Think I'll go kill a cute cuddly furry critter in their honor and send them a picture.

Like.

That’s the only thing I’ve ever bought off Etsy. Last week. Never again either.

I think the amount of fur that ended up in the crafter market is very underestimated. And this was the biggest outlet for that market.

My daughter likes using Etsy , I'll let know about this.

I would agree 100% with this.

I have friends who do not hunt or trap and love Etsy because of these “oddities”. My co worker bought an opossum mount from there and she loves it.

We are going to encourage biodiversity by banning the sale of diverse biological products?

This is a pile of bullarkie if it’s true…..

Thats directly from Etsy's website. I won't share the link, as they have become anti's in my eyes. the link was in the first post.

I dont know a lot about it but you are in control for the most part. You build the website, set up all the products and have to drive traffic on your own. Pretty much everything you would have to do if you opened a brick and mortar store. Not sure what their charges or fee structure is.

Just one more reason for me to avoid that site. I never liked it to begin with.

Etsy have always been pretty leftist and into politics and PR trends, and cared about it more than about the actual people that make up what they are.

When our immortal emperor did what he did in 2022, Etsy plastered a SANCTIONS POLICY warning and cut off all russkies from accessing the site almost instantly, way before most of the actual Western sanctions were issued or implemented. A lot of my friends shopped or had their own little stores on Etsy, selling things like polymer clay jewelry, ceramics, crocheted toys, etc. (apparently they all instantly became Kalibr-funding commie terrorists). A close friend was forced to leave the country because she had just quit her job as a botanist and was getting by selling beadwork plants on Etsy (she is very good at it, and was among the first globally to make scientifically accurate replicas). Ironically, even with Etsy, she's currently selling most of her art directly to collectors and to high-end fashion brands who use her flowers in their accessory lines, because Etsy has been following the general poopification trend of many other big businesses and a lot of their revenue comes from bulk sellers of mass-made Chinese junk camouflaged as handmade and various fees, and small-time craftsmen and artists are being made invisible by algorithms unless they pay for promotion, especially as soon as they start actually making some money off their sales.




I'm only mentioning it because only a few of the large Western companies did the same, most were forced to leave our market rather than did it voluntarily (and many stayed). I think I'm still getting royalty payments on Shutterstock and Adobe stock, which used to cover my Internet & cell service fees, I just have no way of cashing them anymore %)

As for sales platforms, many people here I know use Instagram and Telegram, even though both are now banned here, just because of how efficient they've become in the past few years as advertizing platforms.

We embrace diversity except for you

Very informative post. A real eye opener!

I have been reviewing all of my favorite sellers on Etsy and I will notify each of them that I love their products but will not continue to buy their products on Etsy because of this policy.

I will also check to see which ones have websites or other avenues for purchasing their products and can decide whether I will use those based on their responses.

I wonder if Paul would make a furrier/crafter page to list these services. Like the fur buyer directory.

If I had a etsy store I would immediately post a blurb on how this is a really bad idea and why and ask the customers to contact etsy about it.

Forest,

There's a craft sales forum.

It gets very, VERY little traffic.

Beaver is my main crop here in N central Mn and my main goal is meat. Honestly don`t remember the last time I bought beef, although I recently saw on a tag on a pack in the freezer that was last September. Beaver sausage and eggs for breakfast, roast beaver with baked beans for dinner. Beaver is serious high octane food, no joke.

So isn`t limiting forms of biologics, such as our furs, actually taking away from diversity? The more types of furs that we offer and sell, the more diverse their store is. If Etsys goal is diversity, they should be charging us less in sellers fees for the more types of furs that we offer.

I have been in conversation with chat gpt as of late trying to find a way around getting nickel and dimed to death by websites for all the fees, so as of right now, I`m looking into developing a PDF, complete with pictures, text, connecting links to Stripe for payments, etc. This would require sending out a pdf to people via email, I give them my card with my business email, when they email me, I send them the pdf. Of course they can send that out to who ever they wish and so hopefully it sprouts it`s own wings. It`s not as streamlined as a website, but I`m just sick to death of the fees.