#its listed in on of the top sellers from the site and does have reviews

[mx-paint]

.

[cozylittleartblog]

hey, so I'm trying to figure out what places would be good to sell my own art at, and I'm wondering- what has been your experience with selling on etsy? I've heard mixed reviews from people, and I want to know your perspective as an etsy seller.

etsy is not perfect but i think it gets a little more shit than it deserves, i've thought about opening my own website but generally i'm actually pretty okay with the services i get on etsy compared to what it costs so i'm just gonna make a subjective pros/cons list for you under the cut (because its loooong)

oh and if anyone else has experience selling on etsy and would like to add their two cents in the replies/reblogs please do!

Pros

⭐ The search function - this is etsy's biggest selling point. it already has a dedicated userbase of millions of people and a search feature to help them find your shop, which takes a lot of the load of marketing off your shoulders, and marketing is a huge factor for pushing sales. i am not good at marketing and a lot of my sales just come from people searching my stuff up lol

⭐ Purchase protection program - if USPS loses or damages your package, you file a missing package report and they confirm they don't know where it is, Etsy will refund your buyers order out of their own pocket (under $250). this is my favorite etsy feature because USPS likes to eat packages every now and again. delicious keychains. if you had your own storefront, you'd just have to replace the order yourself.

⭐ Share & Save program - every time someone makes an order on your shop through a special Share & Save link, etsy will refund you 4% of the fees. it's a nice perk to doing some of your own marketing and it helps combat the moderately high etsy fees!

Trackable letter mail - selling stickers but think it's insane to charge $4 shipping? you can buy letter mail labels for about the rate of regular postage, which is like .65c. this tracking is done through etsy though so you can't track with usps, but it does give customers a little peace of mind. this only works in the 50 US states though.

Customs forms built into your shipping label - shipping internationally is a nightmare. etsy makes it easy though, generating everything you need to ship internationally on one label that you just have to sign and date and slap on your package like normal. for some countries they will actually just have your package sent to a domestic facility where they literally do all that for you. this is miles easier than having to do all that paperwork yourself.

buy shipping labels directly from etsy - related point, and just what it says on the tin. when you fulfill an order, you can buy your labels right there on Etsy so you don't have to mess around with a third party website. it comes out of your sale funds so you don't need to charge a card or a bank account or anything.

star seller program - some people say this is completely useless but i actually disagree! it's incredibly easy to earn this badge, and it lets buyers know you've got some of the best products, shipping, and customer service around. it helps you stand out from some of the more... questionable shops on the website.

sales tax - they remit sales tax for you. i don't think any of the other online platforms similar to etsy do this but i could be wrong. doing any kind of taxes sucks so i consider it a perk if they do it for you.

website promotions - every now and again etsy likes to host sales out of their own pocket. you get all the perks of having a sale without eating into ur profit margin. HUGE sale booster

generally the site is just very easy to learn and use and it's very beginner and dumbass friendly. i say this as a former beginner and current dumbass 👍

Cons

❌ the fees. oogh the fees. they claim it's just a 6.5% fee per sale, but on top of that you have to pay .20c automatically for every individual item you sell, plus there are processing fees (3% + .25c) that apply both to the item you sold AND the cost of shipping. i think it comes out to like 10% total in fees on average @ > @

❌ but wait, there's more fees! if you make more than $10k in sales a year (very easy number to hit actually) you are forced to participate in offsite ads, which i believe takes 15% of your total sale on top of the fees in the previous point. these kinds of sales are not as common as you'd think, but it's still annoying having a couple bucks shaved off your profits a few times a month because of them.

corporate bullshit - etsy is like renting a space in a mall. you don't own your lot, nor the mall itself, so if upper management decides to make any stupid ass decisions, you just have to deal with it or pick up and move. if they decide to raise fees again, you just gotta Deal. you are a little bit helpless on this website unfortunately

the push for discounts - etsy is constantly shoving it in your face that they want you to do discounts. they want you to have free shipping on orders over $35, they want you to do 25% off or more on sales, they want you to have returning customer discounts and abandoned cart discounts and 'you recently favorited this item' discounts - but you already have to compete with the steep fees, and when a customer gets free shipping, you still owe USPS that $4-ish bucks to send the package. you don't have to do any of this, but they do reward participating shops by favoring them in the algorithm and search results, so you can feel like you're missing out.

there aren't as many cons imo but they Are steeper cons. generally etsy is very beginner friendly and easy to get into and set up, and in spite of everything i do actually recommend everyone looking to get into online retail start on etsy and perhaps move to other platforms in the future. plus, you can combat all the fees by just... making your prices a dollar or two higher than you initially wanted to, and using your 'save and share' link as frequently as possible. the fees are a little bit much, but you have to think about what you get in exchange:

the search is invaluable, you could argue the fees are partially a marketing budget lmao. if you have a private website you alone have to push traffic to your website, and not as many people know about things like shopify and bigcartel so they might not be as trusting putting their card details into it. i miss out on a lot of REALLY COOL STUFF because artists only advertise on instagram and i don't hear about them, meanwhile if i want some cool owl house stuff i can literally just search that in etsy and find a lot of TOH stuff super easily. i cannot highlight enough how GOOD the search function is, especially in this day and age where social media like instagram and twitter will blacklist your posts if you say words like 'shop' or 'sale' and now nobody can find your stuff in that website's search either. its very hard to do your own marketing now a days :(

being able to refund customer's lost orders out of the company's pocket is such a nice thing to fall back on if you have to and worth its weight in fees. USPS lost like... four or five packages of mine in december. that's like $100 or more worth of stuff that Etsy Covered Completely, and a lot of the times the customer will take that refund to make their order again. don't abuse this system, make sure you check with usps that the package is actually Gone, but it's a godsend when you don't make billions of dollars and eating the cost of lost orders would otherwise sting a bit.

if etsy did not make international shipping easy i simply would not ship anywhere but the US to be honest. shipping to europe is still a headache though but that's because europe is stupid

that's everything i can think of, but tl;dr yes please open an etsy 👍 i recommend it completely in spite of everything

⭐ if anyone wants to open their own etsy shop, use my referral link to make your first 40 listings for free! :)c ⭐

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Ecommerce News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy has banned gift certificates/cards sold by individual shops, as of Sept 15. Only Etsy Gift Cards are now allowed. The second quarter report press release says they plan on selling Etsy Gift Cards through third parties, but no official word on how and when yet.

Many Amazon Handmade sellers were unable to list new items after a site update on July 31 [post by me on LinkedIn]. While Amazon told sellers to apply for an exemption from the Product ID requirement, some report that is not working, or that they do not have the option to apply for one. 

Reminder that Canadian Etsy shops will be charged a 1.15% Regulatory Operating fee on the item price and shipping cost as of August 15. [I’ve set a bunch of things to expire. If Etsy isn’t profitable enough to pay its taxes, maybe they should consider cutting executive pay instead of squeezing microbusinesses even more.]

