There was a comment here in the UEN blog that resulted in PaganoDesignWorks asking for clarification in a thread on the Etsy fora regarding the following clause in the Etsy Terms of Use:
Manipulation: Neither buyer nor seller, may manipulate the price of any item for any reason.
After checking with Etsy’s lawyer, Stella (Etsy Admin) explained:
I verified with Sarah what this clause encompasses, and she agrees that some specifics would be beneficial. We’ll look at expanding that part of the TOU, but for now, I have some insight for you.
Essentially, “manipulation” means anything that would cause the final sale price to not be an accurate representation of the sale. It’s mostly, (but not completely) related to fee-avoidance.
Here are some (but not all) examples of what this applies to:
– stating one price in the listing, but then sending a revised invoice for a *higher* price post-Etsy-transaction, thereby falsely representing the price AND avoiding part of the 3.5% sales fee. (Sending a revised invoice for a *discount* post-Etsy is fine, since we don’t yet have a built-in feature for that.)
– changing the price of items intended for trade (bartering; using an item as currency) to less than their actual monetary value, thereby avoiding the 3.5% sales fee
– hacking into someone’s account to change their prices (this one is not a fee-avoidance issue, but still applies)
A seller *always* has the right to price their items as they deem appropriate. But what we don’t want to see is people changing the price last-minute before or immediately after a transaction as it impacts the value of the fees we collect on the sale (which all sellers agree to pay when they list items).
When the TOU are revised, we’ll let you know.
(Thanks to Carrie/YarnGirlStuff for the heads-up).
April 26th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
3.5%? I thought it was 3%
April 26th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
http://www.etsy.com/faq_selling.php#fees
April 26th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Did it used to be 3% and recently change to 3.5%? That’s what I’m curious about.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I don’t think so, because there hasn’t been a whisper about it in the fora. And people would be having coronaries if the fees went up.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I think this is fair as long as they don’t start tagging people willy-nilly in the same manner as they do with most things. It’s too easy for the admins to get on a crusade about this in the same way they did about “slanderous” comments towards their company.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I promise not to change manipulate the price higher more than I give discounts so etsy’s fee will always be equal…if they are so worried about not beeing cheated on the fee this part should be taken care of also ;
“(Sending a revised invoice for a *discount* post-Etsy is fine, since we don’t yet have a built-in feature for that.)”
Basically is ok if they take more money than agreed but is not ok for sellers to do the same.
*I don’t condone fee avoidance but I’m bugged by double standards.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
The double standard makes perfect sense to me, they aren’t forcing anyone to have sales or lower their prices and send a revised invoice for a lower price. That’s the sellers choice and they do it knowing that etsy will get a bigger cut. They(etsy) are just banning fee dodging but they aren’t mandating fee inflation. If you wanted to have a sale the hard way you could spend hours editing every listing to lower the price,(and then spend more hours editing them back when your sale is over), and then etsy’s fee would be the correct amount.
Or you could just issue revised invoices and pay a little extra in fees. Either one is optional.