Etsy mandatory off-site ads: comparing with current ads. Thoughts from an Etsy shop owner
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- Опубліковано 3 бер 2020
- Etsy will be implementing new changes to shop owners beginning in April, 2020. Today I'm explaining those changes and comparing them with the current Etsy ads program. I am also going to be sharing my Etsy Ad stats from June 1 to December 31, 2019.
Find me on Etsy here:
www.etsy.com/shop/EllenBrenne...
Visit me on Facebook here: / ellenbrennemanstudio
My Website:
www.ellenbrennemanstudio.com
Find me on Instagram: @ellenbrennemanstudio
All of the opinions I share in this video are based on my personal experience which may not be the same as yours. Please contribute to the conversation but let's all be respectful of one another. - Навчання та стиль
Good information. Thank you. I would say “complaining” isn’t a waste of time if you are complaining to the right people. Seller platforms will listen if enough people complain. It does take a lot of people to speak up but you can make a difference.
I'm just about to restart my business (taken a 2.5 year hiatus due to health) and was going to open my Etsy store again. After all the changes since I left - the fee increase, free shipping (I'm in the UK so there's no way I can offer free international shipping) the ODR policy, the off site adds, plus fees in the UK being higher across the board and having to pay another 20% on top for VAT...... I've decided against it.
The fees aren't even my main reason, I've had my own bricks and mortar handmade store on and off for years, currently own a b&m business (in an unrelated field) with 8 employees and a lot of overheads, so 10-20% to use a platform isn't bad from that perspective. Anyone who wholesales or sells their work in a gallery, craft fairs or bricks and mortar store knows that you need to price accordingly for that. The main reason I won't go back is the way Etsy is forcing all these things on sellers, being sneaky about it, making us believe it's for our benefit and quite frankly, undermining our ability to make our own business decisions and know what's best for our business and our customers.
They've made it very clear they don't care about the little guy.
It's hard when sellers feel like they have no option to accept these changes, especially when it's their only income source. I'm going to remake my own website and drive traffic from Instagram and eventually a youtube channel. I'll pay for facebook/google adds if needed, it's more about having control over my business and not worrying about the next policy that could leave me without an income. I know it would be much less time consuming to just reopen my Etsy store, but the stress and worry about navigating all their changes and that my shop could be shut down without explanation isn't worth it to me.
I totally get it, and understand your frustration. I am a huge advocate for getting a website that will always be YOURS so you can run your shop exactly how you see fit. Thank you for your comment and best of luck to you!
Wish I found this channel 2 hrs ago when we started! How helpful. Very good and 100% true information!
Ah, thank you so much - very kind of you!
Not a great deal for artists, but this is the kind of stuff that will happen when you build your castles in someone else's sandbox.
It's easy to forget that our shops are not really 'ours' - things like this serve as a sober reminder of that.
Your videos are always so informative. I don't sell my work , but every artist I see on utube does. This is probably gonna hurt lots of artists trying to make ends meet, but like you said, and I totally agree with is that its not much different from selling at a vendor/store where you need to rent space which is very costly. Thanks for your info, always love them. Take care 💗🎨
Thank you for sharing your thoughts here, and for watching ☺️
What’s to stop a bot from clicking?
Won't matter, bots don't purchase and you're only charged when the person who clicks buys with the new online ads.
Thank you for your straightforward and helpful videos. Have much success, and hopefully I will be able to start selling soon too!
Everyone: Galleries are no longer the gate keepers. No one is our gatekeeper anymore. Artists have options now.
Etsy: Hold my beer.
Hope to see your video for your full ad experience on etsy!
Thank's Ellen,i think all the platform's are subtley becoming more complex (not on etsy myself),but i reckon you have the right approach ,once it's really no longer working in your favour,it's time to bail. Time to put more effort into our own website's maybe?
Exactly right. I purchased my own domain and have had a website for a few years now. I feel its a neccessity, especially now with so many changes taking place. Thank you for your comment :)
Very interesting food for thought .. I've been wondering about Etsy for some time .. haven't joined yet .. so thanks for this explanation.
Thanks so much for this video. I have no idea what in the world I am going to do. I am waiting to see, too, but I'm not doing it idly. I'm looking into other venues and mainly to see about driving traffic to my own site. Since Etsy has been so oblique and only giving a thin veneer of the semblance of choice for us, I have lost faith with them. The shipping thing seemed radically dishonest: "just rolling" your shipping in with the cost...well, that raises the cost, doesn't it? And then that raises the price of the item and when Etsy does its double dipping, it can take out more. The only ones who win are Etsy. I know this is their platform, but this is also an exchange. When the exchange no longer feels like exchange and more like a greedy grab, I get antsy and I lose faith. Now with this happy smiley face off site add thingy, I'm ants in my pants antsy. Maybe we should call Etsy "Antsy" now? I just really value transparency and I don't feel like they've been transparent in quite awhile...and I keep having this queasy feeling that the "gotcha" moment is going to come. It isn't just Etsy behaving like this--where they don't listen, they don't care what you think, and they begin to treat you as some lackey they get to rob (and ya betta say thank you!!!). A lot of print on demand shops are acting the same way. They want to make that quick buck and make their shareholders happy but they don't give jack squat about you. I don't have a problem AT ALL with making money, obviously. I DO with how it's done, though. For the most part, I do love Etsy. But paying for mechanics that I cannot see--with these nebulous ads... Yeah. I'm nervous.
