Thanks, Catherine. I knew that Etsy was pushing for sellers to ship free, but wow. These people are crazy. It has become an endless trial selling at Etsy. It's constantly testing different item-page layouts, has revamped the forums into a useless mess (it's actually run by some outside company, or so other sellers say), and fees just seem to eat up everything. Now this with the free shipping.
The kicker for me is that Etsy supposedly may push for a SITEWIDE offer of free shipping on x dollar amount of purchases. (It's possible to do that because now, even if you're purchasing items from different shops, you can pay them together in a single check-out.)
In this new scheme, if a buyer is purchasing items from different shops, and the total amount crosses the free-shipping threshold, ALL the sellers would have to ship free. That's BS.
As there's no place else for me to go, I may have to cave and offer free shipping. I can't do that without raising prices, though. Which sucks.
I remember the topic of free shipping was discussed in several threads over time at ArtFire. The arguments for not offering free shipping were pretty convincing. Mainly, that customers know item prices get hiked to cover the shipping, and that many customer don't really care about shipping costs. (Some survey or study discovered the latter - although this was before Amazon had monopolized the world.)
In any case, Etsy is on many a seller's poop list these days, and this certainly won't mend the resentment. I just hope I can maintain my distance from using Etsy's shipping service. I'd much rather deal with shipping on my own - one less thing at E I have to keep track of.
Again, thanks, Catherine! Treats to Le Moosie from Le Gonze! :)
Hey, everyone! Guess what? Sharon Gilnak (although not sure what her last name is now!) got married and moved! She asked me to let all of you know. Here's part of her email to me:
Hi Catherine! Please let all the ladies know all is going well. We got married Friday night . . . It was a lovely ceremony. Then I got the flu and we moved to New Braunfels on Wednesday! Today is a resting day - but we are loving the new home and the new location. We will miss great friends but it is a good move for George and I. Hugs, Sharon
Congratulations, Sharon!
She also mentioned she probably won't be around until late April.
I received an email today saying Etsy had charged my CC x-amount for fees. But I have never authorized auto-billing.
I checked out the forums and from what I can see, there are two main threads about the problem. If anyone here on Etsy received a similar kind of weird email, check out the situation here:
I've been dealing with this for over 2 hours. I called my CC company and put a hold on my account. Wrote an email at Etsy support. Tried to call them, etc.
Right now, it looks like this is a system glitch. Emails from billing sent by Etsy to sellers at the start of November mention the same amount of money as today's weird email. Not everyone discussing this at the forums has checked their email, but so far, among those who have checked it, the match is consistent.
Just want to let E people (us poor sods) know this is happening, so that if you get that weird email you don't entirely freak out.
Etsy seriously needs to forget about messing around with page layouts and crap like that, and focus on things like this. They've had other monetary glitches before, but this is the first that has affected me.
One of Etsy's administrators posted about the glitch: https://community.etsy.com/t5/Announcements/Incorrect-Payment-Received-Email/m-p/125812297#M1542
I was lucky not to be part of the glitch.
I'm not too concerned about the free shipping fiasco. My earrings all have free shipping. I also have two coupons one for leaving items in the cart and one for "hearting" the item. I don't want to offer free shipping on the other items. Etsy could be making a poor decision and sellers may decide to close their shop.
For those who have to ship weightier items, say vintage bookends or people who sell ceramic bowls, etc., the free shipping fiasco will definitely be something to be concerned about.
Where on Etsy can I read more about the report from ecommercebytes regarding Etsy's new program regarding free shipping? I looked at the forums but can't find anything and I didn't receive any email about it.
Thanks Connie. Appreciate your posting this. I am furious. First, the shipping thing and now removing PayPal. In fairness, I'm reading that PayPal is increasing its fees.
Have to do research on getting my website SSL and maybe find another venue. The cost factor is one factor, and traffic is another.
You're both welcome. I also did the survey. I always get more excited over a sale when the buyer used PayPal. That way the money was in there immediately, if I need it to buy supplies. I'm not changing over until the last minute. Hopefully will get a PayPal sale over the weekend.
If someone has Promote Pictures, could you please do a promotion of one of my pages with multi images. I have been using the flamingo earrings on the first page as a test. Mine is not working properly, and the engineers at Promote Pictures say it's me. It could well be, but I would like some other opinions. I am finding that it is only grabbing the one image that is not a thumbnail and is then grabbing pixilated thumbnails. I am having no problems on anyone else's site; just mine. thanks
Julie, just tweeted you two examples. Some of the pics I added from the choices on the side since they didn't make it into the original collage. Weird the way they show up in the tweets - not like in the collage I thought I was sending.
Thanks so much ! Out of curiosity, I switched to Firefox and didn't have any problems, so this is a chrome thing. They told me it was me, but yours did the same thing. Now, I am not sure what to do. BTW - WINTER IS HERE!!!!!!!!
