An International Gripe

We received some interesting figures in an email from a seller who's a bit peeved at Etsy's ungraceful lip service to sellers who ship internationally.

So today’s Etsy Finds recognized that in the UK Mothering Sunday comes in March. March 22nd to be precise. and today’s date? March 12th, which is a Thursday ie. 10 days from Mothering Sunday in the UK (Ireland and Nigeria) aka 6 business days.

Assuming shipping from one of the major seller groups on etsy, to guarantee arrival in time will cost (<250g packet)
from US = 27.95 USD for expedited mail international (3-5 business days)
from Canada = 50.87 CAD for Xpresspost (4 business days)
within UK = approx 2GBP if package is letter-type (1-3 business days) or 4.20GBP standard parcel (3 business days) or 12.99 GBP for a guaranteed parcelforce delivery at 48 hours

Etsy - where the internet ends at the border?

Mary seems to know what’s up in her Weekend Deals Finds email Friday

“Don't forget to plan ahead for Mother's Day this year”

and pushes shop local in the March 12 finds, which might help, but a week (6 business days to be exact) for local shipping isn’t enough time sometimes – and what about custom items? Etsy's response has always been that expedited shipping is available - 50 CAD though? come on - that is far from a reasonable suggestion, especially when the average sale price on Etsy is $15! And they keep pushing "bargains" and "weekend deals".

They probably forgot to mark the UK holidays on their calendar and Mary woke up Thursday with an “oh shit” moment. This too little too late promotion isn’t going over the heads of international sellers. They would’ve done better to just forget it, or admit that they’re only keeping up with U.S. holidays for simplicity and leave it at that. We recognize that there are so many holidays to take into consideration, but with a finds email every day they have room to push these things in advance. The finds email isn’t the same as making a design for the front page or making room for it on the site. There’s no extra energy involved other than checking a calendar before putting together the email items.

According to the International Seller Survey (which is nowhere near scientific, but it’s what we have to work with), most of the overseas shops are in the UK and Europe, followed by Canada and then Australia (together making up a huge chunk of the pie and about 30-40% of all sellers on Etsy based on older figures). These holidays should be on Etsy’s radar…period. And they can’t eliminate shipping from Canada (or the U.S.) by mentioning a holiday a week beforehand.

The International Development admin really needs to sit down the old hat admins and remind them why she was hired: the rest of the staff are morons about what’s outside NYC

International....not

There is a new Etsy admin - Muka (real name Liz). She works on International development.

Etsy shows us again why they desperately need someone to concentrate on this area for the site that has almost half of its customers outside its country of origin (ie. the United States).

Look at the "Related items" at the bottom of the article linked above:

All of them are U.S. sellers

Three of them don't ship the particular item international.

Nice! Way to go international, Etsy!

UK Etsy Alternative - MyEhive

Many complaints have been made regarding Etsy's ineptness at handling their international customers. Well, there is a new site for those who sell handmade in the UK and Ireland.

We were twitted about MyEhive. It just opened this month. Their fee structure and listing limits are similar to BigCartel, including free shops. There are some stats available, varying based on the subscription level.

There are community forums.

They are currently offering a promotion to the first 100 stores to sign up.

The QueenBee at the site told us

"we watched esty and built in everything they left out that people really
needed"

So if you're in the UK or Ireland, you have another alternative. Let us know how it goes and we'll post a more comprehensive review of it as an alternative to Etsy!