For those that sell on etsy- MORE CHANGES

Very interesting discussion. I have been considering moving from Scotts Marketplace, due to their shift from being an artist/craft space to more for bigger operations. As of now, I can only have 10 items listed. The more items listed, the higher the monthly costs. Plus, the commission.
Local consignment shops charge from 25% to 30% commission for each sale, but there is no monthly charge. Again, limit on number of items one can have there.
Local booth space within shops is very limited and high priced. Prices range from $100.00/month for a 6' by 6' space to over $250.00 for a 10' by 10' space. Again, there is a commission fee of 20-25% on all sales. All that I spoke with have waiting lists of approximately 2-6 years.
Local artist coops are hard to get into, but most have gallery space. Members pay a yearly fee. The more you staff the gallery, the less the fee. No commission charged. Acceptance is juried. Applicants must offer something different than current members. Submit photos of their works for the first step. If making it through that, then an interview process that includes showing their products and explaining their art philosophy, construction methods, what inspirs them, etc.
Memberships range from $250.00/year with at least 20 hours/week in the gallery to $1200.00 per year with no time spent in gallery. One even had a lifetime option for $10,000.00 up front. Not for the starving artist for sure.

So, it seems that not only internet, but local ales for some are going to be tough unless one has their own seb site and/or shop.

When I do my taxes Etsy hurts the worst with fees charged. Ugh, and you must relist all items once every 7-10 days to make it seem like you have new items if you're not listing everyday.

I don't understand this statement - when I'm doing MY taxes, or should I say when Eva is doing our taxes, any fees or other expenses are welcome write-offs and help the bottom line. I guess you mean seeing how much they charged total hurts but to me it's a lot better medium for sales than managing my own website and trying to find traffic to visit it.


There is literally no chance I would employ this strategy because I typically average between 150 and 200 items and to relist them every 7-10 days would add over $120 a month to my Etsy fees.

Similarly, what I do is I stagger my listings out by expiration date so I've always got something expiring, and instead of "renew" I de-activate and "copy" the expired listing - it's the same as posting a new item.

I had been considering them to list some of my stuff, but this is worrisome.

Taking a percentage of shipping is beyond crazy.

What's up with needing to list new items so often, though? I hadn't heard about that, and since I prefer to not have to micromanage that stuff -- and just do batches, because setting up for photos here is beastly -- it's a real concern. Is it some kind of setup where you have to list something new every 7-10 days or they shut you down, or... ?

The whole trick to etsy is trying to be seen among the million sellers. Their search function leaves so much to be desired. One of the tricks is making sure you have things relisting or new listed every day or so. Gets old. They won't shut you down, but they might as well. You get lost in search. Your ad could be buried 20 pages in.

As your listings age out, they get less priority in the search results. So many sellers will renew listings every 3-4 weeks to make sure that the listing is higher up in search results. It's one of those hidden metrics that Etsy won't tell you about directly.

There is no telling what they have done to change things. Could be any number of search algorithm changes. Etsy is far too inconsistent for my liking. I, too, have experienced the bottom falling out. I read the forums sometimes and we are not alone. Not by a long shot!

I find myself in a unique position of defending Etsy in the face of several very unpopular changes lately but it is what it is. I like Etsy as a platform that allows me to sell my stones in an easy and organized manner with many established repeat customers since I started in 2014 and a steady stream of new customers and a lot of one-and-done's along the way.

I have tried establishing myself on Ebay selling the same stones with ZERO result. Literally 100 listings (at lower prices) with zero sales. I also personally detest the structure of selling on Ebay more than I can even voice.

On top of that, I was rejected twice by Amazon Handmade apparently because I sell a "craft supply" but if you search the site you will find many many other cabochon sellers actively selling their wares.

I have also sold on Facebook in the "cabs and slabs" type groups with moderate success BUT it's a LOT(!!) of work keeping it all organized, sending out Paypal invoices, creating shipping labels, not to mention the task of constantly chasing posts up and down the wall due to the schizophrenic Facebook page sorting algorithms.

I have also created my own website using Wordpress and Woocommerce and I can't even express what a ROYAL pita that was in every way. I got the whole thing set up and had my security certificates purchased (https) and everything then took a step back and realized how much I like the simplicity of Etsy.

I know there are lesser sites that dabble in the same arena as Etsy but for purposes of this essay (haha) we'll leave those for another time. The bottom line for me has been that of my available choices that have the potential of generating the sales needed, Etsy is the shining star - FAR ahead of the others. I do not begrudge Etsy an increase to 5% and I am sure I will not notice it especially since I already offer free shipping on everything and so that new dip into the cookie jar by Etsy will not affect me. At the same time I commiserate with those who have to ship large items and hope they develop new effective strategies to cope. I'm sure that Etsy is eventually going to figure out that they could be tacking on a surcharge for the slick and easy posting printing system they have provided but until that happens I won't worry about it. I freaking LOOOOOVE Etsy's postage printing tool - it literally rocks and I get happy every time I use it.

In closing, I find that for what I create and sell on the Etsy platform, activity breeds sales and I'm OK with that. If I'm active and posting new and unique cabochons, which I have not been doing much of lately, steady sales immediately follow until my inventory has dropped down to what seems to be my 'baseline' where sales turn into a mere trickle almost overnight. For three and a half years I've enjoyed having very robust sales - I won't say how much but it's way more than we ever expected it to be and it has allowed us to ride out these last two years that I've been off work. In fact I probably would not have 'retired' from my corporate heart-attack-waiting-to-happen job if it weren't for Etsy. Our belts are tighter than they were before but that's OK too.

I agree with most of what you said. Right now, there isn't anything better than etsy. That doesn't change the fact that there are problems with it.

And, YES, YES, YES! You get out of it, what you put in it. When I am active, my sales are good. I can't complain abt cabs, but my jewelry shop got to the point that I only use it for advertising now. That comes from HUGE sales down to very little. I moved most everything to my site, which I really do like, but I don't work on it enough to properly generate traffic- mostly because I am no good at social media.

Etsy, as a sales platform, does generate HUGE traffic - across the entire site - but getting it to trickle down to your own shop is a challenge. They change the way they do things so often that I really don't know if I am doing anything right anymore. It would be better if they told people with every change how to optimize for the changes, but they don't do that. Which is maddening! It means that a few savvy shops move ahead with sales, while others, who did not understand that they needed to change, do not.

I look at other rock shops and Tommy, you clearly offer better stones and have nice ads and pictures. I am not surprised by your success. You seem to be one of the few who are doing really well. I read the forums and ppl are hurting. I put that on etsy as much as them. Etsy could do better.