Etsy is expanding its Make an Offer feature so shoppers can look for bargains not only for vintage goods, but handmade goods as well. The feature is being met with mixed reviews by sellers, but in Wednesday’s announcement, Etsy said the feature was optional. The company called it a “work in progress” and noted it was not yet available to all sellers.
Sellers first noticed Etsy testing Make an Offer in January, and the company announced it was testing the feature on vintage goods in March.
“I really hate the idea,” one seller wrote on a Reddit thread on July 2nd when the original poster on the thread said they found out about the feature through a customer. “We (artists) have enough issues with people taking us seriously, I’m not at all interested in openly haggling over prices. Blech,” the seller wrote.
A seller of handmade goods on Etsy who commented on an EcommerceBytes article in March said they would prefer it if Etsy gave them more flexible pricing options when running a sale. “Right now you can only offer a percentage off and not a specific dollar amount when running a sale. That would be more flexibility than receiving lowball offers.”
A seller tried out the feature in April and found that when she adjusted the price to the amount she and the buyer had agreed upon, Etsy sent the buyer a link with a one-time discount for the item, which would expire in 2 months (it appears from this week’s announcement that Etsy is giving buyers 48 hours to take advantage of the Make an Offer price.)
She shared her experience using the feature in a YouTube video, though keep in mind things may have changed since she tested the feature.
In its July 12th announcement, Etsy said it was making the Make an Offer feature available to “select shops selling in USD currency for now.” It listed four reasons sellers might consider allowing offers:
Clear out stale inventory: Need some shelf space? Allowing offers on older items could help you create room for new inventory.
Encourage shoppers to buy in bulk: Review shoppers’ offers based on the quantity of your items that they’re purchasing.
Make sales you might have missed: We’ve tested this tool with Vintage sellers, and they’ve seen that most accepted offers are purchased in under three hours. Allowing buyers to make offers could help you make the sale quickly!
Test your pricing: Have a unique item that’s hard to price? Find your sweet spot with your shoppers while still setting your maximum discount.
And it described features it was working on to improve the Make an Offer feature:
Select individual listings: We know it’s important to be able to customize your pricing and discounting strategy. Soon you’ll be able to choose individual listings for Make an Offer outside of Suggested Listings, and opt them in and out of Make an Offer as needed.
Custom discount limits: Soon you’ll have more flexibility for choosing your maximum discount.
More optimized buyer experience: We know your time is valuable. If you send the buyer an adjusted price, they have 48 hours to check out at the price, unless the item sells first. We’re working on ways to make sure buyers respond to your adjusted price quickly.
Etsy has expanded the definition of handmade to the point where sellers need only upload designs (sometimes AI generated) to list print-on-demand goods. So it’s not altogether surprising Etsy would launch the kind of features found on commodity marketplaces to appeal to bargain hunters and help sellers improve inventory turnover.
“Bargain Hunters” nicer way of saying Cheapskates.
That’s right.
Etsy is NOT helping.
Apparently no one at Etsy makes anything by hand.
Keyboarding doesn’t count.
Can’t wait ’til the arthritis kicks in from all this hand making.
*** If it looks like a duck… ***
If it looks like Ebay and acts like Ebay, then just call it Ebay.
I thought that Etsy was a forum for handmade artisans…at least that’s what CEO Silverman tells Wall Street.
I agree with the OP’s comments…that it’s hard enough for the public to take artisans seriously. As an artisan jeweler, I have no interest in haggling over a price as my pieces take me 5+ hours to make. Etsy has no respect for the artisans that Etsy claims to support. If Etsy truly sold Etsy as a site for true artists, they would generate a buyer base that would pay extra for the uniqueness of the site. Instead, Etsy creates commercials that call Etsy a site of “affordable” items.
This planet is filled with higher end customers with exposable cash. Yet, Etsy has NOT focused on that type of customer base.
What a stupid company. They could generate more cash for both Seller and Buyer if they would spend more to promote higher end pieces for the affluent buyer.
Etsy offered this option to me but I declined. This is an insult to all sellers of handmade items as it dismisses our time and skill. I can’t afford to entertain lowball offers. I have my prices set on what I have to get for the time and money I invest in my items. Etsy no longer understands handmade items.
Have you seen the commercials? Etsy featuring celebrities who have “contributed” to designs in home decor? NOT handmade, NOT vintage. Now, they’re taking tips from Wayfair!
Etsy has been replicating eBay for years & apparently is running out of ideas from them. So, they’re moving on to takes on a different market segment.
This is SO not (any longer) a handmade marketplace. In the several million shops that have been created since Etsy’s inception, how many are still active? How many actual handmade sellers have already left? The new “Make an offer” is likely to send more handmade sellers screaming for the door.