Cassidy described Etsy’s latest fee increase — which would cost her around $100 a month during peak sales periods — as “the final straw.”
“I’ve been really upset at every recent platform change,” she said. One frustration was the introduction in spring 2020 of an advertising program that Cassidy can’t opt out of but for which Etsy charges a minimum 12% fee. Because the company and not the sellers themselves operate the new advertising program, the fees come as a “complete surprise,” which Cassidy said has made it difficult to accurately price items in her store and run a sustainable business. “Do I just charge everyone 12% more or agree to take a pay cut on some orders?” she said. “[It] really cuts into your labor.”
Etsy has said publicly that it’s working on stronger policing of sellers who violate its rules, which restrict sales to handmade or vintage items and crafting supplies. But in July 2020, Cassidy said, Etsy introduced yet another new program, Star Seller, which she said rewarded sellers who could ship faster by designing original goods and outsourcing production (which Etsy says qualify as “handmade”), while excluding stores like hers. “At that point, I decided, no matter what is going on in the world or my life, the next time Etsy does something that hurts me, I will fight back,” she said.
So when Etsy announced yet another fee hike in February, Cassidy posted on Reddit, “We Need an Etsy Sellers Union” and found that dozens of other Etsy sellers agreed with her. She became the de facto leader of Etsy Strike and, in coordination with other sellers via Discord, wrote this week’s petition and announced the April strike.
Cassidy said her ultimate goal is to “start a solidarity movement” and help sellers get off Etsy entirely, but there are hurdles: Her Etsy store, for example, has 11,000 followers, but the platform owns the email address data. If she shuts down her Etsy store and moves her entire business to her personal website, many of those fans and customers won’t know where to find her.
