The Dark Side of Etsy: Nightmare Stories and Hidden Dangers for Artists

Are you an artist considering selling your work on Etsy? 

In this episode, I explore the pros and cons of using Etsy as a platform for professional artists. I share my personal experience and explain why I never signed up for Etsy myself. 

🔑 I’ve never signed up for Etsy because I value living as an independent full-time artist. If you feel the same, I recommend signing up for Artpreneur Academy through my ➡ Free Masterclass, Secrets of a 6-Figure Artpreneur before wasting your time on 3rd party websites like Etsy where you have no control.

There are drawbacks of using Etsy, including forced promotions, an overcrowded market, and the risk of sudden shop shutdowns. 

On the flip side, I also highlight the quick start, niche products, and no website needed as pros for artists using Etsy. 

Tune in to learn more about the realities of selling on Etsy and explore alternative options for artists.

YOU WILL LEARN:

✓ Is Etsy a dream or nightmare? Pros, cons, and costs for professional artists 

✓ How Etsy forced sales are killing artists' profits

✓ Etsy shop shutdowns and horror stories

✓ Why there is an overcrowded Etsy marketplace

✓The fight against mass-produced items on Etsy 

✓How to build a profitable art business without Etsy

RESOURCES

 🦋 Click here to join my Artpreneur Academy ➡  Free Masterclass, Secrets of a 6-Figure Artpreneur and gain full control of your business! 

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Transcript

Jenna Webb: 0:00

Today, we're diving into the pros, cons and costs of Etsy. To find out, is it worth the risk for artist? Etsy has had some extreme problems that I want to shed some light on today. Like sudden shop shutdowns. An overcrowded marketplace, and artists' fighting against mass produced items, and horror stories that come with the risk at running your business on a third-party platform that you do not own. On the flip side, I also want to highlight the pros for artists using Etsy. So you can decide for yourself

0:38

Welcome to the Empowered Artist Podcast, where you'll get all the strategy to sell your art online. I'm Jenna Webb. I've helped thousands of artists realize and achieve their dream. I'm an artist, marketing coach, founder of Artpreneur Academy, chronic illness warrior, and your new art business. When I retired from corporate to live my dream life as an artist, there was no example for me to follow. But as I started to grow a six figure art business, I was able to map out a complete step by step blueprint for successfully creating and marketing online art businesses. If I can learn how to be an artist in my thirties, I can teach you how to run a business. Now, as the how to girl, I'll give you all the tips. and tricks that will actually grow your art business. So tune in each week as we simplify art marketing, make selling your work fun, and elevate your artpreneur mindset so that you can feel like the badass that you are, even on the tough days. I am on a mission to transform the mindset and income of artists everywhere. So if you're ready to live your dream life as a full time artist, let's do the damn thing.

