Is Etsy worth it? - My experience as an Etsy seller and why they closed my shop

hey guys welcome to my channel today I'm going to be talking about being an Etsy seller and my experience with Etsy now I wanted to make this video because I've seen a lot of people asking if that's it's really worth it and if they shoot open website or they should start with Etsy so first I want to say in this video I'm going to tell you my experience as an Etsy seller I'm not a nice each other anymore EDC close my shop in 2017 and I'm gonna explain why and this is something that I want to share because I want you to have in mind that having an online business your your online business because not really yours it's Etsy's you have to have a lot of things in mind I didn't and it affect me so this video I want you to think about it and to be prepared just in case well I opened my Etsy shop in 2010 and she was barely starting out - um it was great I discovered them through someone that told me like oh you should definitely sell your pieces on Etsy and for those of you who don't know I make miniature food jewelry with polymer clay and at the beginning I was it was awesome because Etsy was like very handmade like but they have this thing called Treasuries that was created by people they started taking the the most beautiful pictures of item or items in for Etsy sellers and they did kind of like a collage and then the best one they featured in the front page not way the feathers will get some more exposure it was fun I was interacting with the community and it was something that I really felt like we were all a big community we knew each other he was very cool now let's start a chain what I'm at sea became this I don't want to say this but at first they were really humble like when you meet someone it's very humble and then they start changing and becoming someone else and you're still like I'm not liking this so that's basically what happened with me and some other things that were out of my control the amount that I'm going to tell you that I made in my whole career is not relatively like divided in the seven years that being an Etsy seller so I'm gonna show you I'm gonna put a picture maybe right here about the amount that I made on Etsy it was forty four thousand dollars now to me when I saw those numbers I was like really forty-four thousand dollars sending items that were ten to fifteen dollars each that's a lot of money I had no idea until I saw that I was like really but yeah minimum I used to make three that I'm sorry I wish three hundred dollars a month and maximin I made one time three thousand dollars one month Oh in two thousand I think was 15 I started feeling really bad if you want to want to know more about and then to go see if you don't know what it is I happened with realities I'm gonna leave a link around here so you can see the video where I'm explaining what it is I had a surgery and my items were made to order I didn't have any inventory which was which was my first mistake so I received the order the money and then I started making the items my surgery was um son it was something that was really quick I mean quick not but it happened like really fast and then I thought I was going to recover faster and it was going to be back like normal and I was going to be able to keep working but it wasn't that way I didn't got better fast enough and the problem was that the surgery didn't correct the problem and I kept feeling a lot of pain and of course I had a surgery so I was recovering it was a mess and I remember it was Christmas I sold a lot and I was producing producing making peace as many pieces and dealing with all that stuff I don't I remember it was a huge hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico and I moved from Puerto Rico to the state my family was in Puerto Rico I had the surgery it was Christmas I just moved overseas it was over when I moved I bring everything with me like all my materials and stuff and the glue that I use to glue the this thing is let me show you you see that oh this is an empanada wedding by the way I'm gonna leave a link to my websites in case you want to see them anyway apparently the glue went bad because of the temperature change or it was really hard and then I moved to it was air conditioning and I don't know something happened and the glue went bad so I grew all my earrings I send them and I was happy was I yeah yeah awesome and then like a week later someone contacted me hey my earrings fell off the post I was like oh my god that never happened to me before and I was like oh I'm so sorry I'm gonna do a replacement for you and I'm gonna send it right now perfect okay I did the peas i standed and then like two days there two more people the thing is fell off the post fell off the earring and I was like what happened and I was like something went wrong with the glue orders kept coming I was still working on the on the Christmas orders these people were having problems with their stuff and I just started to feel overwhelmed so I closed my job like I put it in by Kate on vacation mode until I figured out what was I was going to do because I couldn't keep up and then I started even refunds to the people that unfortunately I couldn't make their pieces again and then I started working on the other orders but I wasn't feeling well and I ended up giving a lot of refunds I started getting a lot of negative feedbacks because people were complaining that I was taking a lot and the evening for fending off and oh my god and people that were of course um sad because he couldn't receive their pieces and I had to cancel I try to explain to everyone without giving a lot of details because it's my personal life of course but I just told them that I had surgery I wasn't feeling well and it was just my I left it like that like I did what I could I send the pieces that I could and the pieces that I couldn't I cancelled and we founded like two months later as he suspended my account because I had a bill because of the sales and all the way from that I gave I had like a $300 bill and at the time I couldn't pay for it and they just suspended my account I was sitting with a lot I was scheduling another surgery I was going to a lot of doctors appointments and my husband is at home and I look your health it's you need to do with your health and your mental health it's also important and he just like forget about it for now you've been an excellent seller you've been with SC for a lot of years so we will talk to them and we'll show the papers of the surgery and stuff and everything's gonna be fine you're gonna have your shop again and you're going to be able to do what you love and everything's gonna be fine so I was like yeah it's true right I had another started Gary I moved lots of things and then one and a half year later I had the money to pay my bill I pay my bill and I send an email to the IT support saying hey I pay my bill I'm bad if you can't open my account again so I can keep selling they said that they were not able to do that and that I needed to fill out a paper form saying like why should I deserve to go back to Etsy like to keep selling I was like huh and I was like lifting I was a seller but a lot of years this happened I explained everything and I told them if you need papers I can provide them the feedback that I received us was because I counseled a lot of orders