Roughly 14,000 Etsy sellers began a weeklong strike on Monday to protest a 30% increase in transaction fees at the online marketplace that they say cuts into the profits of small business owners and content creators.
Etsy has raised the transaction fee from 5% to 6.5%, the first such increase since it raised the fee from 3.5% in 2018.
Launching their strike on the first day of the increase, the sellers changed their online stores to “vacation mode” and asked customers to boycott the platform until next Monday.
An online strike petition had 50,000 signatures as of Monday morning.
The petition signers are only a fraction of the 5.3 million sellers who use Etsy, which allows small businesses and content creators to sell products directly to customers.
In a statement to the press, Etsy defended the fee increase as a necessary step to generate more sales for sellers.
“Our sellers’ success is a top priority for Etsy. We are always receptive to seller feedback and, in fact, the new fee structure will enable us to increase our investments in areas outlined in the petition, including marketing, customer support, and removing listings that don’t meet our policies,” the statement reads in part.
The platform has promised on its blog to invest most of the added revenues from the fee increase into marketing, pledging to spend $50 million on improved customer service and $40 million on better policy enforcement.
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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