I guess it was bound to happen. Etsy has just recently upped the ante and increased the cost of doing business on their platform. Once the whole "Pattern" thing flopped, they had to try another tack.
A little background first. Etsy Pattern came out over two years ago. The idea was to give sellers an "independent" website using their own custom URL (which buyers would need to purchase). Mine was www.fauxshowart.com. Nice, huh? The only problem was, you were locked into overly structured, pre-determined layouts, and, when customers tried to check out, they were re-directed back to Etsy, causing all kinds of mayhem. I paid $14.95/month for 14 months and made 1 (one) sale. LOL, I dumped Pattern last November and signed-up for a Weebly site at $35/month. I have yet to make one sale, but I'm not giving up just yet as I know there are things I could be doing, but haven't gotten myself together enough to dig in and figure all of it out. I really need to start working on that.
On my Etsy store, since pretty much the beginning, I signed up for internal Etsy Ads. These can cost anywhere from $1/day up to $10/day, depending on what you choose. The idea is that when a potential buyer does a search, your items will be given the advantage of being sprinkled in with the first items that are listed. Why not? Right? I chose $1 to be spread over all of my items (about 250 items).
Later, Etsy added Google Shopping ads. These can cost anywhere from $50/month up to a whole lot more. I chose the $50 route. When people do searches and then click on the "Shopping" button from Google, your items will be given a place on the list. On this, you are billed on a per Click basis. The drawback to this, and it's kind-of devious, is that a competitor can do a Google search and unscrupulously repeatedly click on one or two items, and blow through your budget for the day. Now, my hope is that there really isn't someone out there who feels so threatened by your work that they do this, but I have read that it does happen. These fees were fine while sales were rockin', but when the bottom fell out, I felt nothing but the pain in my bottom line.
I have several items that sell well as most Etsy retailers and online retailers can identify with. These items are really your bread and butter and carry you through. In my case, they were the bulk of my income. When the trend for one design dies, however, the gravy train stops and you must reassess and come up with another amazingly wonderful idea! But, when the bottom falls out, and you gross $75 in one week, and Etsy takes $35-50 of it, it stinks. I have had weeks where I gross only $45 and have $10.75 deposited on Monday. How is that for a slap in the face? I dumped Google Shopping and the Etsy Ads. I'll take my chances.
I'm not going to go into the Etsy "search algorithm manipulation" stuff too deep, but I do agree that I have experienced such incredibly acute and abrupt changes in item "favorites" shop "favorites" and sales that I do believe there is merit in seller's rancor over Etsy stacking the deck or at least rearranging it unfairly. That is all.
First, Etsy is raising their 3.5% to 5%, that is a whopping increase.
Second, they are now going to charge 5% on your shipping charges!!!! No lie.
Third, they have added a "Plus" feature that will cost $19.95/month and a "Super" feature that will cost even more (to be disclosed in January 2019).
Etsy says the fees will help them advertise Etsy on TV nationally to bring buyers in to let them know that Etsy even exists. My hope, deep down is that this works and helps all of us who sell through Etsy, but the 5% on shipping is just plain wrong. I make no money on shipping fees. I wonder if it is an attempt to push sellers into including shipping in the cost of the item so that you can claim "free shipping" even though it isn't free, the fees have just been rolled into the price of the item? Lawsy.
I need to re-vamp my Weebly site and get Google and Bing to "crawl" it. I would love to be independent of Etsy or any other similar selling platform. There are definite pluses to these platforms, but if you are not a big-time seller and more the cottage jewelry maker, the fees can kill you.
