Some very important changes to the Etsy billing process are outlined in this Storque article:
Attention sellers! This is an important message about your bills!
In order to keep Etsy growing, we rely on the fees we collect from sellers. This is vital to the success and future of Etsy. As of January 1, 2008, a new Billing Policy will be put in place to motivate sellers to settle overdue accounts. The following is a description of how this will affect sellers who have not been paying bills.
If you did not pay your September bill when it was due on October 1st, that bill became overdue on October 15th. On November 15th, it became one month overdue. On December 15th, it became 2 months overdue. On January 15th, three months over due.
If you do not pay the overdue funds accrued in September or before, your account will be suspended on January 15th.
If you just do not pay the money from your bill that was accrued in October (overdue on November 15th, one month overdue on December 15th, two months overdue on January 15th), then you will not be able to relist items until you pay that amount incurred during October.
So, the policy goes into effect on January 1st and you should pay before January 15th, or you will have to deal with these penalties.
Please, please pay your bills. If you do it now, you will save yourself a big hassle. And you will save Customer Support many, many headaches (and time not spent helping newbie shoppers!).
You can find our previous coverage of Etsy bill issues here.
update, December 18. Edit by JB
This new Storque article attempts to clear up the confusion about bills.
Dear Sellers!
Your Etsy bill is due on the 1st of each month and you can pay it at any time. It becomes overdue on the 15th of the month, at which point you may start to notice some nagging reminders popping up in Your Etsy.
In order to clear up some confusion about billing, we’ve extended the payment grace period until 12:00 am on the 16th of each month, meaning you will not see any nagging overdue notices until then. Our billing time is in UTC (UTC is Coordinated Universal Time), so that’s midnight for folks in London and 7:00 pm on the 15th for the East coast of the USA.
And don’t forget, starting on January 1, 2008 we’ll be taking action on overdue accounts, so make sure you’re current!
The article is closed to comments.
edit Dec 24 by JB
Dec 21 Storque update:
As of January 1, 2008, a new Billing Policy will be put in place to motivate sellers to settle overdue accounts.
This is how billing works:
* Your balance from the previous month is due on the first of the following month.
* Your balance must be paid in full by 23:59 UTC on the 15th of the month.
* Accounts not paid up by that time are considered overdue.
* Accounts 2 months overdue will automatically be suspended from listing, relisting, and renewing items.
* Accounts 3 months overdue will be suspended.
The article is closed to comments.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:01 am
I guess they had forgotten to send the January bills until they were reminded in this thread
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5397037
shortly after RevolvingDork replied to that thread on page 2, bills were sent.
on page 4 of that thread another admin, kfarrell, says bills are due on the 15th.
this contradicts all the Storque articles from December where they repeatedly posted the NEW policy that bills are due on the first.
http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/when-to-pay-your-etsy-bill/884/
http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/billing-alert-a-reminder-about-the-new-policy-for-the-new-ye/858/
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Hey, just curious…has anyone gotten their January bill yet?
It’s the 2nd already and aren’t they supposed to come on the 1st?
Aren’t they DUE on the 1st?
If the payments are due the day the bill is sent, what happens when the bills are sent late? How can a bill be due before it was even sent?
December 24th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Storque article after Storque article is still only reaching a tiny percentage of members. I hope they include this info in the email bills they send on January first. They are already emailing all the sellers on that date, so it’s not any extra email to add this info onto the top.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:19 pm
they “updated” with another article in the storque
http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/billing-alert-a-reminder-about-the-new-policy-for-the-new-ye/858/
this time they give an actual time and date for when bills are to be paid in full (the 15th), but still say they’re “due” on the 1st of the month
December 19th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I am still a bit concerned that the Storque is the only place they are notifying sellers about this constantly changing policy. Surely they know from their traffic stats that only a tiny percentage of users read the Storque. I think an email to sellers might be more appropriate for a change involving money. They already email the bills on the first, so couldn’t they just tack on the new policy at the bottom of the Jan. 1 bills? This would cover their own a$$. (although some sellers say they never get their email bills either…)
December 19th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
I don’t know why they closed the commenting on the articles…I was going to thank them for adjusting the overdue notification system to reflect the actual written policy about the 15th.
I don’t like that they say they extended the grace period, that isn’t the case at all. The 15th has always been the written and understood due date until last month.
I’m glad they’re finally listening though, it’s a step in the right direction. We’ll have to see what Jan 1 brings in regards to them “cracking down” on overdue fees and how the notification system acts on Jan 15th.
December 19th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Let’s take extra note of the “conciliatory tone” that the updated billing notice has, maybe this means Etsy is starting to listen to the rumblings of the sellers. Etsy decided to use a big stick about overdue bills, YET, it does not live up to its end of the bargain. It is that darn “scolding and spanking” tone that so many Etsy staffers use when dealing with sellers, and many of their Forum posts are in that tone.
Etsy can scold me all it wants WHEN it removes non-handmade products from the site and actually uses a big stick for the Flagging System! And, when Etsy stops highlighting only a tiny number of stores it has picked out for constant free marketing.
Their overal tone with sellers is like a bunch of bullies in the schoolyard.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:51 am
This new information is different to the ‘official’ word I got re the due date less than a day ago via email (which I can’t repeat here as I may get banned for quoting an email from Etsy admin!).
I honestly can’t figure out why they don’t just say ‘It’s due on X date’ instead of this convoluted thing with a bill being due the same day it’s sent but not overdue until several days later (with the several days varying depending on where you read about them). Surely it would actually save the poor Etsy billing department a headache to just give a due date given the confusion being caused.