When I first took my show to Etsy, it was still promoting the 'handmade' cottage industry that had been so underrepresented by all other online venues. It was where Grandma Evans could make a few extra bucks selling her hand crocheted slippers that she made in her spare time. Or where Uncle Bill could sell his happy-faced hand whittled figurines. Those days are gone for Etsy. It took a few years, but Etsy's thirst for money has allowed all kinds of 'production partners' in the mass production of goods sold there.
Hey, I'm not knocking the dabbler-turned-full-time Etsy makers. Ones who may hire family members or help/seasonal help to piece together and sew clothing or jewelry. I'm knocking the full-out selling of mass produced items from other places with unfair labor practices, we all know who they are. The items are "hand made", by a worker in a sweatshop. I also have a problem with sellers who design items and have them mass-produced in factories i.e. enamel pins and other media, and call them hand made. Yes, the design is original art (kudos), but, it is NOT handmade by you or someone in your small shop. Cafe Press and Zazzle come to mind. Etsy no longer has seller/store spotlights, which used to give props to shops and shop owners showcasing their ideas/wares/practices. No longer do they allow sellers to create 'collections' of items. Just nothing that once made Etsy more unique.
On top of all of the new commercialization stuff, Etsy seems to constantly be changing their 'search algorithms'. Any time a change occurs, you can hear the sellers scream bloody murder wondering why they used to get a bunch favorites on their items every day or have 10+ sales a day and see it tank overnight. Only to be told by Etsy 'we are making changes to more accurately direct shoppers to what they are looking for'...which is false.
I pay $1/day for Etsy ads (ads inside of Etsy that are supposed to help get me noticed) and up to $30/month for Google shopping. In a month, that is $60. For a little fish like me, that is a lot of money, $14/week. Add to that Etsy fees for listing ($0.20/per item every 4 months), 3.0% from each sale and 3.5% + $0.25 per sale to a credit card and it comes out to almost 10% of every single sale. Steep.
To follow and track the changes in minute detail was never something I aspired to since I am a small time side-seller who is not about to give up her day job. Good money+benefits means I'm not moving to Etsy full time. Thank you. But other sellers do, and man are they sharp. When they dissect the reality of what Etsy is doing to what Etsy says they are doing is so disappointing and disheartening. Many times over the past year I have contemplated moving myself off of Etsy altogether. Fear of the unknown and comfort have kept me on Etsy, but this coming new year, 2018, I'm taking the plunge and going my own way. Independent of Amazon, Etsy, Artfire, etc.
I took my Pattern site domain (which was sponsored through Etsy, and man what a laugh that has been), and I've transferred it to my very own independent presence on the internet. The site is sponsored through Weebly, but it is mine, and Weebly doesn't promote products, shops, owners, etc. you are simply on your own to do it your way. Good luck. I'll take it.
Let me break down the Pattern experience for you. I started by paying $15/year for my domain name, plus $15/month for my Pattern site. Since April 2016 through December 2017, it generated 4 sales worth $101 total... It's like Pattern 'floated' on top of my Etsy store. True, I had my own domain, but it was an exact duplicate of what ETSY was, and when a buyer put an item it the cart, they were redirected to my ETSY store to pay, which was confusing and stupid. Really strange and totally not worth it. I would not suggest Pattern to anyone. If you want to sell on Etsy, keep it an Etsy shop and don't add Pattern to the mix.
I am still working on my Weebly store, it has a long way to go and I think the template I picked is quite ugly LOL Yes, I have a lot of work to do! But , the import of items to Weebly was very easy and details and whatnot transferred over well. I tried a Shopify store months ago and the transfer happened, but I was forced to re-type tons of stuff. I let that entire idea die :)
So, I figure another month or so and my fauxshowart.com store will be alive and well. It will probably take a century to generate my first sale, but it's a chance I'm willing to take and it gives me comfort knowing my items, being found in a Google or Bing search, are not going to be affected by Etsy meddling with search algorithms within their domain. I kept saying I wasn't going to list one more item to Etsy, but I just listed 15 items this weekend and I need to stop doing it. I need to walk away. Yes, my store will remain open, but new items will not be added.
Have a good day!
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