Jenna Webb: 1:47

welcome back empowered artists. I am so excited to come back after our amazing three-part January jumpstart series. I hope you are feeling just as fired up as I am about having a deeply meaningful and impactful year. That's what our last three episodes were all about. If you want to go back and take a listen or bookmark them and relisten. Our goal has been 88 apple podcast reviews. And you guys, we are just inches away. So when I. See that 88 3 view. I will be giving an Amazon gift card out to one of the last eight reviews. I'm so excited to do that. Thank you so much for your support. I can't wait to bring you today's show. Today, we're diving into the pros, cons and costs of Etsy. To find out, is it worth the risk for artist? This is definitely an episode you'll want to share on social media because other artists need to hear it. And together you can help me spread the mission of the empowered artist. Etsy has had some extreme problems that I want to shed some light on today. Like sudden shop shutdowns. An overcrowded marketplace, and artists' fighting against mass produced items, and horror stories that come with the risk at running your business on a third-party platform that you do not own. On the flip side, I also want to highlight the pros for artists using Etsy. So you can decide for yourself and we'll open up a conversation. Personally, I never signed up for Etsy because I value living as a completely independent full-time artist. If you feel the same, I recommend signing up for the Artpreneur academy through my free masterclass secrets of a six-figure Artpreneur. Before wasting your time on third party websites like Etsy, where you have no control. Click the link in the show notes, or go to Jenna Webb art.com and click free masterclass now. Artpreneur academy teaches you how to be completely independent with your own website and teaches you how to build your own customer list. Thanks for being here with me today and following the show, let's dive in. So we start today with a question because Etsy is such a big topic. I want to know what has your experience with Etsy, been? Good or bad? You can answer and the episode comments on Spotify or drop a comment in YouTube. There are three major drawbacks to find artists using Etsy. The first drawback being. Force promotions on a handmade marketplace platform. Etsy is actually forcing you to discount your products. And as a fine artist, our price is our price. Etsy is only promoting sellers who offer regular and large sales. And what's happening with this is artists are forced into impossible profit margins that you can't sustain. We're going to go into detail about how this profit margin breaks down and I'll do the math on a specific example. Because this is huge. And if you're like me with your art. My price is my price. And a for sale on a platform like Etsy is ridiculous because that either forces you to charge way more for your artwork. And those high numbers can deter an art buyer. Because sometimes Etsy's force promotions are up to 60% sales. That's impossible. So more about that in just a minute. The second drawback of an artist using a platform like Etsy is the overcrowded market and mass production. So Etsy is known for being a beautiful place where you can get handcrafted goods from real artists, but that's not what it actually is. A huge issue that arose a long time ago. Are people going onto sites like Allie express and Teemu, I think it's pronounced. Um, and these are where you can buy mass made goods. And they're not coming from artists who are actually hand-making the items. These are just resellers. And they're buying these items and reselling them at ridiculously low prices. These sellers are crowding the market. And they're pushing out the true makers. And as an average buyer on the platform, there's no way to really know who is an actual hand maker and artists and who's not. And so the market is just overcrowded and flooded with this bullshit. There's no way an artist who's making original. Artwork. Original sculptures, original paintings, whatever type of craft that you're putting your vision and your time into, there's no way you are mass producing that. And at the click of a button, someone just going on to AliExpress and just reselling it on Etsy. And this mass production is just taking over. The whole concept really makes it impossible for the true artist. And it's diluting the true purpose of the. Artisan and craft platform. The third drawback of an artist using Etsy is simply risk. It's not a platform that you own. And this is where I want to talk about sudden shutdowns. I have heard artists horror stories from Etsy. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. I have heard of artists who had long standing Etsy shops suddenly shut down without warning. Without any word from Etsy. Their shops were shut down overnight and their funds were held. And that is simply the risk of running your business on a platform that you do not own. Etsy can close your shop without warning and hold it ransom. And they have. There are many stories like this. And today I'm going to share one of those stories with you of a woman who got sued for using the word smiley on one of her products. And she had to do a lot of work for an entire month when her shop was suddenly shut down. Which was her entire livelihood. She had to do a lot of work just to get it up and running again because her funds were held ransom. So when you run your entire livelihood, On a platform that you don't own. You're signing away your business to the unknown. And that's a lot of risk. I know that Michael's has a marketplace similar to Etsy now. Artists have approached me with concerns. Of how much of your business are you going to be signing away to this kind of market space? And that worries me too. Bottom line is if you don't own it, you don't control it. Let's talk about how much profit you actually make when Etsy forces you to discount your products. Because Etsy is only promoting sellers who offer regular and large sales. Etsy is forcing artists to accept 60% sales on their handmade items. That's insane. And let me tell you just how insane that is. Let's use a$20 item, just for an example. Now I know your artwork isn't normally$20, but let's say it's one of your entry level items, or you can use this example and multiply it for one of your larger original pieces of artwork. Here's the breakdown on how you would profit on Etsy after all of their fees. Regularly. You would make$17 and 65 cents off of your$20 item. But when Etsy is forcing you to promote your item at 60% off, you are only making$6 and 80 cents. Unbelievable. So you're probably wondering how all the fees breakdown. Etsy has a 6.5% fee. And then there's an additional 3% fee. And they processing fee. On your$20 item. Regularly. Etsy's total fees are$2 35 cents. So in total on a$20 item, Etsy is going to take$2 and 35 cents. So the total earnings for you as an artist on that$20 item. Is$17 and 65 cents. Let's see what happens when Etsy is forcing you to promote. Etsy has this super saturated Mass production market. And they're only going to promote sellers who are offering regular and large sales. So if you are being forced to sell your product at