Etsy decline and The British Craft House rise
Online market place Etsy has this week faced criticism for its “reserve” policy. Many sellers were seeing 75% of their money frozen for 45 days.
Etsy has seen a decline in its growth in the UK in the last few years despite more buyers on its platform. This latest move has caused numerous sellers to leave the site. A Facebook group Etsy Reserve Strike has seen members grow to over 1.2k in the last couple of weeks.
The discussion group is full of stories of random stops on money, issues Etsy has caused and even the encouragement from Etsy to use their “loan” scheme. Yesterday also saw shares in the company drop 5%, in what many see as a direct result of the negative media coverage. Etsy was once the leader in the field and at one time the only place where crafters could sell their home-made wares.
The U-turn on the reserve policy for UK sellers seems to be being rolled out slowly, in some cases only a reduction to 30%. However, there is more bad news for Etsy: it looks like a UK small business is offering an alternative and is ready to fight in true David and Goliath style.
Susan Bonnar set up The British Craft House (TBCH) in 2019, in response to Etsy increasingly offering fake “handmade” items and their sellers reselling items from B&M and other high street stores at a huge profit, thereby conning the public.
She says:
“The reason I set up and love TBCH is that customers can be confident that they are buying genuinely hand-made items and that sellers are able to support each other through our Hub and Sellers network and thrive.”
Etsy’s decline and the lack of a real alternative for hundreds of thousands of British handmade sellers led to her to designing and building The British Craft House. It has since won awards and grown to support hundreds of British creatives and artists.
When the news broke recently about Etsy withholding seller’s money, with stories of mortgages and bills that can’t be paid, she received more than 100 seller applications just from this Instagram post, offering a reliable and homegrown British alternative.
View this post on Instagram
Reasons why sellers are choosing to leave Etsy
The problem with big companies is that they often outgrow the personal touch. With the growing use of AI in the workplace, Etsy customer service for sellers frequently doesn’t address any specific issue. We can see that from the standard replies sellers have been getting when asking for clarity on why their money had been withheld. Ultimately most people want the personal touch and not to be sent round the houses, whether they are buying or selling on an Internet platform.
There are other reasons that sellers are choosing to join the new player on the block:
- Fees are not withheld, lower and simple. For example, a pair of silver and gold handmade earrings found via an online search and sold through an advert for TBCH would cost the seller 8.6% of the sale in fees. The Etsy equivalent for the same transaction would be 26.6%.
- TBCH customer service is personal, quick and efficient, via email, message or Zoom if needed.
- TBCH sellers are independent and run their own shops. Resellers or Chinese imports sold as “handmade” are not allowed.
- Feedback: all TBCH feedback is held by a 3rd party – sellers choose Trustpilot, Google etc as the place to direct their feedback.
Craft sellers speak out against Etsy
One Etsy and TBCH seller, Hayley at Silver Halos, says:
“I’ve been on Etsy since 2017, I have never had a case opened against me and the large majority of my reviews are 5 stars. Unfortunately I’m on reserve, which means they keep 75% of my money, often what gets released isn’t even enough to cover postage costs. I’m so glad to have a British Craft House shop as well and hopefully one day I won’t need to use Etsy at all!”
Joy Salt of Joysofglass is an experienced online seller. She says “As a small business times have been hard this year so I decided to try my
Etsy shop again as an additional outlet. 10th April nice sale. 11th April Posted tracked. 12th April lovely note from happy customer who also left 5**** review. 14th April Nasty email from Etsy … we have put your account on Reserve. I have since put my Etsy shop back on a permanent vacation!”
Bonnar says she aspires to
“Grow the business to host more sellers in the UK and help buyers truly support small UK businesses, whilst always keeping our strong values at the heart of everything we do.”
I welcome the ambitions of the UK business, consumers want to buy more ethically and support small businesses and small businesses have had a hard ride in the last few years so it’s great to see this imitative growing to meet the needs of both.
Amazon is following in Etsy footsteps
Amazon is withholding all of sellers’ money for seven days. And like Etsy offering loans! How to add insult to injury asking sellers to pay the platform to keep their money.
Support small businesses
All I can do is to encourage consumers to support small businesses and go to a different platform or go directly to the seller’s website. Most of us are guilty of using Amazon for ease and speed but we need to do more to support small businesses.
Listen to the exclusive interview with Susan on The Complaining Cow Consumer Show on East London Radio Founder of The British Craft House on the Etsy fightback.
If you’re a business remember customer service should be at the heart of everything and if you need help with that see How The Complaining Cow can help businesses.
