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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

#31

Post by Thorentis »

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…

In this case though, it is to Etsy's advantage if the tracking is inaccurate, and generates a high false positive rate.

I wonder what the data on incorrect tracking is (i.e. Does it lead to more false positives, or false negatives)?

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#32

Post by kyle_v »

QuinnyPig wrote: post #12

"We've decided to help ourselves to 15% of sales. If you don't like it, get the hell off of our platform." Are there any platforms / marketplaces that don't treat their vendors like garbage?

shameless plug but my marketplace farmsbeforepharmacies.com takes 0% but that's because it's in the hemp industry and we cant take payments yet ;-)

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#34

Post by IAmEveryone »

nonsince wrote: post #9

Great idea to drive away the sellers who need you the least, who most have an established consumer base and the means to set up their own storefronts.

OTOH, maybe they feel larger sellers undermine the "handmade" spirit, and don't particularly mind some of them leaving?

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#35

Post by chx »

Huh!

> If you’ve made more than 10,000 USD (approximately 7,800 GBP) in sales on Etsy in a 12-month period you’ll benefit most from offsite advertising. So, you’ll be required to participate for the lifetime of your shop and you’ll get a discounted advertising fee.

If you make a living off your Etsy shop then surely you will have more than 10K sales a year. Even if not in the USA, I am originally from Hungary and the minimum yearly wage is 6K USD.

Let's run another calculation. If you are selling at an average price of 20 USD (which can be just a t-shirt) then you only need to sell four things every three days. That's... not a lot.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#36

Post by eropple »

tomnipotent wrote: post #21

Etsy is buying advertising on other sites, to the benefit of their customers. In the event that traffic converts, they take another 12/15% on top of the existing 3-4%. This sounds like business the stores wouldn't be getting otherwise (so it's incremental), and all at the cost of what you'd be to an affiliate network anyway. Forced participation if you do more than $10,000 is ridiculous, but I otherwise fail to see w…

> This sounds like business the stores wouldn't be getting otherwise (so it's incremental)

Have you ever run a business where the margins don't even reach fifteen percent? Because that is a lot of small businesses. More sales at unsustainable margins are not better than fewer sales.

Software people forgetting that COGS exists is common enough in the VC space but most of the world has an acute understanding of the costs of their supply chain. "Suddenly, we decide when your margin drops by twelve percent and there is no recourse except to fuck off" is bad.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#37

Post by mreome »

nordsieck wrote: post #22
josephjrobison wrote: post #17

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 s…

> 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. I assume the logistical reason they're doing it is because they need ad volume for negotiations. That doesn't make it "right" or even good corporate strategy (although I suppose it might be), but…

I can't image they're going to negotiate on a per-seller basis though. They're going to negotiate as Etsy, and simply rotate their advertisements through items sold by their sellers. The only realistic reason to force the largest sellers into the program is that those are the sellers already moving a lot of volume, thus they must present the most popular goods which would lead to the greatest profits for Etsy.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#38

Post by dannyr »

tomnipotent wrote: post #21

Etsy is buying advertising on other sites, to the benefit of their customers. In the event that traffic converts, they take another 12/15% on top of the existing 3-4%. This sounds like business the stores wouldn't be getting otherwise (so it's incremental), and all at the cost of what you'd be to an affiliate network anyway. Forced participation if you do more than $10,000 is ridiculous, but I otherwise fail to see w…

"Forced participation if you do more than $10,000 is ridiculous, but I otherwise fail to see what the uproar is about."

Well, the uproar is about the forced participation. If you remove that, then you obviously will fail to see the reason for the uproar.

Re: Etsy sellers are furious over new mandatory ad fees

#39

Post by leeoniya »

gentleman11 wrote: post #11
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

> I used to think etsy was cute and fun

to the tune of ~$100M?

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/etsy

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