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy has updated its Privacy Policy, to take effect August 31. Changes include mention of biometric data. Note that some parts of the policy are screenshots, and therefore not easily searchable nor accessible to screen readers - I am not sure how they can get away with that. I used the Wayback Machine to do a comparison of the parts that software can actually read.   There’s also a new US regional privacy policy, which currently covers laws in several states.  

Etsy is promoting a Labour Day sale August 21-September 2, and has already set up the "Cyber Savings Sale" (November 18-December 3) for Cyber Week. You can schedule the official sales through links in the announcement.

Forbes covered Etsy’s sex toy ban [soft paywall; not safe for work photos]. To no one's surprise, plenty of the banned items are still found on site, including toys and vintage Playboy magazines. 

Etsy is accused of allowing shops based in “illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory” and profiting off of them. Etsy’s response: "[W]e have shared this information internally with the appropriate teams for review."

Etsy's promised program for buyers - Etsy Insider - will be rolling out as invite-only beta in September. It's a paid membership for US buyers and includes:

Free US domestic shipping on millions of items

A birthday bonus

Limited edition annual gift, designed by an Etsy seller

First access to special discounts and select merchandise

While some of the "special discounts" are paid by sellers, that is a voluntary program shops can sign up for here. That form also allows you to sign up to offer new items to Etsy Insiders first - “drops” - which does not involve offering discounts. Etsy has done these sorts of "offers" in the past, and I believe they have already reached out to sellers for the first round of offers in September (based on some emails I have received from shop owners).

You can now sign up for “Etsy Up”, the virtual sellers conference scheduled for September 10. However, despite saying they have announced “our agenda”, all that is provided is a vague set of topics (other than the fact they will be announcing the Etsy Design Awards Finalists). It makes me wonder if there are official Etsy announcements coming soon that they don’t want to reveal too early by posting the real agenda. If yes, around August 15 is a good bet, given that  Etsy’s Search Analytics will end that day, and many new policies kick in on September 15, just one month later.

The Etsy app is showing rectangular listing images in search for some visitors, but it appears to be a test [Reddit thread with screenshot]. I wouldn’t change anything at this time. 

No, Etsy has not replaced your listing tags. I covered that topic here on LinkedIn. 

I wrote about the new Listing Image Requirement policy and the email Etsy sent to some sellers on Monday July 29. [post by me on Patreon] And not everyone is being fooled by Etsy’s new Creativity Standards, but some acknowledge it will be difficult for Etsy to turn away factory-made goods at this point. [Disclosure: I am quoted in that article]

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon’s second quarter revenue was below expectations, and the company predicts nothing better in the third quarter. 

In a surprising change, Amazon has decided to cancel overage fees for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory storage, retroactive to July 1. 

Canadian Amazon sellers will be subject to a new digital services fee as of October 1. This is due to Canada’s new digital services tax. 

In a case that may have an impact on other larger ecommerce sites, a court ruled that Amazon is responsible for recalls of products sold through Amazon, including through “Fulfilled By Amazon”. 

US Amazon shoppers can now link their Pinterest and TikTok accounts to Amazon to be able to buy directly from Amazon ads on social media. This is already available on Facebook, Instagram and Snap. 

Amazon is changing its refund policy for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) users: if sellers do not receive an automatic reimbursement for loss, damage and returns, they will now only have 60 days to apply for one.  A lot of ecommerce experts think Amazon is making a mistake in setting up a China to US section on the site.

eBay

eBay second quarter revenue and profit was higher than expected, but the third quarter projections are low.  

The eBay app has taken a lot of flack for inserting ads between each item in a purchase history. 

Poshmark

As marketplaces popular for pre-owned items compete for the best new stock, Poshmark is offering “rewards” for listing at least 1 item a week. 

Shopify

Shopify had a better-than-expected second quarter, and expects a decent third quarter as well. Getting larger businesses to use Shopify has helped the tech company, but I still wonder how that affects the small and micro businesses who used to be the target market.

Walmart

The Walmart Marketplace has added Chile as its fourth country, after the US, Canada and Mexico. 

All Other Marketplaces

Hundreds of business owners who sell on Temu held a protest at the marketplace headquarters on July 29. Fines for returns are one cited issue. 

Payment Processing

Credit cards issued by Chase in the US will no longer allow third-party buy-now-pay-later purchases, as of October 10. Conveniently, they offer their own option, Chase Pay Over Time. PayPal has expanded the quicker checkout solution Fastlane to all US businesses, which fills in customer information without a log in.

[zaptap]

uhhh i just bought a second gamecube lol

like. my gamecube is a dol-101 which means it doesn't have a digital out port (which means converting it to hdmi is always going to look like shit) and i've wanted to get it modded to add the port but that seems to be impossible at least for the time being (the kits have been sold out for so long and now the one site selling them seems to have taken down the listing. plus on top of that i'd have to have someone do it for me and idk where to go for that either) (from what i can tell getting a modchip added also seems trickier than on a dol-001?)

most of the advice ive seen for this situation is "just get rid of it and get a dol-001" which is uh. not the point. this is my childhood gamecube i want to keep using it. it's also a perfectly good console so it's annoying to see people so eager to just throw them aside

but i looked... and for just $100 i found a dol-001 that was already modded with picoboot (ipl replacement that makes the console boot into whatever you want) and they refurbished it (cleaned all the parts, recapped the motherboard which according to them will extend its life by 25 years). disk drive doesnt work but with picoboot that's kind of unimportant. seller seems to be pretty reliable too, they have almost exclusively good reviews going back to 2016

feels a little redundant to get a second gamecube, especially since i can technically already get a digital signal out of natively run gamecube games on my wii u and wii... it does add that to the game boy player though (also: with picoboot you can set a button to hold to automatically boot into the game boy interface, which btw is the homebrew replacement for the game boy player software that does a better job displaying the games apparently). also been thinking about getting a gba flashcart anyway (ez flash omega definitive edition) to add more to that

also my experience using nintendont on my wii u has been kind of awkward. you have to go all the way into wii mode and the homebrew channel and nintendont and then pick the game (sure, injects are a thing, but i've tried a few and they all black screen, and i've tried everything the devs of the inject program, uwuvci, say to do to make them work--and they also say for some people it just doesn't for some reason and nobody knows why). sometimes i get in there and it gets some kind of error and i have to start all the way over. meanwhile modded gamecube boots into swiss and you pick a game from there and that's it

the drawback is that since you're loading from an sd card (either in a memory card adapter or in a serial port 2 adapter, they're functionally the same) there's compatibility issues since it can't always read from there fast enough to run the game full speed. however there's also something called the M.2 loader coming that'll be able to load the data faster (from the ssd you attach to it). you plug it into serial port 1 (where the broadband adapter would go). but anyway if there are any games that don't run right booted from the sd i could probably just do them on the wii u or wii instead

anyway. my hope is that someday i'll be able to get my original gamecube modded (and then either sell this new one or give it away i suppose?), but it's good to have a backup

and it's not like gamecubes are going to get cheaper, probably, so getting that now is good i guess? like. that's a really good deal .a gamecube that's pre-modded and refurbished and apparently comes with an sd card? (the seller casually mentioned they could include some games if asked. the only way to run games on this one is through an sd card, so those would have to be iso files. on an sd card. if theyre giving me the card already then copying files doesnt cost them anything. so maybe there's a card in there). anyway yeah all that for $100. pretty good i think

well. maybe someday as they become more scarce people won't be so quick to abandon dol-101s and there'll be more resources for modding them

