Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

This story is framed all wrong. It even admits that this change will improve sales, but still comes down hard on Etsy for making a change. A change that improves sales for its sellers.

Not only that, it's really not Etsy that is forcing this change, it's consumer behavior that has been changed by access to free, fast shipping by both Amazon and others. Etsy has little choice but to ride that wave. If they didn't make this change, sellers on Etsy would be pushed out in the long term anyway.

Not only that, but it's clear that sellers on Amazon often price their shipping costs into the product price, which is the exact option that Etsy built explicitly into this switch: When turning on free shipping, sellers had the ability to say "change my product prices to be [current price] + [shipping cost].

Finally, I sell on Etsy. I switched to free shipping mid July. My sales have improved by about 30% over where I'd expect them to be for this time period. More people are buying more items to get to that $35 threshold. It more than covers the difference in shipping.

Sure, that positive scenario may not play out for all sellers. But then the long term picture wouldn't have been any better as Amazon's own "handmade" venue and cheap mass-produced alternatives eat their sales.

It is 100% Etsy forcing this change. Josh Silverman is there to increase revenue and this is how they are doing it.

There was no consideration for their sellers, a large number of which cannot do free shipping. Etsy want to be "Etsy" not a platform and service for sellers.

Sure some stores won't be affected but plenty had already tried free shipping and reported it did not work, Etsy didn't care. Anyone shipping heavy items or internationally can't do free shipping properly. I know UK stores who have been told to just offer a code and discount back some of the value to their UK customers so that these stores can sell with free shipping in the US. It doesn't make sense. This is a pure revenue driver, it does not benefit stores.

Etsy do not know how to run small businesses and they are forcing people who do to make bad decisions.

You could have offered free shipping anyway if you had wanted to.

Your right, I could have offered free shipping. But it wasn't until Etsy made it nearly a requirement that I did so. I wasn't happy, but it actually turned out to be better for me. Maybe there are some small minority of sellers that truly can't offer free shipping, but I don't see how most can't offer it and simply add the cost to their items, or as it was in my case, result in more sales that more than make up for the difference.

And yes, technically it is Etsy that is implementing this change. In that sense they are "forcing" it. But a failure to do this would also have resulted in the slow demise of many of their sellers. In that sense, the market, in order to keep pace with competitors, forced this change. Etsy, acting in its own best interest, also acted in the best interests of a majority of its sellers. A failure to act might have been in the best interest of a minority of its sellers. So it was a choice of doing what's best for Etsy and most sellers or nothing, which would slowly kill Etsy and all of its sellers. Not much of a choice.

How does it work with international sales? Do you need to make shipping free to everywhere, or only to one place to get the ranking boost?

> A change that improves sales for its sellers.

It's the sellers who would eat the cost of increased shipping fees, reducing their operating margins. Etsy is basically telling them to implement price controls or risk lower exposure in search results, and not doing anything to meet them halfway.

>My sales have improved by about 30% over where I'd expect them to be for this time period.

Are you confident that this will be a permanent boost, or do you, like Etsy, feel you'll need to continue riding the waves so as not to be pushed out altogether?

Eating the shipping costs is more than made up for in increased sales. So my margin per item is smaller, but my volume is higher and overall profit is up.

As for whether it will be a permanent boost, I don't know. But it seems that Amazon has long offered free shipping only when you reach a floor of $25/$35, which indicates it might be because it spurred people to spend enough to reach that limit. But I can't say if it will hold for Etsy. But if riding the wave stops from being pushed out all together, then it still results in more profit than the alternative. And if I or other sellers are eventually pushed out anyway, then it was going to happen regardless of Etsy. Which sucks, but it's not Etsy's fault.

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