Sadly, as of today my Etsy shop will be drastically reducing my collections as well as removing discounts, Sales and new arrivals. I encourage dancing ladies that love my collections to order from my official website www.tangowithlove.com instead as I dwindle the shop to closure at the end of the year. If you don’t subscribe to my monthly Emails, please sign up and you’ll save 10% on your first order.

As many of you know, I started my little business in 2013 as an Etsy Seller and have never stopped. In 2017 I finally was able to afford to create my own website and have been using both platforms since. It’s been a great place to grow my client base and develop trust thru rave reviews and even stuck thru the 15% fee increase last year.

A few years ago Etsy started to create Reserves. While many Marketplaces have Reserves in place to cover refunds and other issues, I’ve noticed more and more fellow Etsy crafters in the last year complain about their Reserves not being released on a timely, promised matter. Then last month it happened to me, and understood the incredible burden the other Sellers are going thru.

From what I’ve been able to find out from the Etsy forums and community here in America and Europe, Etsy is imposing Reserves that may last anywhere from 45 days to 90 days even longer without a particular reason to the Seller. This means that all of the month of June and part of July my funds were held up inexplicably leaving me in a sudden financial pickle. I’m very lucky to have my website which picks up the other half of my sales, but it was a horrible experience to have to go thru unaware of why this suddenly happened and how, if or when funds would be allocated.

From what I understand, there are hundreds and hundreds of Sellers going thru this problem. A great many of them just like me who are small full time business owners, struggling to cover costs due to sudden imposed Reserves that are never ending. There are many theories going around about why this is happening some financial, some AI tech related, Whatever the reason, small crafters and indie designers are in a bind. Sadly, many have trusted Marketplaces to sell their products and don’t have their own websites or the money for competitive advertising.

So, if you buy from and Etsy Seller – inquire about this and see if they are being affected. You might want to give their website a try instead.