[iraempirecom]

American Mint Reviews

What is American Mint?American Mint Locations, Timings, Email, Phone, Services

American Mint is a Provider and seller of coins and collectibles. It is based in near historic Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

They claim that the company has over 30 years of experience providing products and services. They also claim that they have served both beginner and professional collectors. The company claims to be a reliable source for all collecting needs. Their diverse selection of products includes commemorative coins, legal tender coins, medals, knives, and more collector's items. According to them, their team include a committee of historians and academics who select which events or people should be honoured with a commemorative coin. After that, experienced craftsmen methodically create these coins with flawless detail. Each coin takes six months to create from concept to completed product, according to them. American Mint promises the following to its customers: - Quality Commitment - Product exclusivity - Product Authenticity However, whether or not what they say is true will be exposed by the end of this article. - Address: 5051 Louise Dr Mechanicsburg, PA 17055-4898 - Phone: (717) 458-9200 - Email: contact@americanmint.com - Website: https://www.americanmint.com/

People Behind American Mint: CEO, Owner, Co-Founders & MoreWho owns American Mint? What is the management team behind American Mint?

On its website, American Mint does not disclose any information related to its owner and other team members. I did some research into the company and found that other authoritative review sites such as BBB have mentioned the name of Michael Goede as an owner. I also found some other sources that revealed that he is the owner and shocking news about him. A legal case text that was published in January 2006, American Mint LIc. v. Gosoftware, Inc. and according to the report, the company is owned by Goede Beteiligungsgesellschaft and Michael Goede.

The case text gave a detailed description of what the American Mint is. As per the text, Goede is in the business of manufacturing collectible coins and its principal business place is located in Germany. Further, American Mint is a limited liability company that falls under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Also, it is owned by Goede and it is a merchandise marketer in the United States.

American Mint Products: Bullion Coins, Bars, And Rare CoinsAll products offered by American Mint

The company claims to offer a wide range of select collectibles. The following are some products:

- Solid Gold Coins - Gold-Layered Coins - Solid Silver Coins - Silver-Plated Coins - Platinum - U.S. Currency - Commemorative Coins Aside from above mentioned coins, they also sell other products like knives and accessories such as albums, polishing clothes, coin pouches and more. Their website indicates the prices of the products which is a huge plus. If you would like to buy rare coins, you would need to contact someone from their team to help you do this.

Can You Invest in American Mint IRA?Do They Offer A Precious Metals IRA?

No, American Mint primarily serves investors by offering coins for purchase, but it does not provide IRA services. This may disappoint investors looking for an all-in-one for precious metals investments within an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). This company fails to meet the requirements of customers who want to open a gold IRA account. Instead, investors looking for gold IRA choices can look into options and work with companies that specialise in facilitating gold IRAs. It's important to understand that the process of setting up a gold IRA includes choosing a reputable IRA custodian or trustee. However, I don't recommend opening an IRA with them. Why? Because there are plenty of better options available for you. Opening a precious metals IRA is a major decision. That's why I suggest checking out our top gold IRA providers list. There, you can find the best precious metals dealer in your state and choose accordingly. Also, the list will help you understand what the industry's best has to offer and what you might miss out on. Alternatively, check out the following guide to learn more about how a gold IRA works:

American Mint Fees and Charges: Do they overcharge?What are their fees? Do they have hidden fees?

Shipping Charges

For all of the online orders, the company charges a flat rate of $6.95 for the shipping and handling. Moreover, orders that cost less than $250 will be shipped via U.S. Postal Service and orders costing more than $250, will be shipped via FedEx. Furthermore, they claim to offer free shipping and handling for orders over $150. Payment Options For the payment options, American Mint accepts the following options: - PayPal - Visa - Mastercard - Discover - American Express - Check/Money Order There is no other important information on the company's website, which could be a red flag for potential investors because there could be a chance for hidden charges.

American Mint Reviews and Complaints: BBB, Yelp, GoogleRead all the American Mint reviews & complaints on American Mint

Better Business Bureau (BBB)

On Better Business Bureau (BBB) American Mint has received NR (No rating), and a 1/5 star rating based on 11 customer reviews and 155 complaints. The company has been in business for over 25 years and they are not BBB accredited business. Mostly, customers have given the company negative reviews. Many customers have complained about poor services and many have even lost their money.

As we review customer complaints, one major problem appears: many customers complain that American Mint is sending them bills for products they did not order or get. This is a serious red flag because many people are disappointed. You must use caution if you plan to do business with American Mint.

All of these complaints should cause you to think twice about investing in or dealing with this company. It is critical to perform your investigation and properly check everything. These concerns indicate that American Mint may be having severe issues with how they process orders, engage with customers, or maintain their invoices accurately. American Minthas received #155 complaints on BBB The company has received several unresolved complaints from customers. There are also several unresolved negative reviews on different platforms. Our #1 rated gold IRA company has ZERO unanswered complaints on BBB. Trustpilot

On Trustpilot, as on other platforms, the company has received a low rating, with 3.1 stars based on 793 customer reviews. The customers have left both positive and negative reviews. But half of them are negative which could be a serious concern for potential investors. ConsumerAffairs

On ConsumerAffairs, American Mint has received a 1.3-star rating out of 5 based on a total of 171 customer reviews. However, it is important to note that 83% of them are complaints against the company. Many customers have complained that they never received what they wanted from this company, and one customer even stated that he received an empty box with a $100.00 invoice for a coin purchase that he never received or ordered.

People have also shared their disappointment with this company on different platforms. You can take a look at a Reddit post where a user has shared their thoughts about this company. In short, the increasing number of complaints against American Mint may be a major red flag for investors.

American Mint Lawsuits: UniCourt & Justia Have customers sued American Mint?

UniCourt

On 03/09/2021 Sanchez filed a Civil Right - Other Disability Discrimination lawsuit against American Mint LLC. This case was filed in U.S. District Courts, New York Southern District. The Judge overseeing this case is Analisa Torres.

Boice, Dewitt filed a Small Claim - other Small Claim lawsuit against American Mint LLC on 05/18/2021. This case was filed in the Martin County Florida Courts, at the Martin County Courthouse in Martin, Florida.

Is American Mint Legit? Should You Invest With Them?Is American Mint scam or legit? Are they worth it?

