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Writer's pictureJacquelyn Zunic

Etsy's Corporate Greed

Updated: Aug 7

Etsy is increasing their fees again, from 3.5% back in 2018, to the current 5%, to 6.5% as of April 11, 2022, while their revenue jumped from $818 million in 2019 to $1.72 billion in 2020.




Etsy Profits:

2018 $77 million

2019 $96 million

2020 $349 million


Etsy Revenues:

2018 $604 million

2019 $818 million

2020 $1.72 billion

2021 (Q1-3) $1.61 billion


This is not even including all of last year, Etsy’s most profitable year yet. Their stock price jumped an incredible 10% on the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine and initially caused the markets to tumble.


As a small business, this is quickly becoming an unsustainable option for selling. This is pathetic, it's greedy, and it's completely unjustifiable due to the record profits and growth over the past few years.


Shop actual small creators.


Accessible text version of the email from Etsy:


Investing in Etsy’s growth: A message from CEO Josh Silverman

Dear Seller Community, 
 
At Etsy, we’re focused on building a marketplace that allows sellers like you to turn your creativity and passions into real, money-making businesses. Last year, active sellers increased their sales by 23% on average compared to 2019, and in 2021 alone, we showed more than 90 million active buyers worldwide that there’s an alternative to big-box, automated shopping. 
 
Together, we’ve made Etsy the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. 
 
We plan to make significant investments in marketing, seller tools, and creating a world-class customer experience so we can continue this tremendous growth. To support this goal, on April 11 we will increase our current 5% transaction fee to 6.5%. 
This change will allow us to make improvements in three key areas: 
Bringing more buyers to Etsy: Last year, we spent nearly $600 million on marketing. This year we’ll be investing even more, including on TV commercials, influencers and tastemakers, billboards, podcast advertising, and email marketing that bring new buyers to Etsy. 
 
The support you need: We’ll grow our support team by more than 20% this year so you can get help more quickly and easily, including faster email responses, expanded access to live chat, and prioritization of your most urgent requests. 
 
Keeping Etsy unique: We’ll build on last year’s roughly $40 million investment in the teams and technology that help make our marketplace a safe and secure destination for handmade, vintage, and special items. This year we’ll expand our efforts to remove listings that don't meet our policies and help you resolve issues with buyers. 
These are some of the great things we’ll invest in to keep Etsy a beloved, trusted, and thriving marketplace. We don’t take fee changes lightly, and we believe that these investments will enable Etsy, and our seller community, to continue to grow. 
 
Thank you for making Etsy a one-of-a-kind marketplace.  
 Josh Silverman, CEO


What’s Next


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