Much of e-commerce is often a push and pull between protecting buyers and being fair to sellers.
While delivery speed and instant returns make a company attractive to consumers, companies can also run afoul when ways to improve efficiency become insurmountable for small vendors.
At the start of this year, Etsy (ETSY) sellers went on strike after the handmade resale platform raised transaction fees by 30%.
"Most Etsy sellers agree that the platform has gotten worse over time," Kristi Cassidy, an Etsy seller leading the movement, told TheStreet in January 2022. "Seller fees continue to rise, while the services and support we get diminishes. This fee increase would be just another cost that gets displaced onto our customers shoulders."
What's Etsy Done To Change This?
Etsy ultimately defended the price hikes and, while some sellers were suspicious of its claims to put the money gained toward the "seller experience," the protests ultimately fizzled out.
On June 6 the e-commerce platform announced that it would launch a new Purchase Protection program that would give all Etsy buyers a full refund if an item does not match the product description or arrives damaged or incomplete in any way.
"Easy issue resolution is a critical part of the e-commerce shopping experience, and our new Etsy Purchase Protection program aims to help make shopping on Etsy even more worry free," Raina Moskowitz, Etsy's chief operating officer, said in a statement.
On the buyer end, Etsy committed $25 million to covering refunds for sellers on orders of up to $250 for reasons that are outside of their control without specifying what would qualify as such a reason.
Earlier this year, Etsy also committed to putting $50 million toward customer service -- its commitments included adding more staff and reducing response times. Etsy Purchase Protection will start on August 1.
"This program will help buyers feel more confident when they shop from small businesses on Etsy, while we invest directly in our sellers to provide them an important layer of assurance."
Will This Be Enough For Buyers?
After news of the new program broke, Etsy stock rose 3.16% to $83.54 by mid-day June 6. Stock is, however, down more than 50% from last year.
While Etsy has presented the program as a move to help both buyers and sellers, questions remain on whether the protection will be as much of a boon to sellers as it promises -- from the lack of clarity on what "reasons outside of one's control entails" to the fact that problems with orders over $250 may be the most destructive to small vendors.
The sellers who participated in the strike will be the ones to determine whether their experience on the platform is satisfying overall and if the current proposal helps them as much as Etsy says it does.
As part of the campaign in April, sellers released five demands that included not only canceling the fee but also nixing its Star Seller program for judging good metrics and cracking down on those who use the platform to resell mass goods as Etsy was originally envisioned as a space for independent craftspeople to find a customer base.
"People are waiting months to appeal computer-made decisions that stop them from accessing their own earnings, or running their business entirely," Cassidy wrote in a petition that gathered over 86,000 signatures in April. "[...] Etsy can't bill itself as a folksy, handmade utopia while AI bots terrorize sellers whose livelihood depends on reaching buyers on the platform."