No, I don't recommend investing with them. Pros: - Offer a wide range of coins Cons: - Lack of transparency - Faced lawsuits - Many customer complaints - Not a BBB-accredited business I believe you have many better options than the American Mint. American Mint claims to be a trustworthy firm that has been providing products and services for over 30 years. However, this company has a number of serious flaws, including not being transparent about its team members, having over 150 customer complaints on BBB, and not being a BBB-accredited business. Also, they do not offer IRA services. All of this suggests that you should look into other companies instead. Before you make any final decision, I recommend checking out our top gold IRA providers. There, you will find out what the industry's best has to offer. Also, it will ensure you make an informed decision. Or, you can check out the best gold dealer in your state below: Each state has its regulations and rules, so we've sorted and found the best Gold IRA company for each state. Find the best Gold IRA company in your state Read the full article

[rishabhsharma]

Finding the Perfect Online Marketplace to Sell My iPhone 14 Plus: Tips for Success

In today's fast-paced world of technology, our once-beloved iPhones often find themselves replaced by newer models. Instead of letting your old iPhone gather dust, why not turn it into cash by choosing to sell iPhone 14 plus online?

Embarking on this journey is quite fulfilling, still, it does present some challenges. Finding the ideal online marketplace is a major hurdle. You must make a wise decision because there are many options available. So, to make the journey of iPhone 14 plus sell easy, in this blog post, we will explore a few essential tips. These tips will help you find the perfect online marketplace for selling your used iPhone.

Essential Tips for Selling Your Old iPhone

1. Understand Your Selling Goals

To kickstart your search for the ideal online marketplace, begin by clarifying your selling objectives. Are you aiming for the highest profit, or is a swift and trouble-free sale your top priority? Are you more inclined towards local or global buyers? Getting a grasp of your preferences will assist you in narrowing down your choices and finding the platform that best fits your goals.

2. Choosing the right platform

Online marketplaces offer diverse options for selling your used phone like sell iPhone 14 plus. Sites like eBay, known for its global reach, provide freedom in listing details and pricing. Yet, it entails fees and time commitment due to its auction-style format. Whereas, Swappa, focused on tech devices, ensures user-friendly, secure transactions. While pricing control is limited compared to eBay, Swappa's stringent verification processes boost trust.

Similarly, Facebook Marketplace taps into local connections, leveraging your social network for sales. However, it's limited to your area and requires independent management. But one of the best options for selling iPhones is to contact those companies that completely take the hassles of the selling process off your shoulders.

3. Timing Is Everything

The timing of your listing can significantly impact your success when I sell my iPhone 14 plus. The demand and prices for these devices can fluctuate, so it's advisable to research the market and choose the right time to list your device. For instance, selling just before the release of a new iPhone model might fetch a higher price due to increased demand.

4. Build a Positive Reputation

Reputation and feedback systems play a vital role in the success of your online sales. Positive ratings and reviews from previous sellers enhance your credibility and attract more buyers. Ensure good communication, provide accurate descriptions, and maintain a positive reputation on the platform you choose.

5. Calculate Fees and Costs

Different online marketplaces have varying fee structures. Some charge listing fees, final value fees, or shipping fees, while others are entirely free to use. Calculate the potential fees associated with each platform to determine the overall cost that you will have to pay if you choose the process of "sell my iPhone 14 plus".

6. Consider Shipping and Handling

When selecting a platform, consider your shipping preferences and who will cover the associated costs. Some platforms allow you to choose shipping options and charge the buyer, while others provide prepaid shipping labels. Factor in shipping costs when setting the price to sell iPhone 14 plus.

7. Prioritize Privacy and Security

Protect your privacy and personal information when using online marketplaces. Be cautious about sharing sensitive data and use secure payment methods to safeguard yourself from fraud and scams.

Key Takeaway

Finding the perfect online marketplace is the most important thing after you search "sell my iPhone 14 plus". The process requires thoughtful consideration of your goals, priorities, and the various factors outlined in this essay. Whether you seek maximum profit, convenience, or a balance between the two, there's an online marketplace that suits your preferences and helps you turn your used iPhone into cash. By following these tips, you can embark on a successful selling journey and make the most of your old iPhone.

[looye29]

In today’s time with multiple avenues for expenses, we just cannot depend on a single salary. With prices being hiked all the time, depending on one income is never advisable. You have to look for an alternate means of earning, which ideally should not take too much of your time and energy. When you search the internet for additional earning options, you would have come across the term affiliate marketing. They claim just with a click, you can earn hundreds of dollars each day! Sounds very tempting, I’m sure! However, you should be careful in picking a reliable site that does not run away with your money but helps you in achieving what you want from them – more income. Some people run out of luck in affiliate marketing, while many make good money with just a few clicks. Want to know a legitimate site that works? Let’s review the site called Affiliate Bots 2.0 developed by Chris. What is Affiliate Bots 2.0 Affiliate marketing is selling others’ products for them, and you can choose the products that you want to promote and sell. You will be getting affiliate links that you can use to post about the products on the internet. When a product is sold, you get a substantial amount as a commission from the seller. Affiliate Bots is one such platform that has many upgraded features with a focus on improving traffic generation all the time. You get access to a multitude of tools, updated now and then to keep pace with the constantly changing industry. Affiliate Bots 2.0 does not talk about just one tool. It is a collection of many tools and apps to help you succeed in affiliate marketing. Each software has a distinct role within the Affiliate Bot 2.0. you will find buyer bot tools, affiliate marketing tools, website creation apps, and video creation apps. Only a few main affiliate networks are focused on Affiliate Bot. they are ClickBank, Amazon, JVZoo, and WarriorPlus. For the same price, you get additional 20 tools to make your task easy. How it works There are many steps involved in making use of the affiliate program: You have to buy the program to use all its features. Create a website with the help of the Click Video Pages tool, Click Affiliate Software, and Presenting Affiliate Ads. You will also learn to create a domain for the website with the help of the Domainaveli software You start to learn to generate traffic and earn commissions using Rapid Rank Software. This will help you to create targeted traffic on Google and YouTube. Affiliate Bots 2.0 is about making your efforts of building an affiliate marketing business that will bring you profits. It helps you with identifying lucrative opportunities, keywords, and traffic sources. You will get access to tools such as additional banners and upgrades to the AI search tool. Once you have logged in, you will be taken to a page where the tools are listed. You will find: ProClub Affiliate Program – this takes you back to the ProClub home page where you can look for top-selling products from WarriorPlus, JVZoo, and ClickBank AI Traffic Search Engine – you will be allowed to search, browse, and filter websites 10-in1 Web Widget – you will be permitted to personalize and include widgets such as popups and coupons to improve the conversion CB 250 – you will get a list of the top 250 products of ClickBank Rapid Video Software – you can convert text into a video using this software Domainaveli – you can find domains like GoDaddy Dropaveli – dropped or expired domains are listed here There are many such software that you get for the small amount that you pay as a fee for this. The program comes to you with tools that are helpful to promote sales of digital products from ClickBank, WarriorPlus, etc. Affiliate Bots 2.0 is not essentially a training program, but you will find PDF and video training material inside. The software tools offered by Affiliate Bots are very helpful. The Rapid Video helps you learn to convert text to videos.

