Thank you, thank you, thank you for this video! I have been researching opening an Etsy shop and seeing all of the negative videos and, quite frankly, had almost decided that it wouldn’t be worth it. I appreciate your explanation of the issues and your level headed approach to assessing the risk of these things happening to the average seller. I have subscribed to your channel so that I can watch all of your Etsy videos and educate myself on all things Etsy.
Your willingness to sharing the unpopular facts, including the small group percentages of the totally millions of sellers affected is admirable. Thank you for your time and efforts in providing clarity and not clickbait about the Etsy platform.
2% of active sellers mean 118,000 small business. That fellow etsy seller, thats not a small amount of shops. Also consider that etsy is not transparent on what “active sellers” mean. So, if you consider that millions of people do not sell a thing, the percentage may increase.
The only reason Etsy changed to 30% reserves is because the UK government threatened to intervene. Etsy does NOT listen to anything except government threats and sometimes actual litigation efforts. We will continue to sell on Etsy, but everyone should always keep in mind that Etsy is there to serve buyers, not sellers.
I just found out AFTER I posted this, they added an arbitration clause to the terms of use - that we had until August 23rd to opt out of... Seems more than a little suspicious. More info here - indiesellersguild.org/etsys-plan-to-prevent-class-action-lawsuits/
Print on demand is allowed. You're creating the design and having someone else create the product. You just have always had to add the POD company as a "production partner" - I believe when you connect them to your Etsy account, some will do that automatically.
Keep in mind it's what you don't say that can have a big impact too. By speaking out is the right thing so people can make their own decision with all the info they know.
12:11 my husband was slapped with an involuntary vacation mode yesterday. He literally had one open order and it hadn’t been open 36 hours with a 5-7 day processing time. He’s been star seller since March and always ships on time with tracking.
I would like to add his shop is not new, he has completed every order in time and shipped on time with tracking on every order. No complaints, no bad reviews, no cases, no returns, it literally came out of nowhere. He did have a reserve in March, but that’s when his shop finally started getting orders. That was his best month yet. We understood the reserve was for the significant increase in orders. They always released the funds within 48 hours of the shipping company taking possession of the package.
What do they do if you ship the item in time but the delivery service takes ages to deliver it? The Royal Mail in the U.K. sometimes takes a couple of weeks and they don’t always mark it as delivered so the tracking dues t show that it has been.
As long as they confirm that you've dropped it off with the postal service (i.e. they scan it in and the tracking shows they're in possession of it) it *should* be okay.
They "held" nearly a thousand dollars of mine for MANY MONTHS. Makes me wonder if they invested it for that amount of time and earned interest off of it! And the constant fronting of the shipping on my orders really hurt.
This is happening to me right now! I've been selling on Etsy for awhile. My payments have been on reserve for a month now. I've put tracking numbers and sent my proof but I have heard nothing back except that payment reserves take 90 days.
Wow even though the tracking shows the package was accepted by the post office? That makes me think it's not an issue with the shipping, but something else like a spike in orders, bad reviews, etc. But who knows at this point 😫
I'm wondering if some digital sellers facing payment reserve issues actually listed their digital items as physical ones. I've noticed many digital portrait sellers do this, maybe because they offer variations or have hybrid listings (digital portrait + POD portrait). If a listing is marked as digital, sellers don't have the variation option. Etsy should look into this and improve their system to cater to this specific sellers.
I wondered the same thing, or sellers that do custom digital products, where they make the file and send it later versus it being instant, and thus have to mark it as a physical product. That's why I advise against doing hybrid shops entirely - well, that and buyer confusion.
I'm new at this and i sell Digital Print and some POD actual product but most of my sells been just digital print like $ 1-2 sells.. and they have in Reserve, so that being said i have $ 8.00 just sitting there * i have to wait 45 days to receive that.. Just a waiting game now to see if i get it or not / to see if i want to continue sell on the platform
Some good points there, as usual. I was a bit surprised about the reaction to Etsy holding payments; I am in the UK and remember business before the Internet became a thing, and the usual business to business account was settled by cheque on a monthly basis. Supermarkets all ways dragged that out to 3 months, or charged for 'early' settlement, ie monthly. I cant believe a business waiting for £1000's doesnt have reserves
Knock on wood, no reserves issues...yet. I sell on Etsy and my "reserves" is my full time job that actually provides the funds to buy supplies. My Etsy shop/s "profits" pay my labor (sometimes) and Etsy has told me I charge too much for my handmades, as if my labor should be free. I should have raised my prices this year, but I'm holding off until next year.