Weird that it's only your shop. As soon as I get finished working on a post, I'll try with IE and see what happens. Also might clear my Chrome cache and see if that's it. Been a while since I've cleared it.
Yes, WINTER IS DEFINITELY HERE!!! Am going to rewatch a couple of times to catch the things I missed. And I definitely want to ride a dragon . . . (:
Well, I pulled up IE and PromotePics doesn't support it. Then I cleared my Chrome cache, tried PPics and that didn't fix the problem. So it must be that Chrome is not talking nicely to PPics and your shop. Sorry.
If you notice that I've skipped your post after a couple of days, please let me know. I just realized that I skipped a post of Cathy's from the other day, and I sure didn't mean to.
Happy Easter and Passover and Bunny Celebrating Day to everyone! :) Treats to all the CPromo furpals from Sir Gonze! xoxo
In regards to my Mother's Day Gift Ideas Week 7 blog. I think I sent most messages to everyone. But, Artfire is not working right today. It will not let me contact KatsAllThat or VictorianStyleTreasures to let you know you've been featured.
Those of you on Etsy might be interested in this thread about free shipping that Etsy so desperately wants you to do:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/abblog/blog.pl?/pl/2019/3/1554004561.html
I saw that this morning, and was most interested in the option to not show any of the listings that did not include free shipping.
DeleteThanks, Catherine. I knew that Etsy was pushing for sellers to ship free, but wow. These people are crazy. It has become an endless trial selling at Etsy. It's constantly testing different item-page layouts, has revamped the forums into a useless mess (it's actually run by some outside company, or so other sellers say), and fees just seem to eat up everything. Now this with the free shipping.
DeleteThe kicker for me is that Etsy supposedly may push for a SITEWIDE offer of free shipping on x dollar amount of purchases. (It's possible to do that because now, even if you're purchasing items from different shops, you can pay them together in a single check-out.)
In this new scheme, if a buyer is purchasing items from different shops, and the total amount crosses the free-shipping threshold, ALL the sellers would have to ship free. That's BS.
As there's no place else for me to go, I may have to cave and offer free shipping. I can't do that without raising prices, though. Which sucks.
I remember the topic of free shipping was discussed in several threads over time at ArtFire. The arguments for not offering free shipping were pretty convincing. Mainly, that customers know item prices get hiked to cover the shipping, and that many customer don't really care about shipping costs. (Some survey or study discovered the latter - although this was before Amazon had monopolized the world.)
In any case, Etsy is on many a seller's poop list these days, and this certainly won't mend the resentment. I just hope I can maintain my distance from using Etsy's shipping service. I'd much rather deal with shipping on my own - one less thing at E I have to keep track of.
Again, thanks, Catherine! Treats to Le Moosie from Le Gonze! :)
Hey, everyone! Guess what? Sharon Gilnak (although not sure what her last name is now!) got married and moved! She asked me to let all of you know. Here's part of her email to me:
ReplyDeleteHi Catherine! Please let all the ladies know all is going well. We got
married Friday night . . . It was a lovely ceremony. Then I got the flu and
we moved to New Braunfels on Wednesday! Today is a resting day - but we are loving the new home and the new location. We will miss great friends but it is a good move for George and I. Hugs, Sharon
Congratulations, Sharon!
She also mentioned she probably won't be around until late April.
Yes, congrats, Sharon! :) xoxo
ReplyDeleteTalking about Etsy ...
ReplyDeleteI received an email today saying Etsy had charged my CC x-amount for fees. But I have never authorized auto-billing.
I checked out the forums and from what I can see, there are two main threads about the problem. If anyone here on Etsy received a similar kind of weird email, check out the situation here:
Thread 1 - https://community.etsy.com/t5/Bugs-and-Technical-Issues/Email-from-Etsy-to-say-bill-payment-recieved-this-is-not/td-p/125810050/page/4#
Thread 2 - https://community.etsy.com/t5/Bugs-and-Technical-Issues/EMAIL-STATES-THEY-TOOK-100/m-p/125810209#M477908
I've been dealing with this for over 2 hours. I called my CC company and put a hold on my account. Wrote an email at Etsy support. Tried to call them, etc.
Right now, it looks like this is a system glitch. Emails from billing sent by Etsy to sellers at the start of November mention the same amount of money as today's weird email. Not everyone discussing this at the forums has checked their email, but so far, among those who have checked it, the match is consistent.
Just want to let E people (us poor sods) know this is happening, so that if you get that weird email you don't entirely freak out.
Etsy seriously needs to forget about messing around with page layouts and crap like that, and focus on things like this. They've had other monetary glitches before, but this is the first that has affected me.
I am sorry to hear that they have not fixed this issue. They have made a mess of all of it.
DeleteOne of Etsy's administrators posted about the glitch: https://community.etsy.com/t5/Announcements/Incorrect-Payment-Received-Email/m-p/125812297#M1542
ReplyDeleteI was lucky not to be part of the glitch.
