Etsy increases platform service fees, sellers: promised new services have not been delivered

At the end of August , Etsy announced that as long as the seller has generated at least one transaction on the platform and has not violated the platform policy, the platform will provide sellers with 24-hour online customer service support.

But some sellers said that despite meeting the standards, they did not find the online customer service entrance .

“ I ’m a featured seller this month , but the live support feature that was promised has not appeared,” one seller recently posted . “I’m not sure if this is a glitch or if Etsy has changed their mind and no longer wants to provide this service . ”

On August 31, Etsy responded that the function of providing 24-hour online customer service to star sellers is still in the testing phase .

The seller said that this function is very important to them, and they can contact customer service for feedback as soon as there is a problem.

In April this year, Etsy raised its platform service fee. The official explanation was that this move was to raise funds to increase investment in customer service and provide better services to sellers.

CEO Josh Silverman said the customer service team will be further expanded this year, and responses to emails, online chats and emergency applications will be faster.

However, some sellers have expressed concerns about this. Etsy has stated that it will not provide such services to sellers who violate platform policies, but has not given specific requirements.

Etsy expert Cindy Lu said the platform should explain in detail what constitutes a policy violation, how long the impact lasts, and other details.

She said: "Because Etsy always has bugs, many times the sellers have not violated the rules, but the system judges the merchants to have violated the rules. The platform also needs to provide a solution for this situation."

In a statement, Etsy said online customer service is just one of the projects it is optimizing. It also said the platform will listen to sellers' opinions and launched a survey that asked sellers how important online customer service is to them and invited sellers to leave feedback.

The survey asked sellers for their opinions on what areas the platform needs to improve, and invited sellers to select three of the following:

1. Add online customer service entrances to more places on the platform (such as store management pages and platform homepage)

2. Add more customer service channels (such as WhatsApp customer service, social media customer service)

3. Change telephone customer service to online all day

4. Give sellers more opportunities to provide feedback

5. Customer service feedback time is shorter

6. Provide guidance on the use of various marketing tools on the platform

7. Others

Etsy said it will actively optimize based on sellers' feedback and will inform sellers of relevant progress as soon as possible. Sellers who encounter problems need to wait patiently for official solutions.

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