Sellers can pick their deposit schedule (if they want to be paid out every day, week, 2 weeks, month, etc) but the reserves are holding a percentage - for an unknown amount of time. With the recent change, it's supposed to be 30% in reserve, which really adds up. So I suppose what you're referring to would just be the equivalent of the deposit schedule. The reserve is supposed to cover their rear-end in case the customer never receives the item or needs a refund. But I've had to refund orders after my deposit has been processed for the week, and the money was just debited from my bank account... hoping that doesn't change to a penalty of some sort.
Funny you mentioned that digital sales don’t need tracking numbers; I have a DIGITAL ONLY store and Etsy put a sales reserve on my account until I could prove items were shipped, blah, blah, blah…. Ridiculous.
I have a shop and i do not sell handmade items. The majority of my items are vintage toys and jewelry. What business is it of anyones what i sell in my store. I sell a lot of toys. Im bringing people to etsy looking for my items. And if come to Etsy looking for my items then maybe they will stay and shop at other stores.
Things that sell well on Etsy won't sell outside of the platform because the audience & traffic is at Etsy. It is a pity that Etsy is closed to non-US sellers (no tax returns or SSN) & it is taking sellers' money. Note that other platforms have began to take sellers' money too.
For what it's worth, I'm in the "starting a new business and decided to just avoid Etsy" camp. Maybe they will make changes needed to change the minds of others and myself.
@@TypeNineStudio The problem is that we dont know the exact amount of the "most". It it were 60%, then, 47K were more than $50...I still believe that thats a lot of money from a lot of hardworking small business owners. If the numbers were $50 to ALL 118K sellers, it would be an average of $6M dollars in etsy hands for 90 days. According to Etsys Q2 report, their NET INCOME for Q2 was 61M - Do the math, that amount of money (in CASH) is quite important to them.
2% of 98 million is 1.96 million. So that's a lot unreserved if you ask me and how many of those are active. Because I only have 16 sales and it's telling me. I have more sales than 61% of the stores. And I've been open since October.
Funny you should mention that. A couple months ago I had really, really low sales (as always, by the way) and E-Rank told me I had sold more than 83% of all other stores!! Unreal. My conclusion after thinking about it was that - as seems to be the case in real life - 1% of Etsy sellers are making bank and the other 99% are making almost zero!
@@goilo888 Sounds like you have a point. I am still grinding away with on16 sales. I think they have the market but I am still going bust in lol. Good luck to you.
There are 96 million active *buyers*. 140k sellers (at the time of that article) had a reserve of any amount, 42k sellers had a total reserve of $50+. But yeah I do wonder how many buyers and sellers are actually active or what the criteria is - if a shop is "open" but has no listings, are they included also?
Digital products can still violate rules or get bad reviews (not saying you did either of those but they could cause a payment reserve), but yeah I'm hearing a lot that it's telling digital sellers they didn't add tracking... which is not right.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this video! I have been researching opening an Etsy shop and seeing all of the negative videos and, quite frankly, had almost decided that it wouldn’t be worth it. I appreciate your explanation of the issues and your level headed approach to assessing the risk of these things happening to the average seller. I have subscribed to your channel so that I can watch all of your Etsy videos and educate myself on all things Etsy.
This was one of the most levelheaded assessments I have seen on this topic. Thank you!
Your willingness to sharing the unpopular facts, including the small group percentages of the totally millions of sellers affected is admirable. Thank you for your time and efforts in providing clarity and not clickbait about the Etsy platform.
2% of active sellers mean 118,000 small business. That fellow etsy seller, thats not a small amount of shops.
Also consider that etsy is not transparent on what “active sellers” mean. So, if you consider that millions of people do not sell a thing, the percentage may increase.
Thank you for joining in, well said
They presumably make interest on the money they hold in reserve?