The 1-Click Affiliate teaches you to convert headlines and improve copywriting skills. Affiliate Bots 2.0 is meant to help you in running an affiliate business. You can make use of the software to make an inroad into affiliate marketing. There are a few bonuses that come with the buy: Details of Techniques used by Chris to generate massive traffic 3 Bonus systems Additional Training on creating income Additional Training on using each software and features Upgradation Pros Easy and informative software tools Very affordable Money-back guarantee after 60 days Compatibility with all niche markets Comes with Quick Start guide, a PDF Quickstart videos Anyone can become an affiliate marketer using this tool. No qualification or age specifications You can easily convert the products into sales and thereby earn commissions You can get the program online after the payment You need not work on the payment process as the businesses will take care of it Cons Many claim that it is misleading market Not ideal for a beginner as he has to go through the Quick Start PDF guide thoroughly Some complain that the dashboard is not organized properly. You have to browse through the pages to access the one you want. Many tools are made available to you only when you search for them manually The training kit is not updated There is no social proof from other fellow affiliate marketers about this No free trial and no private coaching available Should You Buy It? Affiliate Bots 2.0 comes with extremely helpful tools that can take your business to new heights. The software and the easy-to-understand instructions can help you make three times more profit than you are currently making. It is certainly not a scam - you will get a refund in case you are not happy with the product. But you can be sure that with all their strong and tested features, you will make money – you have to trust it, learn it, and implement it. You pay for the program only once and there are no upsells involved. With 37 programs, tools, and systems involved, you can make good money using this program. Your satisfaction is fully guaranteed. I recommend giving a try to Affiliate Bots 2.0, considering the enormous benefits. I will certainly give this program 5 stars!

[urban-homesteading]

Hey do you know what kind of tools I should buy if I want to move into a house? It won't have a yard yet, but fingers crossed for the future. Thank you!

Congratulations on the new house! Since you said that there's no yard yet, I'm going to focus only on tools I use inside my house and ignore gardening and lawn maintenance.

What tools should you have around your house?

So here's a pretty simple list that will cover most minor problems you will encounter.

Hammer

Cordless power drill

Screwdriver set (grab one with the ten basic sockets)

Drill set

Adjustable wrench

Level (bubble works, but I upgraded to laser and it makes life so much simpler)

Tape measurer

Utility knife

Flashlight

Extension cord

Step stool

Spare batteries

Toolbox (or even a cardboard box, just make sure you have somewhere to return your tools or they will escape to the four winds)

So how to acquire these tools while maintaining zero waste?

1) Start with your research

If you are completely unfamiliar with tool brands and the features available on tools, do a little research. Visit the websites for Sears, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, True Value, Ace Hardware or any retailer that sells tools, and take a look at their new selections. Most websites organize tools in a straightforward way so you can easily find what you're looking for.

Head to a local store to get a firsthand look – many tools will be on display and out of the box so you can actually pick them up. You'll see the most-recent models, from low-end to top-of-the-line. Make notes on the prices and available features (especially relating to safety). This is your base from which to work when evaluating prices.

The next step is to look at online auction sites, such as eBay, to get an idea of prices for used tools. This gets a bit tricky because you'll need to really look at the age and condition of the tools as described by the seller. But again, make notes for a range of features and prices. Don't try to list everything you see – just make a list of price ranges for the tools, with notes on the variances in relation to brand. For example, for circular saws that range in price from $30 to $60, jot down what separates the bottom-priced tool from the top.

Head over to pawnshops as well. Pawnshops only buy items they know they can turn around and sell, so they won't have tools that don't work (everything they purchase is tested), and a pawnshop won't carry poor-quality brands. Also, the prices will accurately reflect the current value of tools in the marketplace. Make sure you visit operations that are members of the National Pawnbrokers Association, as these businesses abide by a code of ethics established by the association.

2) Name Does Matter (For the more expensive tools)

Now that you have an idea of what you'll expect to pay, it's time to consider how you'll evaluate and decide what to buy.

It used to be that if a name brand was good, it was good.  But I have found that the ‘good’ name brands have been sold so many times that most manufacturers are coasting on their reputation and they are the same quality as the ‘cheap’ tools.  Even worse, manufacturers will have different quality tools that are sold by different stores.  For example, a DeWalt power drill sold at a Home Depot will be better quality than a DeWalt Power Drill sold at Walmart because DeWalt will have two different manufacturing plants and they will send the lower quality ones to Walmart, since Walmart demands that DeWalt sell them to them at a cheaper cost or else they won’t buy from them at all.

My personal rule of thumb is buy cheap for the first one, then if you use it so long or so much that it needs replaced, buy expensive quality the second time.  This prevents you from spending hundreds on tools you’re only going to use a couple of times.

3) Where To Buy

You can start your shopping by revisiting some of the places you accessed when doing your research. Clearly you'll save money on shipping if you go to a local operation or an individual. Remember to test and examine tools closely no matter where you shop.

Pawnshops As mentioned earlier, pawnshops are a good bet for buying tools. You're going to find better-known brands that are probably on the higher end of the quality and price spectrum. Although, you're going to have little to no negotiating room on price compared to if you were buying from an individual.

Thrift Stores A thrift store may be a little less reliable for quality, and you'll probably find a lot less availability, especially at a thrift store that obtains its wares through donation. However, those that aren't donation-based aren't going to want to develop a bad reputation by selling inferior items.

Live Auctions Check local notices for potential auctions in your area. You may have a good chance of finding quality tools, but “auction fever” may set in, and you could wind up overpaying if you are bid up. These may be a good source for large equipment.

Garage Sales You could score the best deal at a garage sale, as the seller may be less likely to know the value of the tools being sold. Sellers will also be more open to price negotiation, and you can offer a bundle price for several items. Quality is going to be your biggest concern, so look these tools over really well.

Flea Markets These are similar to garage sales when it comes to negotiating, but the seller at a flea market will probably be more knowledgeable on price. Some flea market vendors have access to surplus or closeout suppliers, so you could see a potential mix of newer and older tools that haven't sold well at retail.

Classifieds Search online or newspaper classifieds under the equipment and tools categories. You may see a set or combination of tools listed as one price, which can be a good deal. As with garage sales, look these tools over carefully.

Online Websites offering tools are almost too numerous to mention, but eBay is certainly one that comes to mind. Check the seller ratings and reviews when shopping on auction sites. You'll also want to take a look at Amazon, which offers a lot of items, both new and used. Overstock.com, for example, has surplus items and may be a good source for refurbished items. You can often get limited warranties.

Retail Speaking of refurbished items, you may do well by looking at the clearance aisles at hardware stores and home centers. Sometimes they will heavily discount tools that have been returned. Check the reason for the return because it can be merely cosmetic.

4) Be an Inspector

On corded power tools, examine the electrical and basic mechanics of the tool. Aside from plugging it in and turning it on, thoroughly inspect the cord. Look for any visible defects, such as a crimp (what looks like a big dent), or if the cord is bent at a severe angle. A thick wad of electrical tape will be a big tip-off that something might not be right. Also take a look at where the cord meets the tool to see if it's heavily worn or loose. Closely examine the prongs of the plug. A slight bend on one of the prongs isn't a big deal, but if the metal looks heavily worn at the bend, it may be close to failure. And don't forget to check out the switch to see if it is loose or cracked.