I'm not too concerned about the free shipping fiasco. My earrings all have free shipping. I also have two coupons one for leaving items in the cart and one for "hearting" the item. I don't want to offer free shipping on the other items. Etsy could be making a poor decision and sellers may decide to close their shop.
For those who have to ship weightier items, say vintage bookends or people who sell ceramic bowls, etc., the free shipping fiasco will definitely be something to be concerned about.
DeleteTrue, it would be. With the jewelry, at least the shipping weight is only a couple ounces which keeps the cost down.
DeleteIt upsets me that Etsy is making these decisions about our businesses. Free shipping, and now getting rid of independent PayPal.
DeleteIf I raise prices to include shipping, Etsy makes more on the sale.
Maybe they want sellers to leave?
Anyone have anything on Zibbet? How's traffic there?
Where on Etsy can I read more about the report from ecommercebytes regarding Etsy's new program regarding free shipping? I looked at the forums but can't find anything and I didn't receive any email about it.
ReplyDeletehttp://bmebluprint.blogspot.com/2019/04/mothers-day-around-worldfrance.html
ReplyDeleteI offer free shipping mostly around holiday's which is when people mainly shop. So, I don't have a problem with the free shipping thing.
ReplyDeleteMother's Day Week 5 is up
ReplyDeletehttps://bmebluprint.blogspot.com/2019/04/mothers-day-countdown-2019-week-5.html?showComment=1554488906493#c2620371697391471590
Someone posted this in the Etsy forums regarding Etsy's new policy regarding the switch to integrating PayPal payments:
ReplyDeleteEtsy has an online survey asking for feedback about the Paypal changes here:
https://forms.gle/TNdRBMq9sxmPxfng8?segment=selling
Let them know how you are impacted!
Thanks Connie. Appreciate your posting this. I am furious. First, the shipping thing and now removing PayPal. In fairness, I'm reading that PayPal is increasing its fees.
DeleteHave to do research on getting my website SSL and maybe find another venue. The cost factor is one factor, and traffic is another.
Thanks, Connie. I just did the survey. I'm so sick of Etsy's constant changes.
DeleteMe too.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou're both welcome. I also did the survey. I always get more excited over a sale when the buyer used PayPal. That way the money was in there immediately, if I need it to buy supplies. I'm not changing over until the last minute. Hopefully will get a PayPal sale over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteIf someone has Promote Pictures, could you please do a promotion of one of my pages with multi images. I have been using the flamingo earrings on the first page as a test. Mine is not working properly, and the engineers at Promote Pictures say it's me. It could well be, but I would like some other opinions. I am finding that it is only grabbing the one image that is not a thumbnail and is then grabbing pixilated thumbnails. I am having no problems on anyone else's site; just mine.
ReplyDeletethanks
Julie, just tweeted you two examples. Some of the pics I added from the choices on the side since they didn't make it into the original collage. Weird the way they show up in the tweets - not like in the collage I thought I was sending.
DeleteThanks so much ! Out of curiosity, I switched to Firefox and didn't have any problems, so this is a chrome thing. They told me it was me, but yours did the same thing. Now, I am not sure what to do. BTW - WINTER IS HERE!!!!!!!!
DeleteWeird that it's only your shop. As soon as I get finished working on a post, I'll try with IE and see what happens. Also might clear my Chrome cache and see if that's it. Been a while since I've cleared it.
DeleteYes, WINTER IS DEFINITELY HERE!!! Am going to rewatch a couple of times to catch the things I missed. And I definitely want to ride a dragon . . . (:
Well, I pulled up IE and PromotePics doesn't support it. Then I cleared my Chrome cache, tried PPics and that didn't fix the problem. So it must be that Chrome is not talking nicely to PPics and your shop. Sorry.
DeleteDoes anyone know where to read more about Paypal not refunding fees?
ReplyDeleteHere is a comment on it i got it in an email from PayPal www.ecommercebytes.com/2019/04/13/from-th
DeleteHere is another story re pp https://esellercafe.com/paypal-will-no-longer-refund-transaction-fees-on-refunds/
ReplyDeleteHey, to all!
ReplyDeleteIf you notice that I've skipped your post after a couple of days, please let me know. I just realized that I skipped a post of Cathy's from the other day, and I sure didn't mean to.
Happy Easter and Passover and Bunny Celebrating Day to everyone! :) Treats to all the CPromo furpals from Sir Gonze! xoxo
In regards to my Mother's Day Gift Ideas Week 7 blog. I think I sent most messages to everyone. But, Artfire is not working right today. It will not let me contact KatsAllThat or VictorianStyleTreasures to let you know you've been featured.
ReplyDeleteHere is my blog if anyone needs it:
https://covergirlbeads.blogspot.com/2019/04/mothers-day-gift-ideas-2019-week-7.html