The only reason Etsy changed to 30% reserves is because the UK government threatened to intervene. Etsy does NOT listen to anything except government threats and sometimes actual litigation efforts. We will continue to sell on Etsy, but everyone should always keep in mind that Etsy is there to serve buyers, not sellers.
I just found out AFTER I posted this, they added an arbitration clause to the terms of use - that we had until August 23rd to opt out of... Seems more than a little suspicious. More info here - indiesellersguild.org/etsys-plan-to-prevent-class-action-lawsuits/
Etsy is there to serve -buyers, not sellers- Etsy, like most big corporations. Run by psychopaths and bean counters.
So can you not sell print on demand anymore? it's not exactly homemade except for the design part of it.
Co-Ask ...
Print on demand is allowed. You're creating the design and having someone else create the product. You just have always had to add the POD company as a "production partner" - I believe when you connect them to your Etsy account, some will do that automatically.
Keep in mind it's what you don't say that can have a big impact too. By speaking out is the right thing so people can make their own decision with all the info they know.
12:11 my husband was slapped with an involuntary vacation mode yesterday. He literally had one open order and it hadn’t been open 36 hours with a 5-7 day processing time. He’s been star seller since March and always ships on time with tracking.
I would like to add his shop is not new, he has completed every order in time and shipped on time with tracking on every order. No complaints, no bad reviews, no cases, no returns, it literally came out of nowhere.
He did have a reserve in March, but that’s when his shop finally started getting orders. That was his best month yet. We understood the reserve was for the significant increase in orders. They always released the funds within 48 hours of the shipping company taking possession of the package.
ONE 🥴
What do they do if you ship the item in time but the delivery service takes ages to deliver it?
The Royal Mail in the U.K. sometimes takes a couple of weeks and they don’t always mark it as delivered so the tracking dues t show that it has been.
As long as they confirm that you've dropped it off with the postal service (i.e. they scan it in and the tracking shows they're in possession of it) it *should* be okay.
They "held" nearly a thousand dollars of mine for MANY MONTHS. Makes me wonder if they invested it for that amount of time and earned interest off of it! And the constant fronting of the shipping on my orders really hurt.
That's definitely a concern - if it's not illegal it should be!
Yes, and I really needed my cash! It literally was MONTHS.@@TypeNineStudio
This is happening to me right now! I've been selling on Etsy for awhile. My payments have been on reserve for a month now. I've put tracking numbers and sent my proof but I have heard nothing back except that payment reserves take 90 days.
Wow even though the tracking shows the package was accepted by the post office? That makes me think it's not an issue with the shipping, but something else like a spike in orders, bad reviews, etc. But who knows at this point 😫
I'm wondering if some digital sellers facing payment reserve issues actually listed their digital items as physical ones. I've noticed many digital portrait sellers do this, maybe because they offer variations or have hybrid listings (digital portrait + POD portrait). If a listing is marked as digital, sellers don't have the variation option. Etsy should look into this and improve their system to cater to this specific sellers.
I wondered the same thing, or sellers that do custom digital products, where they make the file and send it later versus it being instant, and thus have to mark it as a physical product. That's why I advise against doing hybrid shops entirely - well, that and buyer confusion.
I'm new at this and i sell Digital Print and some POD actual product but most of my sells been just digital print like $ 1-2 sells..
and they have in Reserve, so that being said i have $ 8.00 just sitting there * i have to wait 45 days to receive that..
Just a waiting game now to see if i get it or not / to see if i want to continue sell on the platform
Thank you for supporting this initiative, Abby! :) I was 99% sure you would :)
I had to come out of hiding for this one 👻😂
Some good points there, as usual. I was a bit surprised about the reaction to Etsy holding payments; I am in the UK and remember business before the Internet became a thing, and the usual business to business account was settled by cheque on a monthly basis. Supermarkets all ways dragged that out to 3 months, or charged for 'early' settlement, ie monthly.
I cant believe a business waiting for £1000's doesnt have reserves
Knock on wood, no reserves issues...yet. I sell on Etsy and my "reserves" is my full time job that actually provides the funds to buy supplies. My Etsy shop/s "profits" pay my labor (sometimes) and Etsy has told me I charge too much for my handmades, as if my labor should be free.
