Found out today that ArtFire shut down in December. They explain why here. I'm shocked, like I was when Dwanda shut down, but then again, I'm not. Things on the handmades and maker venues front began to collapse over a decade ago. I used to keep track as one listing site after another folded. I've now lost count. Even Cargoh is offline, showing an announcement page with a vague promise.
Aftcra is just a facade, a ghost for a long, long time. No one answering, no one responding. The homepage still loads as if they are flourishing, except it displays the same 2017 and before product pics, just like at their Facebook page. Walk around at the majority of the blank sellers pages and hear crickets...
Etsy really is the lone handmades venue of some size and they've opened up to so many micro manufacturers that competition is grossly unfair. They also recently announced that they are increasing fees, again, from 3.5 to 5% starting on July 16. Sellers are again in an uproar. For some time they have regularly been in an uproar.
Can handmades ecommerce continue to sustain these frequent fees increases? It would be devastating if Etsy shut down. I hope they don't have to. I closed my shop there months ago in favor of a Payhip shop with my own domain. I sometimes miss Etsy but with the upcoming fee increase, I admit that I'm glad I'm gone. So many categories of fees and frequent changes was exhausting, really. I like visiting and looking at certain types of products and I sometimes buy graphics and digitals.
I think Etsy would expand even further to include mid-manufacturers before they would fold. Unfortunately, that might cause the marketplace to look more like an American Aliexpress than it already does. It seems like the majority of craft supplies sellers are reselling rather than de-stashing, which was the original meaning of selling craft supplies. It's a fine but ugly line that Etsy has overlooked and will overlook more to remain online.
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