Cordless tools present their own challenge. If you've ever looked at the price of replacement batteries, you know they can be quite pricey. Some are very expensive in relation to the cost of a new tool and can be as much as half or more of the cost of a new tool. Plus, it's hard to tell if the battery will hold its charge for any length of time. Sure, it may work fine in the short time you test it, but it's difficult to determine if it will hold a charge for longer than a few minutes. Only opt for cordless tools that you know are at most a couple of years old. Refurbished units are your best bet here.

With both corded and cordless power tools, be sure all the parts and guards are there. It's a bonus if the case and operating manual are included (although you may be able to find a copy of the manual on a tool manufacturer's website). You can easily find replacement accessories, such as saw blades, for many tools because the standards for accessory sizes are pretty consistent.

While you can't exactly take a small screwdriver and dismantle a power tool to look at its inner workings, you can search for a few telltale signs that all may not be well. Be prepared to use all five senses.

Take at look at the motor vent area of the tool (which looks like little slits in the housing). Ideally, you want this to be free of any sort of dirt, grime or buildup – a tall order for a used tool, but a good indication of how well it has been maintained. While inspecting this area, look for any burn marks or smoke trails (take a peek at the switch area as well). These would be clear indications that there's been an electrical problem. But just in case the evidence of a fire has been cleaned up, give the vent area the old sniff test for odor of smoke.

Keep the focus on this area and turn on the tool. You don't want to see smoke or sparks emitting from the housing. Notice how the tool feels in your hand while it's running. Look for intermittent operation or jerkiness. Yes, a power tool will vibrate in your hand, but you should be able to control it. If it feels like the tool could jump right out of your hand, there could be issues. Listen to the tool. Is it making erratic sounds or grating noises? Think back to other tools of the same type you're inspecting. Does the used tool sound significantly different?

You can look for specific things such as the movement of the blade in a circular saw or table saw. With the tool off and unplugged, move the blade around to see if there is a significant wobble to its motion. An old blade may be the culprit, but the arbor (the metal rod on which the blade is attached to the saw) may be bent. It would be difficult to replace and not worth purchasing the tool.

These tools will be a pretty good head start and will enable you to repair most minor work around your home.  

[dippedanddripped]

In the first few moments of a YouTube video titled “Admitting I Own Fakes In-Front of My Fashion Class…”, Quentin Caruso, better known as Tripping, does just that. “I’m a sophomore in college and I’m taking a class about fashion, and in that class (we) were talking about fakes and replicas,” he explains, adding that he can “throw up some pictures so you guys know I’m not bullshitting”. Asked by his teacher if he knowingly owns any counterfeit pieces, the 19-year-old confirms the sneakers he’s wearing at that very moment – the highly coveted Travis Scott Jordan 1 Lows – are in fact fake. “And how do you feel about that,” she prompts. “I’m fine with it,” he wryly confirms.

Caruso is part of a growing community of fashion-savvy shoppers searching for ways to look runway ready on a high street budget – and, unlike many die-hard hypebeasts, they’re willing to own up to the fact their luxury garms aren’t exactly legitimate. In fact, many take pride in their ability to score a bargain, taking to subreddit FashionReps to discuss new releases, fawn over faux Yeezys, and ask each other for advice on where to pick up the best knock-off Off-White and Supreme styles.

The forum is a democratised, judgement-free zone in which people share a love of high quality replicas or ‘reps’, where members are friendly and even supportive. They help one another to find the best sellers and sites to buy from, while discussing discrepancies between retail items and their counterfeit counterparts – from stitching and logos, to details and finishes. Most users admit they can’t afford head-to-toe designer looks, and at times they even share budgeting tips. "I got into reps cause I didn’t have much money and wanted a few nice pieces," redditor godsip2 shared in August. "Now I have no money at all 'cause I'm addicted to buying reps and can't stop myself."  

While a lack of funds and a taste for luxury streetwear is a driving factor for many, for others it isn’t about the money at all. “Not to brag, but if I want a Dior coat, I can get it retail,” Dennis, 19, tells us. “For the same (amount of) money I can get four reps.” Dennis admitted his breaking point came after a shocking moment browsing resale markets where he saw his ‘grail shoes’ – a pair of Off-White Air Jordan 1s – show up for €3000. “I thought ‘Fuck this, I’m never gonna pay that for shoes that originally retailed for €150.”

It’s been almost three years since he came across the FashionReps subreddit, which he was initially skeptical of. However, since joining he hasn’t just sworn off resale products and full-price retail items, but also introduced his friends to reps. “A €500 sweater wasn’t in their price range,” says Dennis. “When I showed them my reps (compared to) my retail Yeezys, they were instantly sold.”

Historically, counterfeit designer items conjure thoughts of poorly imitated handbags on AliExpress, labels that read, ‘Fashing BALISG’ instead of Balenciaga, and stalls in alleyways, but FashionReps members know where the quality replicas are sold and claim that many knock-offs actually tend to be better made.  “The quality is the same, even better,” Netherlands-based 23-year-old Camiel admits. “I’ve heard of some Yeezys being better and a lot of high-end Louis Vuitton reps being way better than retail.” He believes that “retail Louis Vuitton quality is not so great…”

FashionReps members buy in bulk, spending hundreds of dollars on ‘hauls’ that they break up into smaller packages in hopes of evading customs checks. The risk is part of the thrill, and while some are unlucky and have their packages seized, others rejoice when packages filled with thousands of dollars of ‘drip’ arrive in the mail.

Camiel cites his favourite find to be a Palace red slub-neck, “which you can't tell apart from a real one – which I have one of,” he adds. “The quality is amazing and it's super comfortable to wear, it's my favourite (item) I have gotten so far.” But Camiel hasn’t always gotten away with his thrifty finds.

“In the beginning, I wouldn't wear an item if it had the tiniest flaw. Later on, I noticed that people know (very) little about brands and which items even exist,” he explains. While most people who recognise a rep are likely to ask for the seller or pass on a compliment, Camiel concedes he’s been called out before. “Some high schoolers were at the gym and I was wearing my Nike tech fleece joggers, which have some noticeable flaws, like the black stripe being too short and the cords being too short as well. They called me out on the logo, which I know is perfect. Bunch of clowns.”

For all the people excited about reps, their quality, and believability, there are just as many people out there looking to spot a fake. YeezyBusta, who recently gained prominence for spotting fakes on civilians and celebrities has over 760,000 followers on Instagram. He’s busted the likes of Lil Tjay, Blac Chyna, and Soulja Boy for donning fake Supreme and Yeezys, although his faux-detector has been known to malfunction.

"I got into reps cause I didn’t have much money and wanted a few nice pieces. Now I have no money at all 'cause I'm addicted to buying reps and can't stop myself" – godsip2, FashionReps member

In an episode of Complex’s Full Size Run, hosts tasked the Instagram detective with discerning the difference between fake pairs of shoes from the real thing. After being handed a pair of bone-white Yeezy 500s, YeezyBusta exclaims, “Oh these are real!” Closely inspecting the shoe, he notices “The suede is right…even down to the stitching, the label inside the shoe looks right to me and the insole is right too.” The host, who finds it hard to hide his amusement, blurts out “They’re fake.” Behind his signature black surgical mask, used to hide his identity, YeezyBusta turns bright red.