When Etsy was established, they must have paid someone on "emptyeasel" to push multiple articles saying Etsy is the place that put artist first. Let's not just speculate yet, they might still have that 'motto' in mind during their policy change. May be.
TIme will tell, and I'll be posting another video when I compare numbers this next 6 months. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here :)
Yeah, this is probably going to be problematic, but when I’m ready I’m going to start on etsy because some promotion is better then no promotion. I do think it’s important though for artists to network promote each other to grow outside an established platform like etsy though. If in the end it ends up basically working like etsy commission rates I’m not sure it will be worthwhile.
thanks for your comment 😊 FYI, Etsy just announced that in order to assist sellers better through the pandemic, they will be waiving those advertising fees until May (possibly longer)
Whilst im not earning over $10k right now, etsy really frustrates me with the free shipping rule changes. I operate from Australia, so, I cant play that game. I have just opened a Store Envy shop. They take a 6% commission only!!!! I wont shut my etsy store just yet, but, i'm testing the waters for that to be a move in the future. I really enjoy your videos BTW
Hi Ellen... all your videos are worth watching and very informative. I'm not a member of Etsy, or for that matter any other online store as I'm presently not selling any work. However, I've done a bit of selling on Ebay (not art related) in the past and since then they have also made many changes that have enraged their sellers to some point. I personally don't have an answer to this as other places have, and are doing similar things to their patrons. I know you've been with Etsy for quite some time and it will be a hard decision to make should the time come to leave. I know you are probably going to stick it out for a while longer and I would be interested to see how your shop does under these new rules in a future video. I wish you the best and know that there would be a market for your style of art elsewhere, you would just have to take the time to find out "where" that would be, it is beautiful work.
Thank you for the encouragement, John. Finding the right market online continues to be one of the most challenging parts of my career. I don't like relying on Etsy and I'm not a fan of Amazon Handmade but I think this is the way things are going. I will be watching closely for the next 6 months to compare stats and will be making my decision from there. Thanks for your comment! 😊
This is interesting. I had seen the announcement but didnt realize it was mandatory for those over the $10k threshold. Im going to need to look into and understand it more. Im curious if they will give notifications of some sort when our listings are advertised so we can check metrics and performance. I like your perspective though...it is a platform and it's our responsibility how we react to changes. No sense in grumbling...got to move on if its not a good fit for us. Appreciate the info and your insight!
I haven't seen the new dashboard yet but have been told to watch for it in the coming week or so. And yes, there will be analytics available to see exactly where sales are coming from and from which platforms. Thank you for your comment!
I'm just starting to try and sell my art online, just in time to hear all the bad news about etsy. I'm building my own website, but the tech load with having an unsupported shopping cart has murdered my attempt to sell my novels from my own website, so I really am skittish. I'm trying zibbet because they support the shopping cart thing and it integrates with etsy. But you have to be etsy first. Has anyone dealt with zibbet at all?
Thank you for this. I started on Etsy last spring. I have had 1 sale so although this won’t affect me, I am not happy with how little traffic I get. My prices are comparable to other artists for similar art. I’m thinking that I’ve missed the boat on Etsy, starting out later in the game. What alternative are out there? I have had better luck on eBay, but it’s not consistent...which probably goes with the territory (art). Be well ❤️💕
Amazon Handmade is the only strong competition that I know of, but they have their own problems there as well 😕
I had a shop for 6 months, hundreds of followers and active on all the “games” but got 0 sales. I had tied my website to it in the process hoping it would help. I left when they charged me fees on a direct sale from my website. It was not worth it for me.
Guess we will have to just build it into our cost on Etsy and pass it along to the buyers... 😞 hate that. It’s such a high percentage! I mean amazon takes 15% how can Etsy take 15% and then an additional 5% for the transaction fee? Totaling 20% is that real? That’s quite a bit. I have all my Etsy prices about 3-5 dollars less then amazon right now. I’ll have to cha he that may 1st.
I've been keeping a close eye on off-site ads and I have to say, so far I've not had one sale based on those ads. It's like nothing has changed - I still bring in most of my traffic just like before, and Etsy search brings in the rest. I'll be doing another video after 6 months to see how things turn out.
Thanks for sharing! Have you calculated what your profit would have been June-Dec 2019 under the new system and compared it to the your actual profit related to clicks? Just curious. Quick math (which I could have wrong) says they would be roughly equal. But that might not be the same for everyone. And indeed, you are losing control.
In six months I'll be doing a comparison video to see if the numbers end up being roughly the same.
I think people are also upset because when someone clicks on an ad, there is a 30 day cookie, so anything they get anywhere on Etsy, Etsy will get their 12% from top sellers. This applies even if they have been your repeat customer for years and just might have clicked on an ad for something else. Sounds like extortion to me! It makes me not want to support them at all.
great point! Thanks for your comment :)
Amazon Homemade as an option?
Amazon Handmade is an option, though they have their own problems, mainly with digital theft. This was the main reason I closed my shop there. That being said, AH has been very good business for many sellers so it's a personal decision.
Ellen Brenneman Studio yes its rife, just filled in a take down for 30 listings of my design 😡
Not my problem (never sold anything on Etsy). However, I can see this going wrong and causing a lot of dispute. People should have the *right* to opt in or out or set limits.
It is causing quite an uproar; although, so did the free shipping change that took place a few months ago - but at least the free shipping was optional, this is not 👎🏼
you might as well go door to door like the old days of getting know and selling things. ellen I feel for you because I am published author. stop putting more money into ads and etc. even if you made money it's like getting a penny on every dollar you spent.
No no no!!!
I know! 👎🏼😩