I should have raised my prices this year, but I'm holding off until next year.
Sellers can pick their deposit schedule (if they want to be paid out every day, week, 2 weeks, month, etc) but the reserves are holding a percentage - for an unknown amount of time. With the recent change, it's supposed to be 30% in reserve, which really adds up. So I suppose what you're referring to would just be the equivalent of the deposit schedule.
The reserve is supposed to cover their rear-end in case the customer never receives the item or needs a refund. But I've had to refund orders after my deposit has been processed for the week, and the money was just debited from my bank account... hoping that doesn't change to a penalty of some sort.
Funny you mentioned that digital sales don’t need tracking numbers; I have a DIGITAL ONLY store and Etsy put a sales reserve on my account until I could prove items were shipped, blah, blah, blah…. Ridiculous.
I'm hearing that quite a bit. Doesn't matter if it's an error in general, or if they're telling you the wrong "reason" - they need to fix it.
I have a shop and i do not sell handmade items. The majority of my items are vintage toys and jewelry. What business is it of anyones what i sell in my store. I sell a lot of toys. Im bringing people to etsy looking for my items. And if come to Etsy looking for my items then maybe they will stay and shop at other stores.
I probably said "non-handmade" when I meant stuff that's not allowed on Etsy in general. Vintage toys and jewelry are definitely allowed.
lol "Etsy, your free trial has ended."
Things that sell well on Etsy won't sell outside of the platform because the audience & traffic is at Etsy. It is a pity that Etsy is closed to non-US sellers (no tax returns or SSN) & it is taking sellers' money. Note that other platforms have began to take sellers' money too.
It is absolutely not true that things won't sell outside Etsy, or that Etsy is closed to non-US sellers. Where did you hear that?
I think that because there are so many shops on Etsy people don't think that you still have to work just as hard as if you had a traditional business.
For sure. It's not as easy as it looks!
For what it's worth, I'm in the "starting a new business and decided to just avoid Etsy" camp. Maybe they will make changes needed to change the minds of others and myself.
Ty
A 2% of active etsy sellers is the not too petite amount of 118K small businesses right there. 118,000 people/families/entrepreneurs right there.
Oh agreed, the point there was most of the holds are for less than $50.
@@TypeNineStudio The problem is that we dont know the exact amount of the "most". It it were 60%, then, 47K were more than $50...I still believe that thats a lot of money from a lot of hardworking small business owners.
If the numbers were $50 to ALL 118K sellers, it would be an average of $6M dollars in etsy hands for 90 days. According to Etsys Q2 report, their NET INCOME for Q2 was 61M - Do the math, that amount of money (in CASH) is quite important to them.
5:47
2% of 98 million is 1.96 million. So that's a lot unreserved if you ask me and how many of those are active. Because I only have 16 sales and it's telling me. I have more sales than 61% of the stores. And I've been open since October.
Funny you should mention that. A couple months ago I had really, really low sales (as always, by the way) and E-Rank told me I had sold more than 83% of all other stores!! Unreal. My conclusion after thinking about it was that - as seems to be the case in real life - 1% of Etsy sellers are making bank and the other 99% are making almost zero!
@@goilo888 Sounds like you have a point. I am still grinding away with on16 sales. I think they have the market but I am still going bust in lol. Good luck to you.
There are 96 million active *buyers*. 140k sellers (at the time of that article) had a reserve of any amount, 42k sellers had a total reserve of $50+.
But yeah I do wonder how many buyers and sellers are actually active or what the criteria is - if a shop is "open" but has no listings, are they included also?
@@TypeNineStudio You say there are only 140K stores on Etsy? I had the numbers backward. oops. 😏
Etsy is automatic refunding , even if it's just a postal delay.
I am just pissed by now
A survey is fantastic but, if it’s not directed specifically to the affected parties, they won’t collect the real info.
whats crazy is i sell digital products and they helf 70% for 90 days even though the customers get the products asap...
Digital products can still violate rules or get bad reviews (not saying you did either of those but they could cause a payment reserve), but yeah I'm hearing a lot that it's telling digital sellers they didn't add tracking... which is not right.
Hey did u get your money yet? I'm thinking of starting a digital store to avoid this exact issue, but now I'm second guessing myself 😅