“I can’t take him seriously,” Tripping admits. In a reaction video to a VICE documentary on YeezyBusta, the fashion student protests his motivation for hunting down counterfeit items so publicly. “It isn’t funny. Does anyone find that funny? To ridicule people online? That isn’t something you should be gloating about.”

Some counterfeit items are so believable that they’ve also slipped past trusted authenticators. The RealReal, one of the world's leading luxury consignment stores, claims that "every item we sell is 100% authenticated by an expert.” However, just last year, Forbes contributor, Richard Kentenbaum claimed the retail giant had sold him a fake Toile de Jouy Dior Book Tote bag for $3,600. What followed was a swift investigation by CNBC, who, after speaking with a dozen former employees and unsatisfied customers, and obtaining internal company documents, revealed that “many of the items on the site were being authenticated by copywriters with limited training.” and those who are doing this work are finding it increasingly difficult to spot counterfeits. Out of 1,400 reviews online for The RealReal, the top complaints are fake items.

It may come as a surprise to learn that this is something FashionReps also stands firmly against. In December, the group came together after Depopuser James’s Closet was spotted selling counterfeit items. Within a day, the subreddit had made efforts to liaise with Depop directly and reported the fake pieces resulting in all the listings being taken down. And this isn’t the only time the forum has rallied against people selling fake items moonlighting as cheap authentic ‘steals’. “People who willingly sell replicas as authentic items are the worst,” Tripping insists. “Knowing that a replica looks so close to retail and not selling it for a lot of profit is challenging for some people.”

Conversely, enjoying replicas as they are comes with its own baggage. Reports indicate that counterfeit fashion is a trillion-dollar industry. "One of the worst stories I read was where they had raided an illegal factory and the children were actually handcuffed to the sewing machines," Ariele Elia, an assistant curator at the Museum at FIT explained in a Complex documentary about the flourishing bootleg industry.

Fashion Revolution, a not-for-profit global movement campaigning for the systemic reform of the fashion industry, notes that there’s an “urgent lack of transparency.” Policy Director at Fashion Revolution, Sarah Ditty, told us that counterfeiting doesn’t usually come hand in hand with good rights and wages for workers. “Factories making counterfeit items are doing so illegally so it’s in their interest to operate completely under the radar and in doing so means we have no idea who the workers are making these products, what they are being paid, what conditions they’re working in, and what sort of poor environmental practices are most likely happening in these factories.”

To them, the moral standpoint is clear: “We would definitely encourage people not to buy fake luxury goods or any other counterfeit items because you’re almost guaranteed to be contributing to human exploitation and environmental degradation.” This is an issue that goes beyond fakes: when you look beyond the manufacturing level at the places where fabrics are made, yarns are spun and fibres are grown, even legitimate brands are guilty of obscuring working conditions.

But Tripping insists it's a media smoke-screen. “adidas and Nike were called out for their treatment of workers in the 90s and early 2000s, so now every factory in Asia is associated with bad conditions and child labour.” Tripping also claims that sellers are in fact increasingly transparent about working conditions, their treatment of employees and factories. “They show what their shop looks like, I’ve even asked sellers to show their shops,” he remarked in one of his videos. “And they’ve posted videos on the (subreddit).” One video posted shows a “top quality Yeezy” factory filled with workers. “Actually looks very clean and cool compared to all of the bad warehouse jobs I used to do here in the US,” Redditor highnnmighty comments.

“That’s like asking if I’ll ever go back to my ex, it was a fun time but in the end, you just feel shitted on” – Dennis, on whether or not he will stop buying fakes

Central to what makes FashionReps a great community isn’t the collective middle-finger to resale culture and hypebeasts or the internet-savvy tips, but the irreverent charm and supportive nature of young people who ultimately just want to look cool, and don’t want money to be the reason that they miss out. It’s rare, if not impossible, to find fashion spaces that aren’t hierarchical, based on wealth, social standing, and nepotism, but FashionReps manages to do all of that, and more. Camiel tells me that recently, the subreddit even banded together to target sellers who began taking higher cuts from sales. “I love how we sometimes work together to get something we want.”

Confronted with the fact that buying reps are taking sales away from workers, brands, and designers, Tripping is unfazed. “Once a limited shoe is released, and sold out in seconds, the company has made its profit. The average cost of manufacturing an Air Jordan 1 is $15-$16. The mark up of that shoe is more than 100 per cent. Nike has no problem with this. If you are wearing a replica of that overpriced shoe (on the resell market), you are basically advertising the brand. The culture side of sneakers is bland and fraudulent, replicas are there to stir things up.”

When asked if he’d ever give up replicas and return to buying retail, Dennis scoffed before saying: “That’s like asking if I’ll ever go back to my ex, it was a fun time but in the end, you just feel shitted on.”

[sayamis]

Reasons Why Amazon Product Reviews Are Important For Merchants

Amazon customers love product reviews. Where else can you go to read hundreds of honest testimonials or reviews on every aspect of the product? We'll also demonstrate why product reviews are crucial for sellers.

Reviews on the internet are a popular choice with consumers

Every study has proven that consumers are increasingly reliant upon online reviews when making purchasing decisions. A recent study found that 70% of all global customers trust reviews on the internet. This is an increase of 15% in only four years. Industry experts project that this trend will continue to grow over the next few years.

If people are awestruck by online reviews, then what more motive does a business need? Sellers are in the business of delivering products that customers will praise. Acknowledging the growing importance of online reviews is the first step toward better understanding the marketplace.

Shoppers have faith in Amazon

Amazon has been claiming openly a passion for customers since it was founded at the time of its founding in 1994. Amazon's principles of leadership go as that they say "leaders are aware of competition, but they obsess about the customers." This insight allows one to see the way Amazon regards its millions of customers. Free shipping streaming music, cloud web services, a popular line of tablets and eReaders and the world's biggest selection of goods have helped build the trust of consumers.

This obsession has yielded huge dividends, especially over the past few years. Amazon Prime now has over 44 million customers, and its stock is constantly teasing $700 per share. For customers, this translates to a more enjoyable shopping experience, with more reviews and better prices.

Amazon actively defends the integrity of its reviews.

Online reviews have been in existence since before there have been people trying to get around the system. Amazon is aware that the integrity of their review system is an important reason why customers stay loyal. To protect its integrity the company has recently made news in the national press in announcing that it will prosecute people who publish false reviews.

The company's anti-manipulation strategy has been strengthened with the decision to sue. Amazon says, "Customers trust that they can shop safely on Amazon. Reviews provide a forum for providing genuine feedback on the products and services offered - either positive or negative. Any attempt to alter reviews, whether directly or indirectly posting false, misleading or inauthentic content, is strictly prohibited."

Merchants gain a useful supplier by selling their products on Amazon. High-integrity sellers can rest easy knowing that the playing field is not easily manipulated. Reviewr.co.uk is the best website where you can review for Amazon products to help boost your items' ranking on the site and also therefore boost sales.

Reviews can provide important market insights

For those who are new to e-commerce, determining which products to offer is overwhelming. Even for sellers with experience, this choice can be a challenge. To help organize this procedure, many sellers opt to read and monitor reviews.