this happened all I it was the first time that I something like this happened to me and I don't see why we won't be able to open my shop again so they didn't care and they just told me to fill out the papers and so I did and they were asking like they were asking a lot I don't remember exactly what the questions were but one of them was like if this if you have an emergency how are you planning to deal with your shop and I told them like listen I didn't have inventory before and I should have and of this maybe wooden I'm sorry about my English I sometimes I can't find the right words it would not not happen if I had inventory so I told him I will have inventory so to prevent this am I gonna sell pieces that I don't have what really made so everything's gonna be good so I sent the papers and they say that my plan wasn't good enough for them that they don't think I'm I was going to be able to deliver in case in case the same thing happened to me again and that was not what ed C wanted to want it for the customers like basically they told me you sick again you won't be able to deliver and then we don't want you like what after all these years after all the changes that she went through and I didn't complain about anything I kept going and I kept trying to make my business as successful as I can I even talked about about them to a lot of people that open their shops because of my experiences I always share that with others and I thought it was a great community with a heart and that was it was devastating for me because I thought like you know like hey it's something I'm my control and it was not something that I just left her and okay whatever I don't care you know it was something that I dealt with and they just didn't want me back because they said that my time wasn't good enough so yeah that how my etsy story ended they didn't take in consideration all the years that I was with them all the positive feedbacks that people left me all the great experiences that customers had in my job they just didn't care and that's something that that's been happening like two years before because I remember that they sent an email saying that we needed to keep customer service level something like that and they were measuring how good you were doing with your shop and then they were gonna they were kind of like telling you if you don't keep up like we want you to we will close your shop or suspend your account and I started to feel weird when they started sending those emails cuz I was like okay this is really my business because it's my business Etsy is just the platform but it's not really like that Etsy is the boss is not you you're not the boss is them if they decide to end your business today they will do it they don't care they don't need you anymore you know it's like it's like that I felt I felt used because when they started I was a part of them I grew with them they grew with me thanks to me and I grew thanks to them it was um it was full month to another and it was good but right now they're so famous and they're everywhere everyone everyone knows them they don't need you anymore people kept coming and you are just nothing you know so if you want to open your Etsy shop you can do it you can do what you won't necessarily have my experience but what has have something in mind you could lose everything in one day in one moment like I did that was my main income I was a stay-at-home mom my husband worked outside but I stayed at home working that was my job but then all of the sudden I had nothing if you want to do it to start start do it you can do it have in mind that they have now high standards and you need to do certain things in order to sell for them I think they're taking 5% off they were not taking 5% before they took two point something and then I think 20 cents or 25 cents per transaction odds were not mandatory like I heard they're doing a mandatory ads now any mandatory free shipping back there back then I used to charge my cheeping like I wanted and I they didn't they it wasn't like that it wasn't like right now but I really recommend you to open your own website I know it sounds terrifying I know it's like a lot of work but it's it's gonna be yours it's gonna be something that you can manage and something that nobody can take from you you were the boss you're really the boss and that's what I did right now I open my own website I'm gonna leave a link in the description box where you can see what I'm talking about you can do it on wakes you can do it on big big commerce something like that the one that I use right now it's square this is not a sponsored video they're not paying me to do this to talk about them or anything I'm just telling you because I'm very happy that I discover them and this happened you know this time because I really needed something like that and it's been really easy to set up a website looks very professional it has a lot of good features and completely free like it's not like for example big Hummers I think you have to pay like 15 or 20 something dollars a month so you can have your store your shop I mean square you have to pay for your transaction but it's not a five percent is two point something plus 30 cents a transaction they send you a square reader in case you're going to go to a craft affair or you know you're gonna have a personal sale and they also send you a like a debit card that you can use if you have a sale then the money will go to that debit card and then you can use it anywhere and the interface is really easy to use like I haven't had any problems with you know setting it up I had a bunch of sales this week it's been a little bit easier because I took all of my pictures that I had from Etsy and I started setting up the website the way that I wanted and I really have my prices my descriptions and I just had to set up to lightly to upload everything to the website was just like transferring everything to my own website and of course I had my clients and you know I had my Instagram and everything oh and another thing that I wanted to talk to you about I shoes square because you can sell on Instagram with square kind of like Shopify something like that the thing is that I can upload pictures of my items on Instagram and then you can buy them from there you can sell on Instagram you can sell Facebook and then you have your own website you have three ways you can't do that with that scene so like I said before square didn't pay me to do this video but I think it's a really great venue for you if you want to have your own website to start just have something aside from Etsy because what they did to me they can do to you I hope you guys enjoy this video I hope I haven't talked so much well guys thank you so much for watching and I hope to see you in the next one but

Channel: Janabstra

Views: 245,408

Keywords: etsy, is etsy worth it?, opening an etsy shop, etsy shop, how to, should I open an etsy shop, online shop, etsy seller, square website, square, tips to be sucessful, sucessful etsy seller, how to get sales on etsy, etsy seller advice, etsy advertising, etsy free shipping, etsy closing, etsy problems, how much do people make on etsy, selling online, how to start selling on etsy, handmade business, goodbye etsy, etsy in 2020, etsy monthly revenue, etsy begginers, cutetreats

Id: fTZpiOAHw0k

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 26 2020