Etsy and their payment extortion

Yeah I'm in the same boat. The integration of Paypal into direct pay has caused a *serious* cramp in the way I was managing my shop. Now that the revenue from every sale gets dumped into our checking account I've lost my ability to manage my shop and rocks money effectively - I have to worry before spending anything on rollers or rocks etc. where in the past I knew the segregated business money was mine to spend without draining money off the household fund.

We'll see if the trade-off of the new "guest checkout" makes any difference. Nothing yet.

I just got my first etsy payment.

Yes, maybe guest checkout will be nice, but to me it is not as good as paypal only.

Yes, they still take it, but they are forcing everyone to take their payment system. And, theirs is the default on checkout. You can still have stand alone PP, but you have to accept theirs as well. If you have integrated PP, they process the money, not PP.

It's not a secret that I don't like etsy. I don't like anything about it other than it is supposedly the only real game in town. Like ebay is to auction. But, I loath selling and buying there. Before I began selling there, I didn't like search and I like it even less now. With the big upheaval going on maybe things will change, but I doubt it.

Competition is killing sellers on Etsy. It has gotten too big. That is it's #1 problem.
Etsy is a fine platform for high engagement/low competition products. Good luck finding such products.

Just as soon as you buy materials in quantity to mini-mass produce a hot product someone has moved in and is beating your price.
No security selling on Etsy.

Maybe if a cab seller owns several mines exclusively yielding an incredibly desirable cutting stones they can make an easy go of it.
Yea, if I owned a high yielding gold or diamond mine in my back yard i could get rich.
Every exotic stone on earth is within a keyboard's reach these days.

Bringing up Marmalead again, you can enter product titles into this software and get ratings on them.
Product must be high engagement. If it is rated low in competition it is pretty much a given that it will sell on Etsy.
That means you have to be a flexible artisan. Making products that are hi eng./low comp.
That is an odd way for an artisan to have to behave. An artisan needs to be good at making objects in his specific skill area instead of products with high ratings.

My wife will make light A and it will sell well for a year or two. After that an import or another US competitor is making a replica for 1/2 price.
So she moves to light B. Same thing, here comes the copy cats under selling B. All light A inventory is shoveled to the side along with the profit.

A source of desirable cheap raw material that is exclusive to the artisan is a key ingredient.
Take the agates and woods along the Rio Grande.
If a cab maker was living there and had full access to the wide variety of stones there he could make a fine go of it.
Better if he had permission to collect the Mexican side. A dangerous proposition but likely a high yield spot. Risk helps but is it worth it ?

I quit Etsy when they sent out the notice saying they wanted to be my banker. No, thanks!!

I'm not interested in being a big seller.

Nobody like my business sense wah wah

Your own site with careful advertising at Google AdWords will in all likelihood produce results similar to Etsy.

Allows freedom of payments, display design, marketing costs....

Study the concept of A-B testing on Google AdWords before you dive in.