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Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

mashable.com

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Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#11

Post by gentleman11 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #5

> If a shopper clicks on an Etsy-funded ad featuring one of your listings on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Bing and makes one or more purchases from your shop within 30 days, those sales will be attributed to Etsy’s advertising and you’ll be charged an advertising fee on the total value of that order. This kind of stuff is why tracking is so pervasive. Etsy is relying on being able to uniquely track a s…

I used to think etsy was cute and fun, but if their tracking is that intense, and they treat their sellers like that... the warm and fuzzy feeling doesn't really stick around

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#15

Post by mreome »

sk5t wrote: post #3

I've got no horse in this race, but this really seems like an egregious abuse of etsy's monopsonist position and is, like, just incredibly slimy. ("How can we raise our fees dramatically? Hmm, how about forcing everyone into paying for 'marketing,' without any connection to our cost of providing that marketing?") Or is the team at etsy so delusional as to believe customers will welcome this mandatory charge for etsy'…

The really bizarre thing to me is the idea of forcing it on the biggest sellers. First because those sellers are obviously doing fine without this "feature" and second because if they are making hand-made items then they may already be selling at or near their capacity.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#16

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

Does anybody know what happened to the small businesses that used to use Etsy? Did another service open up for them? I suppose they may have gone to Shopify, but that fragmentation of storefronts reduces discoverability. The ability to search a vast set of niche widgets was probably Etsy's best selling point.

Every small business having its own storefront, and may or may not be doing SEO properly, is likely to mean less aggregate sales for all those businesses.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#17

Post by josephjrobison »

Well the easy, non-controversial way to do this is to just introduce it as an easy and awesome new product, that stands on its own and let people opt-in at their own discretion.

By auto-enrolling everybody and requiring them to opt-out, that’s creating a huge controversy just asking for backlash. And then forcing anyone who makes over $10k to now be required - that’s a strong hand they’re playing.

Can only point to some desperate times? Seems to be a sure way to alienate your most successful sellers.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#18

Post by mreome »

wjossey wrote: post #10

On the one hand, this would be great if it was all opt-in. On the other hand, this is nutty for any business running on low margins or with limited supply (and a sufficient customer base that they don’t need advertising to sell out). A lot of small business owners aren’t great at marketing, and having a push button solution is great. Forcing your larger sellers into something that might not even need is borderline pr…

Especially given that Etsy is supposed to be primarily for hand-made goods. Their top sellers are very likely already selling items at the speed they can make them, why would someone want Etsy to take a cut of their sales for advertising when they can't actually sell more?

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#19

Post by whatshisface »

faintrain wrote: post #13

[flagged]

This comment sounds similar to, "I shed no tears for people involved in car wrecks, which are a known risk of driving." Yes everyone knows that it's dangerous for your vendors to be bigger than you, but it's still bad when we're reminded.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#20

Post by IAmEveryone »

wjossey wrote: post #10

On the one hand, this would be great if it was all opt-in. On the other hand, this is nutty for any business running on low margins or with limited supply (and a sufficient customer base that they don’t need advertising to sell out). A lot of small business owners aren’t great at marketing, and having a push button solution is great. Forcing your larger sellers into something that might not even need is borderline pr…

Etsy shops don't strike me as low-margin. Unless it has drastically changed since I last used it? At least back then, it was for "self-made" and/or creative works. Such products are typically under less competitive pressure because there's no competition for "Aunt Jill's Organic Cotton Socks".

I used to deal in high-end organic foodstuffs, and we sold nothing below 50% margin. "Sure, you can by other olive oil for 1/10th of our price. But you can't buy this olive oil"

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