a 60% discount. Your list price on your$20 item is$8. On this item. At T's total fees are$1 21 cents. You are only making$6 and 80 cents. Unbelievable. So the real problem with Etsy force promotions is that this is encouraging. Resellers to come onto the platform. So that's resellers who are grabbing mass produced items from websites like Ali express. Versus actual artists who are hand-making items. And the real artists can't afford these tiny profit margins for their work. It's truly impossible guys. Etsy is only promoting your shop if you're having a sale above 25% off. Let's talk about how full-time Etsy sellers are having their shops suddenly shut down and funds held. I almost can't believe it when I say it out loud that Etsy can actually shut down your shop and hold your funds and hold your business at ransom. This happened to a seller whose entire business was run on the Etsy platform. And here is the story, as I understand it. This hardworking artisan had the smiley company shut down her store for having the word smiley. On one of her product listings for a pin. Even though her product was not a smiley face. At Etsy held her funds for over five days and she couldn't get ahold of them. In the meantime, she had to keep shipping out her orders because of course she's a responsible business owner and she's going to do that for her customers. She's got a reputation to uphold. And finally she was contacted by the smiley company and she was sued for using the word smiley for two and a half grand. And she couldn't have her Etsy shop back and tell she paid. Now, according to the seller, she said that she taught herself law in under a week by using the Cornell law website. What gumption. And she refuted every single point that she was being charged on, which took a lot of time. Ultimately, they dismissed the charges and she was able to continue selling. But she did lose an entire month of sales and. Can you imagine? How traumatizing this was for the seller whose entire livelihood was being held at ransom. And she didn't know the outcome. She had to go through this. So the sales weren't the only cost. It was a lot of time and a lot of stress, very traumatizing. Now, of course not everyone's experience with Etsy or similar sites is going to be the same. So let's highlight 4 pros for artists using Etsy. Number one. It's a quick start. You can jump on Etsy and have your shop set up and running and very little time. One of my students. Jessie said that it was really handy to get her started because she didn't have a platform at the time. And she said that she made sales on knitting patterns and some digital items, items that didn't require her to ship anything. Number two. Etsy can be really great if you have a super niche product or if you're. Product is really good for the local area you're in. Or if you're in a tourist town and people are going to search you for that city or for that niche product. And you're going to be able to really stand out on Etsy. So let's say you're at a beach town, or you're just in this tourist area that people really want certain handmade goods from that area. Then I would say having that niche product on Etsy could really serve you well. That probably comes in really handy when people are looking for gifts that are personalized. My student Jessie said that she got a notice that her buyer had searched for her city and they bought a sticker. Number three. You can get started on Etsy without a website. If your goal is to get products to market as fast as possible. With Etsy. There's not a lot of personalization. You can do. But absolutely Etsy is going to help you with speed to market. If that's one of your goals. Overall. In business and in life, there are no shortcuts. And it's really important that you can stand on your own two feet. If you are going to be on Etsy, you still are going to need a website. So even if you do want to have an Etsy presence, you're still going to need a website to have a business that will sustain you in the longterm and make you profits that can sustain your livelihood. So just keep that in mind. Number four. If you sell craft items. Etsy is a great place to be. When I think of Etsy, I think of crafts. But that's just me. Many artists I know are similar to my student, Jessie who says. I like having my craft items on Etsy, because I don't want to list my craft items alongside my paintings on my website. It just feels too separate for me. One caveat to having an Etsy shop is not having that Etsy shop alone. You don't want your entire business on a single platform where someone else is making the rules and can hold your livelihood at ransom. Plus you need a website for your business anyway. I'm going to ask you a question before we go today. Today we covered how Etsy can be a quick start for artists who. Want to get their products out there right away. How the platform is known for crafts and niche and local items rather than fine art. Forced promotions on se can lead to unsustainable profit margins for artists. The Etsy marketplace is overcrowded, making it really difficult for true handmade artists to stand out among resellers. And there is a risk to sudden shop shutdowns on Etsy, which can have a devastating impact on the artist's livelihood. I never signed up for Etsy because I value complete freedom and living independently as a full-time artist where I can keep all of my profits and be in full control. If you feel the same, you should join me in Artpreneur academy through my free masterclass secrets of a six figure Artpreneur. Click the link in the show notes or sign up@ jennawebbart.com. Click free masterclass. You'll be so glad you checked out Artpreneur academy before you waste your time and bet the whole farm on a third party like Etsy. It's for artists who want to earn a full-time living, doing what they absolutely love. And it's the only program you need to be a confident, independent business owner and never rely on a third party. You'll be handed the proven step-by-step plan that you need to grow a predictable business income from scratch. Just like the thousand plus students who have done the same. You'll be offered a free month of coaching with me and much more. If you want to learn more about Artpreneur academy, come to the free master class: secrets of a six-figure Artpreneur. And this class you'll walk away with sales, social media, and branding strategy to convert sales right now. And at the end of the class, you'll get details about the Artpreneur academy program. The class is only 75 minutes. It's 100% free to attend, but seating is limited. To save your seat, click the link in the show notes or go to Jenna web art.com. And click free masterclass to save your seat. You will love it. And I will see you there. I hope you love today's episode on Etsy. And my question for you is what else would you like me to cover on the show about Etsy? I'm really curious to know what your experience has been with Etsy. Good or bad. You can let me know in the episode comments. If this episode fell on your heart or got you fired up, I would love it. If you shared it with a friend, they need to hear it too. Thank you for listening, following and dropping a five-star written review. I'll see you right here next week.