Etsy, a major handmade work online market, faces a strike with a 30% increase in transaction fees

On April 11, 2022, Etsy, an online market centered on handmade products, increased transaction fees by 30% from 5% to 6.5%. In response, more than 5,000 sellers are on strike to temporarily stop using Etsy.

Etsy sellers start a week-long strike over increased fees and other conditions: NPR
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/11/1091123928/etsy-strike-2022

Etsy sellers plan week-long strike | WKSU
https://www.wksu.org/economy/2022-04-11/etsy-sellers-plan-week-long-strike-next-week

In February 2022, Etsy CEO Josh Silberman announced that 'from April 11th, transaction fees will be increased from 5% to 6.5%.' It's been about four years since 2018 that the transaction fee increase was announced, and since the transaction fee was 3.5% before 2018, Etsy's transaction fee has increased by 85% in four years.

Users who use Etsy as a seller have rebelled against this increase in transaction fees. As of April 12, about 59,000 signatures have been collected for the 'Etsy transaction fee increase withdrawal campaign' being carried out on the worker petition platform Coworker.org, and according to the organizer's announcement, about 3 One-third is the seller.

Etsy: Cancel the fee increase. Work with sellers, not against us! | Coworker.org
https://www.coworker.org/petitions/cancel-the-fee-increase-work-with-sellers-not-against-us

This petition is '1) withdrawal of transaction fee increase', '2) strengthening crackdown on resellers', '3) implementation of service tickets that can receive human support without AI', and '4) paid seller approval system. We are requesting 'abolition of star sellers ' and '5) implementation of a function that can arbitrarily hide external site advertisements ', and are appealing to Etsy to improve the treatment of sellers.

In connection with this petition, there was also a call for a strike to stop using Etsy from April 11th to 18th, 2022, and the organizer announced that more than 5,000 shops promised to participate.

Etsy (PDF file) In the 2021 annual financial results , total sales and gross profit for 2021 (January 1st to December 31st, 2021) increased by more than 30% in the fourth quarter. Since it reported that the number of users reached a record high of 90 million, it decided to raise the transaction fee even though it recorded a considerable performance. In the announcement in February 2022, it was announced that 50 million dollars (about 6.2 billion yen) will be allocated to improve customer support and 40 million dollars (about 5 billion yen) to improve the operational status of the policy. It is said that this increase in transaction fees will be used to improve marketing tools and transaction tools.