Etsy was once THE most dynamic online marketplace for artisans, artists, suppliers of craft wares & vintage second hand sellers. Now amidst the multi millions of items listed per search, genuine sellers are having their paid for listings buried under the amount of 'made in china' mass machine made bits that scamming money rackeeter-ers (from my shoppers experience in Britain) are rebranding as THEIR handmade items. All they do is take a 75p chinese machine made junk jewellery necklace & put it on a new backing card with their shops name stamp then resell them for on average £15. That is a disgusting mark-up & they are NOT hand-makers nor do any of them qualify for Etsy rules of sellers, BUT let Etsy know of any shop scamming customers and? Nothing in most cases, Etsy seems to now have preference for turning the profiteering sales while scamming artists / artisans & other legitimate sellers who have fee's & advertising responsibilities to make money off of shops selling high numbers of TRENDING mass machine produced bits. I have shopped on Etsy for sixteen years dedicatedly to support many shops with artists I adore the works of, but it is getting tiring searching new searches to see so many machine made chinese bits being rebranded and resold as sellers handmade items. I would rather buy directly from the chinese sellers, (than be scammed by Brits,) paying £15 for necklaces that CAN be purchased directly from chinese shops online for 75p. And there's far more than necklaces being rebranded as Etsy sellers wares. I paid £55 for a bespoke handmade dress to last week see there is a 'made in china' label within it and contentions with some customers in reviews who had later discovered the clothing label too. The dress was stunning & very well made, that was not the contention, the shop owner who is British & selling in Britain as if those dresses are handmade in Britain & she simply needs time to make them herself, hence the long wait to delivery dates, had not disclosed anything relating to made-in-china, nor given any due respects to them being made-in-china at all, yet is selling dresses for £45-£55 a piece + delivery. Etsy appals me. It has for some years. I barely want to log in but there are genuine sellers on there who do deserve a global platform but also deserve a site that they are fee's, reputations, time & dedications investing themselves within, which highlights, champions, elevates them AND NOT ITEMS THAT BREAK ETSY RULES OF SELLING. Machine made items have enough shop selling platforms globally, Etsy was intended to be a global handmade market-space. Having reported many scammers to Etsy, I can only think that the site no longer perpetuates its origin ethics, though it still spouts on about them as if they still origin ethics matter to Etsy at all.
