stressful. Crafting really helps me take a break from all of that, so thank you to the people out there that follow and like my works. If it weren't for all their support I don't think I would have made it so far, so thank you for believing in me! I'll work hard to make more cute things!!
That's all for this post! Until next time~~
No comments:
Post a Comment