The Dark Side Of Etsy
So I mostly write about things that inspire and uplift me. But for awhile now I’ve felt compelled to talk about my experience in trying to create an Etsy shop. As an artist and hobby photographer, I recently made a decision to revisit my huge black binder filled with hundreds of 35mm negatives and high quality slides. A compilation of work and film shot over decades of capturing beautiful places and spaces that begged to be shared.
For years, the fact that they were in 35mm format discouraged me from any possibility of doing anything with them. With the advent of AI and other digital software, this year became a game changer removing any reason to let those dusty negatives linger. With that in mind, I took the decision to create a POD (print on demand) shop to liberate those images and stories on the “Etsy” platform. You know, the “artisan” friendly platform.
If you’re not familiar with the backend of Etsy, that’s okay as I wasn’t either. I discovered it’s a huge learning curve with tons of information to disentangle and a lot of work to create and set up your shop. You’ll need to learn about everything from creating a shop banner to how to make beautiful, search friendly, quality listings. To set up Print on Demand, you’ll need to research about the different providers available and how to successfully integrate them with your shop.
While attempting to set up my shop, build the right logo, banner, choose a POD supplier, create listings etc, I received a notice via a banner atop my shop that my store was suspended and that I would receive an email explaining why. Not only did I not receive an email with any explanation, but there was also no human to contact or anyone to get information from. Etsy only provides you with a form to create an appeal on their decision, which I did as I was completely baffled as to why they would suspend a store that was less than halfway created and not officially launched. A few days after my appeal explaining this, I received an email saying that the suspension was permanent and they don’t have to provide a reason why.
Although this entire experience was disturbing I also found it downright dangerous and alarmingly bullyish for a large company like Etsy to behave this way. I’m fortunate, as I hadn’t launched or made any sales, so I had “0” to lose here. But I couldn’t help but wonder , what if the situation was different. What if I had a store that I’d painstakingly built, that was making good money, a store that I depended on to support myself and my family. Can you imagine, you wake up one morning only to find that Etsy banner declaring that your store has been suspended. And, just like that, with the click of a mouse, you’re deactivated! Gone, Bye Bye! Fill out a form and appeal and maybe we’ll let you continue….or not. We don’t owe you any explanations.
What I also discovered was that Etsy does not publicly embrace or encourage shop owners to hire or have helpers. In fact, unlike Wordpress that provides a safe way of allowing technical or collaborative assistance to securely access and work on your site, Etsy has not created a pathway for it’s shopowners to provide safe access for hired helpers to work on their shops. Their platform image is that you’re a lone craftsman working in your space, handcrafting the products by yourself. It’s wonderful if you fit into that spectrum of sellers, but I suspect a small percentage of their sellers do. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that 50% or more of their sellers import and source their products from countries all across the globe. There’s also a whole host of sellers that sell digital downloads of work they did not create and there’s nothing handmade about that! All in all, knowledge is power and if reading this article can save you some money, time, or heartache, then it’s served it’s purpose. I’m still going to create my POD shop to share my collection of images, it just won’t be on ETSY!
Once my POD store is ready for launch I’ll share a link here!
