Anyone else find that Etsiers charge too much for items?

I am an etsy seller. My stuff looks expensive because of the exchange rate and freight costs. If I were you, I would contact the etsy seller and put in an offer. They are private human beings after all and not corporations.

@cazzie I did contact her asked her for a bit less. We’ll see what she says. I didn’t know if that was rude or not, though.

No, not rude at all. Showing interest in a listing is always good.

I have done bulk deals based on a personal message received. That is the cool think about Etsy, you are dealing with real people with real skills. It rocks.

I think most items I see on Etsy are overpriced, but in my experience, the sellers are open to negotiation.

I think a lot of it depends on what items you are purchasing. I have found that cosmetics, in general, are incredibly expensive, but they tend to be natural, cruelty-free and pretty high quality at least, the soaps I have purchased have been high quality but things like jewelry and clothing can be anywhere from frighteningly cheap to so expensive you can’t afford rent that month.

If you don’t mind my asking, what are you buying? I can look through my favorites list and past purchases and see if I can find a comparable seller who charges less.

An art deco style end table. Antique.

@Jude: Unfortunately, I have never seen affordable furniture anywhere on Etsy. I hope your dealings with the seller go well.

I am asking for 35 less than the listed price. A lot of her stuff is overpriced.

I think that people who craft things by hand in a country with a standard of living much like the U.S. has, need to ask more money for their labor than people who make things by hand in a country with the standard of living that is ‘enjoyed’ in places like China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, and anywhere else cheap Wal*Mart grade products are made.

A while ago now, I tried making some of those beret-style hats like the Rasta and hippie folks use over their dreads. Friends liked them, people at a hippie music festival liked them, and many people suggested that I sell them at the local hippie head shop. So I took some up to the head shop, sneezed at the patchouli smell, and showed my hats to the shop owner, who was really excited about them. However, when she wanted to know how much they’d cost, I quoted a low (what I thought of as wholesale) price, and she laughed.

“I can’t afford those,” she said. “That’s why we buy our hats from Ecuador, which costs [like a tenth of what I had to charge, and wouldn’t even cover my materials].”

In other words, people expect nowadays to get handmade-like goods at sweatshop prices, and when you’re used to that sort of thing, Etsy prices will look really high. To me, that doesn’t mean that Etsy prices are too high, but that our sense of value is calibrated too low.