Update February 8, 2024: The efforts of the seller community last year won us a partial victory on this issue! Etsy lowered the reserve percentage to 30% for most sellers.  

After taxes and fees, however, sellers on a 30% payment reserve only receive about half of their money from each sale. And Etsy is still putting sellers in a payment reserve without telling them what specifically they did to be put in reserve or how to get it removed.

We have been working with Global Legal Law Firm on legal recourse for affected sellers, and will soon have more news to share! Sign this petition to receive updates on our fight, and a link to the form to share your Etsy Payment Reserves story with us.

Since May of 2023, Etsy has been using Payment Reserves to stiff their community of handmade sellers. When a seller is "on reserve" this means Etsy outright refuses to pay them the money they’ve earned from sales. It isn’t until after the order ships and tracking shows it’s in transit that sellers on reserve can actually get paid. For handmade sellers, this creates a catch-22: sellers can’t get paid until they make and ship their orders, but often they can’t make and ship their orders before getting paid!

A seller on reserve commonly receives less than 10% of the money from each sale at the point of purchase. This happens because Etsy reserves 75% of the total amount paid by the customer (including shipping, taxes, and fees), then takes all taxes and fees out of the remaining 25%. In many cases, the amount released to the seller won’t even cover the cost of a shipping label.

If the seller is able to ship an order with tracking that connects to Etsy, the money is released once the tracking updates in Etsy’s system. However, some sellers can’t use tracked shipping: sellers in certain countries, sellers of small or lightweight items whose customers prefer letter mail, and sellers with uniquely heavy or large items that can’t ship via standard services. Without tracking, Etsy won’t release the funds from a sale for 45 days! This cycle can continue for up to 90 days or even longer.

It’s unclear what specific metrics Etsy is using to determine whether a seller is “high-risk” and needs to be put on reserve. Recently thousands of sellers around the world have been placed on reserve without warning, logging into their account one day to find they cannot access their money from incoming sales, yet are expected to create those items and ship those orders. When they are unable to comply, Etsy extends the reserves for even longer.

This reserve policy has been absolutely devastating for sellers. In some cases thousands of dollars are being withheld from individual sellers for a length of time that is impossible to predict.

Here are some of the stories we’ve heard from sellers.

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It is an outrage for Etsy to treat their sellers this way.

#EtsyMustPay.