[HN Gopher] Tell HN: Makers beware, Etsy will ruin your small bu...
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Tell HN: Makers beware, Etsy will ruin your small business
Storytime! A friend of mine asked me to create a rather niche 3D
printed part for him. That worked very well for him, so I thought
about providing this part to others, too. As I'm good with
technical things, but not so good with marketing, I turned to Etsy
to sell these parts. They handle SEO, payments etc. pp. for you, so
you can focus on creating. Now, for everyone who doesn't know it,
Etsy is also FULL of people who just print articulated dragons and
other "entertainment stuff", where copyright/proper CC-licensing
is, I would say, seems to be handled rather lax. Anyway, I created
all my models myself, so I'm safe on that. I set my store up, put
up my parts and waited. Etsys SEO magic (and paid advertisements)
did its work and after about two weeks, orders started coming in.
And it was just not a single order, but one every two days or so,
with a basket value of about 25 Euro (after Etsy commissions). Of
course, that's not "big money", but it's nice money nevertheless
for something that runs basically overnight. I also did everything
"very nice" to try to be a good seller. Took care of proper
packaging, clean labels, got some white shipment packages from
Amazon to leave an overall good and professional impression. After
the first six or seven orders, bank confirmation was still standing
out on Etsys side, they just froze my account and all the funds
within. No warning, nothing at all. No reason given, too. Just an
ominous mail that I would have broken the TOS or rules of the house
or whatnot. As with any service, these rules are so broad that they
cover anything from praising satan to selling body parts. As I did
nothing like that, I filed an appeal to this decision through their
Zendesk. After _exactly_ 10 minutes I received an automated mail
that my case was dismissed but I could reply to have it reviewed
again. I obviously did that and I also added that I did the bank
authorization, because I thought that would most likely be the
reason for the account lock. Two weeks have passed now, no reply
from Etsy at all but the ticket was closed yesterday, probably by
another automated process. My 150 Euro revenue, which has some
real value in printed parts and shipping costs etc. against it, has
of course not been paid to me. Etsy has probably also not refunded
the buyers, so they have kept the money of both parties, which
looks like a good deal to me, at least from their perspective.
Anybody out here with some connections who can help? Anybody out
here who has made the same experiences and can advise on what to do
next? Thanks! edit: What I wanted to say when making that comment
about the dragons: I'm baffled that downloading a file from
Thingiverse and printing and selling that hundred times is no
problem at all, but creative and new designs get the ban hammer. If
you want to sell articulated dragons, you're probably fine, but
beware of anything else.
Author : martin_a
Score : 92 points
Date : 2023-05-30 21:34 UTC (1 hours ago)
| sbierwagen wrote:
| As usual in these "big company did something bad" stories on HN,
| OP carefully avoids saying what they were actually selling.
| martin_a wrote:
| Well, the problem is that the HN crowd is smart enough to build
| that part itself and ruin any chances for me in the market. ;-)
|
| It's an accessory for the caravaning/vanlife scene. Nothing
| obscene, nothing legally critical.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Ehhh. It doesn't sound like you were selling massive orders
| of them, so this sounds like an excuse to me. If it was
| genuinely that simple to re-create and easy to sell, you'd
| have a million counterfeiters who would have stumbled upon
| your publicly accessible Etsy site and copied it en masse.
| lolinder wrote:
| You really need to spell it out anyway. If you get back on
| Etsy it won't be long before you have copycats to compete
| with regardless of what you say here, and avoiding being
| specific doesn't help anyone here help you.
|
| Aside from what your parent said (which is 100% accurate), we
| can't give you any suggestions on what might've flagged the
| algorithm if we don't know the contents of your listings.
| mousetree wrote:
| I'm not so sure that anybody is going to go out their way to
| compete with you on this
| weaksauce wrote:
| > Etsy is also FULL of people who just print articulated
| dragons and other "entertainment stuff", where copyright/proper
| CC-licensing is, I would say, seems to be handled rather lax.
|
| could be in the DnD space. could be some kind of hentai thing
| which kinda runs in that kinda direction but also way more
| likely to run afoul of the tos.
|
| could be a brigade of bot accounts that reported their account
| as a competitor. could be all sorts of things... automated scam
| heuristics. tough to say.
| martin_a wrote:
| Just search for "3d print dragon" and you'll see what I mean.
| Everybody is selling the same model. Licensing seems tricky
| to me on that model for example, not sure how Etsy would
| control if you've really paid the original creator or just
| downloaded the STL file from Thingiverse.
|
| Anyway, that's not the space I want to work/compete in, those
| people shall print and sell articulated dragons all day if
| they want.
| lolinder wrote:
| Downvoters: this is legitimately a huge problem on HN. If you
| come back to most of these threads a few hours after they've
| made it big, someone will have done the research and figured
| out that the OP was in _clear_ violation of the TOS and _knew
| it_.
|
| Whether that's the case here is irrelevant, it's important for
| people coming on HN with complaints like this to be specific,
| and it's worth calling it out early when they're not.
| [deleted]
| onli wrote:
| In what country are you? Keeping the money and not referencing
| why exactly (i.e. proving fraud on your side) is obviously
| illegal almost everywhere. Small claims court or your local
| equivalent should handle this.
| martin_a wrote:
| I'm in Germany. Not sure about the whole legal thing, I think
| even talking to a lawyer would probably be more expensive than
| just moving on. Which is kind of "giving up", but yeah...
