Why I Left Etsy
In 2016 I opened an Etsy shop and successfully sold to customers in the UK, Europe, USA and even Australia for years, so why did I end my relationship with them this year?
Bye-bye Etsy
After nine years of trading I closed my Etsy shop this summer.
Why did I join Etsy?
Etsy had, and (probably) still has, the monopoly on buying and selling handmade items online. With excellent brand recognition around the world, they are the first place most people go when searching for handmade gifts. I had good reasons for joining Etsy when I was starting out as a maker:
It was an easy way for me to try online selling as a brand-new small business with no experience.
The site looks good and it’s easy to use – for over two years I ran my business from my phone just using the Etsy site.
Taking payments and arranging postage is seamless – all you need is a bank account and a printer and the website does the rest.
It gave me access to both UK and international customers.
Why did I leave Etsy?
Despite my long history of buying and selling via this site, over the past couple of years various issues have soured how I view Etsy and ultimately led to me closing my shop:
The Fees
Etsy advertises that it takes around 3.5% commission on sales, which is of course very low. Unfortunately, that is simply not true. If you tot up all the additional fees the actual figure is closer to 15%. And that’s before you’ve paid for postage, any marketing fees and local taxes. This is still a lower commission than selling in a shop or gallery of course, but it is higher than selling on other online platforms or even using my own website.
Over saturation and paid marketing
The days when you could simply add your tags to a listing and customers would find you are over. This is partly because of the sheer number of listings on the site – most sellers aren’t going to appear on the first page of results (unless they pay for it). Unfortunately, paying for off-site ads and to appear higher in listings are now both necessary to be successful on Etsy. I did pay for marketing for a year as an experiment, and I found that although I made more sales, they basically only paid for my marketing budget.
Re-sellers
Etsy’s original USP was that it only hosted artists and makers, but over the years it has allowed re-sellers to set up shops, and that has muddied the water for everyone. The laser cut jewellery world is rife with re-sellers, that is, people who simply buy cheap, mass-produced jewellery from sites like Temu and Amazon and re-sell it. Others download designs (yes, you can buy design files on Etsy too) and get those made. As a maker who designs and constructs all her own work, I find this practice deplorable. It can be hard to tell the difference between re-sellers and genuine makers, but there are signs. The major red flag is low prices: hand-makers can’t compete with mass produced pre-bought items made in China and India because we have to factor in our time plus the cost of buying small amounts of materials. Another sign is if you see the same product images used in different Etsy shops: these will be the original photos from whichever website the re-seller bought from (they’re not even imaginative enough to re-take new photos!). If you see these sellers online, don’t buy from them!
foreign trade regulations
From December 2024 new EU regulations on product safety meant that businesses could no longer sell to customers in EU countries unless they employed an EU based ‘agent’ to act on their behalf. The cheapest of these costs around £300 per month so is totally out of the reach of most artists and makers. Yes, you can mark items as ‘gifts’ on customs forms, but an inspection could land a maker with a hefty fine or worse. Then in 2025 when the USA increased their import tariffs I was effectively no longer able to sell to the USA either since customers aren’t likely to buy if the postage and taxes cost more than the item itself. Etsy isn’t responsible for these new developments, but they have been remarkably quiet about how they affect UK sellers, offering very little support or advice at a stressful time for small business owners.
poor reputation
Etsy now has a reputation for issues like closing shops without cause; withholding payments; not offering enough support when makers’ intellectual property is stolen; its lack of accountability and poor communication lines. Social media and online forums are full of stories of artists losing their incomes overnight, with no recourse and nobody to speak to because the Etsy machine is run by bots, not people. I’m increasingly picky about the websites I use, and those with poor communication channels where the only contact is AI powered are rapidly dropping off my list.
what’s the alternative?
When I was deciding whether to close my Etsy shop I found lots of makers on social media who did the same because Etsy doesn’t provide the service they expect. There was even a campaign encouraging makers to leave Etsy to demonstrate the power of group action. Lots of makers and artists still rely on Etsy and if it works for those people that’s great. However, with Tiktok shop, Shopify and various other online sites now making online selling easier to do, Etsy doesn’t hold the same appeal it once did. New makers occasionally ask me whether it’s worth opening an Etsy shop and honestly, I’m not sure it is now that there are so many ways of connecting with customers online. These days when I’m looking for a handmade gift I tend to find makers via social media and check how I can buy from them. Sometimes the only option is to use Etsy, but if a maker has their own website, sells through social media or accepts direct payments I would choose those methods every time. Massive businesses like Etsy should treat their customers better - after all, we’re the ones keeping them rich, and if they don’t behave how they should, we need to stop using them. Vote with your purse!