The Complete Guide to Etsy Fees for Jewellers (2022)
Many jewellers use Etsy as a marketplace to sell their handmade jewellery. There are fees for using Etsy’s services and it’s important you are aware of the costs involved when selling on any platform as it affects your pricing calculations. Let’s break down what Etsy charge.
Current Etsy sellers will have recently received the news that Etsy are upping their fees from 5% to 6.5% from 11th April 2022. This increase applies to their Transaction Fee which is one of several fees you pay for using their platform.
What are the fees
Listing Fee – each time you list a beautiful piece of jewellery on Etsy, you will pay a Listing Fee. This is currently $0.20 per listing and the listing will be active in your store for 4 months. If you sell multiples of the same item, this will automatically renew each time the item sells (charging you each time) If you have a private listing, say for a commission piece, you wouldn’t pay the listing fee until the item sells.
Transaction Fee – For every sale you make through Etsy, you will pay a fee of 6.5% (from 11/4/22). This includes the price of the item plus any postage and gift wrapping or personalisation fees you charge.
Etsy Payment Processing Fees – if you use Etsy Payments, you will have to pay a fee for each transaction processed on the full order amount (item cost plus delivery, gift wrapping or personalisation charge) This fee depends on your location.
Offsite Ads Fee – Etsy spends money on advertising the listings on their site. If your buyer comes to you through an advertised listing and buys an item from your shop within 30 days, you will pay an Offsite Ads Fee. This fee depends on your sales total for the 365 days before hand – make less than $10,000 and it’s a 15% fee, make over $10,000 and it’s 12%.
Regulatory Operating Fee – Depending on your location, you may need to pay this fee which is a percentage of your items sale price plus postage
VAT and Taxes – depending on you location, you may have to pay tax or VAT on Etsy services
Why the increase?
Etsy can be a great place to sell through and they are committed to bringing in buyers, currently having over 90 million active buyers.
The reasoning behind the fee increase is to continue investing in growing Etsy – increasing the marketing spend, improving the seller support available and keeping Etsy unique, cracking down on listings that don’t meet Etsy criteria.
My thoughts
With any selling platform, whether it is a Marketplace such as Etsy or through your own website, there will be certain fees involved. Although Etsy has announced a price increase in their transaction fees for April 2022 this still needs to be kept in context. If you were to sell through a shop or gallery you would likely be looking at 50% instead of 6%. This is accounted for because the shop has overheads, staffing etc and will be selling your jewellery for you. Remember that this transaction fee is only levied when you make a sale.
It is important that you account for these fees so you don’t sell yourself short - it might be time for a price increase to make sure the fees don’t eat into your profit!
If you need a little help, check out our podcast episodes on increasing your prices:
How to increase your prices in your jewellery business
Know your worth and charge it!
You might also enjoy the episode with Dee Young who runs an amazing business using Etsy:
How I grew my jewellery business to over 650 sales with Etsy
While I always suggest that your ultimate end goal is to have your own website, selling on Etsy or another similar platform can be a great place to start and test out different jewellery designs. As with anywhere you sell, you always need to drive traffic and market your work to get sales.
What are your thoughts? Will you continue to sell on Etsy?
Join the Jewellers Academy Facebook group to carry on the conversation
With love,
Jess x