| namibj wrote:
| Find a lawyer who seems appropriate and has a "initial call
| for judging if even appropriate to hire" free offer, or maybe
| the WBS Discord I heard, which seems like a German version of
| reddit's legal advice subreddit. (If WBS didn't right a bell,
| they have a disable YouTube presence.)
|
| This is assuming you'd prefer to make them pay as long as
| it's net-positive for you and not excessively much effort.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| In the US, I have heard of small claims court dealing with
| this, especially given that the Big Tech defendants are often
| unable to provide to the court any reason for their action
| (since it came from an algorithmic black box that they don't
| really understand either).
|
| Having said all that, I notice you don't mention what this part
| that you're printing is? It would give your story more cred if
| you mentioned that. Unless, you know, if it's something that
| would give your story a whole lot less cred.
| bmurray7jhu wrote:
| What type of printed parts were you selling?
| martin_a wrote:
| Here's what I can say: It's an accessory for the
| caravaning/vanlife scene. Nothing obscene, nothing legally
| critical.
| weaksauce wrote:
| is it some kind of safety item?
| ginkgotree wrote:
| Sounds like theft to me. I would sue in small claims on
| principal. But thanks for sharing, noted: I will never sell on
| Etsy lol
| martin_a wrote:
| As commented somewhere else: Not sure if this would be worth it
| at all.
| kiba wrote:
| Where would you sell? Seems like with these kind of things, you
| just have to expect that they won't be fair with you out of
| sheer lack of diligence and laziness. Be prepared and have a
| plan when it does happen to you.
|
| It doesn't matter if it's YouTube, Paypal, Amazon, or esty.
| Going alone is harder and more expensive.
|
| The other options is to change regulations and that's something
| can't merely be done by a person.
| flashback2199 wrote:
| Could try selling on eBay and Facebook Marketplace, and find
| places to spread the word about the listings. There are
| vanlife Facebook groups that are specifically for sharing
| things you are selling.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Most scenes I'm aware of have some kind of real-life
| community.
|
| Board Games has PAX. Anime conventions (ie: Cosplay
| accessories) have Anime Expo, Otakon, etc. etc. There's more
| conventions than I can keep up with these days. Almost every
| single one has an "Artist Ally" or other small shop where you
| can hawk unique goods to people.
|
| It really depends on your niche. Maybe a state fair
| (farmers?) is where you set up shop. Etc. etc. I'd honestly
| try to setup at those places first these days to test out a
| product idea.
|
| -----------
|
| I don't know anything about vanlife. But I dunno, Burning Man
| maybe? Where do vanlife people meet up?
| amerkhalid wrote:
| Going alone is expensive and harder but, with more and more
| these kind of stories, people will start taking harder but
| more independent routes.
|
| It may not return us to golden era of the web but we need a
| bit more decentralization.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Etsy went down the enshittification path a long time ago. The
| real sad thing is the formerly good competition they once had
| they relentlessly bought up and enshittified it too, like Reverb.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| Here's what you do in all of these situations with big companies
| where you get mysteriously banned and can't get any recourse from
| customer service: find a mailing address for their legal
| department and send them a letter return receipt requested (or
| whatever the equivalent is for where you are in which you get a
| receipt from the postal service confirming that the letter was
| delivered).
|
| In this letter, you politely but directly lay out the facts,
| indicate that you are not in violation of their terms of service
| or any other legal document, and tell them that you would like
| the money you are owed, as well as to have your account
| reinstated. Inform them (again, politely but clearly) that if you
| they do not at a minimum send you the money you are owed, that
| you will pursue appropriate legal action. You don't need to
| specify what legal action - just appropriate legal action.
|
| Since it's 150 Euros, unless you've really done something wrong
| that would lead them to get in trouble if they pay it out,
| they'll almost certainly just pay it out.
|
| There have been a few examples of this on HN (none of which I can
| currently find, unfortunately) - person sends appropriately
| written letter to legal, legal understands that this is not worth
| the time and the best resolution for the company is to comply,
| company complies.
|
| Good luck!
| lucb1e wrote:
| Title:
|
| > Tell HN: Makers beware
|
| Contents:
|
| > Anybody out here with some connections who can help?
|
| That's an Ask HN
| martin_a wrote:
| Call it clickbait.
|
| In case I can't get my account activated again, others might
| save the time with setting up on Etsy and just do something
| else right from the start.
| skxcz wrote:
| The part you're making might have some legal issues?
|
| Other than that, I do keep noticing a strong downward spiral of
| all customer support services. Everything is becoming generic,
| automated and useless. There are multiple hoops you constantly
| have to jump through to get in touch with a real person and even
| then you might still get generic answers.
| martin_a wrote:
| > The part you're making might have some legal issues?
|
| Well, then they should tell me and we can figure that out. Or
| come to the conclusion that this part should not be sold on
| Etsy. That would be fine for me, too.
|
| But this generic "we won't tell you, but we'll keep your money,
| now fuck off" attitude really sucks.
| victorbstan wrote:
| Pay Pal did this to me as well. There's very little consumer
| protection law in US to disused these companies from just
| freezing your account and taking your money. The worst part is
| that these companies usually avoid giving any proper recourse by
| automating most of this process so good luck finding a person
| that is willing to help you out. Guilty until proven innocent.
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| The law is probably the opposite, incentivizing companies to
| block stuff as opposed to preventing them from doing so.
|
| On the flip side, if it wasn't that way we'd be bombarded with
| knockoff stuff all over Amazon and others.
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(page generated 2023-05-30 23:01 UTC)