Correct, although I don’t really find it that surprising. Ebay have been charging a fee on shipping for years because so many people were putting most of the item cost in the shipping section to avoid paying fees.
I don’t know if Etsy had that problem, but now it annoys me even more that they tell us off for putting realistic shipping prices, while charging us on them so really we need to put them up even more just to cover that. I could understand their “charge less!” reasoning slightly if they were losing fee money from us putting costs in shipping rather than item, but now it makes no difference to them where we put the costs.
Yep, that’s why I’ve moved all my physical items to here and all that’s left are the digital downloads I have for my knitting patterns as they are OK sellers over there and there’s just not the same functionality to do that here.
I remember being subtly pressured to offer free shipping way way back, when I was a new seller on Etsy. Of course, most people who did that had to increase the cost of the item to cover their shipping. It looked free, but it wasn’t. And I’ve only just realised that probably meant that Etsy earned more commission. It was just a money earner for them. I feel quite stupid.
Yep, that annoys me too. For my adult jumpers/cardigans it costs £11 to post. I charge £11.25 but get told it’s too expensive! 25p does not cover my packaging.
I’ll definitely be shutting my dark side shop and concentrating on here. The people are friendlier, it’s not like an abyss and I have never really felt comfortable on the dark side. Here just feels right
I was initially swayed by the argument that it was worth having a foot in both camps, but now I’m not so sure. Promoting both feels messy to me and a bit pointless… far easier to drive traffic to one site rather than two. As my sales here outstrip the dark side by some margin, it hardly seems worth keeping the dark side open for the occasional punter who buys a greetings card.
Plus, it is far friendlier here. The other side is very anonymous and I feel lost in a huge sea of lots of other people’s stuff!
Promoting Folksy generally is also important (not just our own shops). If every Folksy member told just one person about Folksy once per month, footfall could go up considerably.
I have a shop on both sides, but starting to transfer over expired items from dark side to Folksy. Really do not get any sales from dark side and I find it very difficult to keep track of costings etc. Folksy so much easier.
Good luck to all you sellers - keep the crafting spirit high! xx
Linzijc @foxandbumble come and join us on the art chat thread…show your gorgeous work. It is just a small thread but it is open for all artists…either to show your work or just to chat about anything art related x