Think about, for a moment the complete Amazon catalog of product categories. There are typically many subcategories within one category. Every item in a subcategory is assigned an Amazon Best Sellers rank. Through analyzing reviews for products at the top, middle and the bottom of these lists, sellers can gain invaluable insight into consumer preferences and concerns.

Reviews can serve as a digital focus group to assess any product. Merchants can make use of this data to place orders, make strategic placement decisions, or even create brand new products or brands to overcome the shortcomings of the current offerings.

Customers can vent about the product, but not the seller.

While products are certainly an image of the company's brand, it's not possible for a seller to guarantee satisfaction with every item sold. Dissonance can be caused by personal preferences as well as inaccurate sizing, unreasonable expectations, or other elements.

Amazon differentiates between feedback from sellers and customer reviews. A negative review about the product is more impactful than negative feedback. Through offering two different platforms for users to express their opinions, merchants are able to safeguard their reputations.

Smart sellers monitor Amazon reviews

As Amazon continues to gain dominance in e-commerce reviews will play a more significant role for third-party merchants. Understanding the psychology of customer reviews is essential to making the right business decisions, securing the Buy Box and ultimately thriving online.

[iwebscrapingblogs]

Which are The Best Scraping Tools For Amazon Web Data Extraction?

Web scraping is the method of extracting data from the internet. You'll usually want to analyze, evaluate, reformat, or transfer data into a worksheet after you have it.

Web extracting has numerous applications, but we'll emphasize just a couple today: obtaining service and product information from markets. Retailers utilize this information to gain a better understanding of the business and its competitors.

In reality, the benefits can be enormous. To oppose your competitor's approach, you must first understand the concept. Knowing their rates, for instance, can provide you an advantage in sales by offering a special offer or selling at low rate. Amazon is one of the most popular online shopping destinations. People use it to order groceries, books, laptops, or even hosting plan solutions daily.

Amazon has the largest database for items, reviews, retailers, and market dynamics as a prominent e-commerce site. It's a gold mine for website data scrapers.

We'll look at the top APIs for scraping Amazon data without getting prohibited. This blog will save your precious time if you're looking for the finest tool to extract data from Amazon.

Let's get started!

Reasons Behind Scraping Amazon Data

If you try to sell any product online, some of the necessary steps are:

Competitor Analysis

Enhancing Your Product And Value Proposal

Learning Market Tendencies And Manipulating Them.

By extracting amazon data, you can simply collect, compare and monitor competitive product details, such as pricing, ratings, and availability. You cannot only assess their cost management, but can also uncover amazing offers for resale.

In the blog, we are providing few web scraping tools for scraping amazon data.

Why Use Web Scraping API?

Amazon is among the biggest online stores in history. As a result, Amazon has one of the largest databases of information about customers, items, ratings, sellers, market dynamics, and even user temperament.

Before we learn the specifics of data extraction, it's worth noting that Amazon does not support internet scraping. This is because the page structure differs depending on the product categories. Simple anti-scraping techniques are in place on the website, which may prevent you from gathering the information you seek. Aside from that, Amazon can tell whether you're scraping it with a scraper. Besides that, Amazon can detect if you are scraping it with a bot and will immediately block your IP address.

Amazon Web Scraping Tools For The Job

We'll scrape using a terminal and some curl requests to get the job done as quickly as possible even without the need to create a new project for each application we test. To test out, we've chosen five promising web scraping APIs.

Let us take each of them for a test and search out which is the best web scraping tool for amazon data scraping.

1. Web Scraping API

Web Scraping API is a program that enables us to scrape any web resource. It uses a simple API to extract HTML from any web page and returns ready-to-process data. It's useful for extracting product data, processing real estate, HR, or financial data, and even tracking market data. We can get all the information we need from a specific Amazon product page using Web Scraping API.

For instance, find an exciting product on the Amazon market.

The product page seen in the image above will be scraped.

Secondly, let’s get the product’s page

URL:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088CZW8XC/ref=gw_uk_desk_h1_vicc_sh_cto_kif0321?pf_rd_r=RYXBGN8C757Y9BD6W38B

We will be taken to the application's dashboard after creating a new Web Scraping API account. To test the application, Web Scraping API offers a free plan with 1000 requests. For what we're going to do, that's more than enough.

We'll go to the dashboard page and click the "Use API Playground" button. We can see the complete curl command here, which will assist us in scraping the Amazon product page.

Let's copy and paste the product's URL into the URL field. The preview of the URL command on the right will alter as a result of this.

After you've finished this step, copy the curl command and copy this into a new terminal session. If you follow the above procedure, you should have something similar to this:

When we press enter, Web Scraping API will return the product's page in HTML format.

According to our results, Web Scraping API was able to successfully obtain the required information in 99.7 percent of the situations, with a success rate of 997 out of 1000 queries and a 1-second latency.

2. ScrapingBee

ScrapingBee allows you to scrape without even being blocked using both traditional and premium proxies. It concentrates on collecting all the required data for rendering websites in a real browser (Chrome). Developers and businesses can scrape without worrying about proxies or headless browsers thanks to their vast proxy pool.

Let's try scraping the same Amazon page we scraped earlier. Make a new ScrapingBee account, browse to the app's dashboard, and paste the previous URL in the URL input.

In the "Request Builder" area, click the "Copy to clipboard" button. Open a terminal window and paste the copied code and hit “ENTER”.

With this command, we'll scrape the same page on the Amazon marketplace so that we can compare the results from each API.

According to our investigation, ScrapingBee was able to correctly obtain information in 92.5 percent of the situations with a rather large latency of 6 seconds.

3. Scraper API

Web scraper API is a development tool for web scrapers or a tool that extracts any data using a simple API call. The web service will manage proxies, browsers, and CAPTCHAs, allowing developers to achieve raw HTML from any website. Furthermore, the product will achieve a balance in functionality, dependability, and use.

We'll create a fresh account on Web Scraper API and use 1000 free requests for evaluating their crawling technology, exactly like we did before. We will be forwarded to the following page once we have completed the registration process:

ScraperAPI does not appear to offer the ability to change the curl query by writing the new URL at the first sight. This isn't a large deal. We'll start a new terminal window and paste the code from the "Sample API Code" field.

As we can see, the default URL that it’s being scraped is “http:/httpbin.org/ip”. We are going to change it to the escaped version of the product’s page URL presented at the top of the section. Change the previously presented link with the following one:

The final command should look something like this:

After pressing enter, the HTML code for the product's page will be shown. Of course, you can manipulate the generated data structure with Cheerio or any other markup parser.

ScraperAPI appears to be the finest option, with a success rate of 100% and a latency of less than one second.

4. Zenscrape

Zenscrape is a web scraping API of sorts that will return the HTML of any website, allowing developers to collect data faster and efficiently. By solving Javascript rendering or CHAPTCHAs, the program will allow you to fetch the website content seamlessly and reliably.

Once we complete the registration process as before, we will be readdressed to the dashboard page.

Copy and paste the product’s page URL in the URL input.

Scroll down to the middle of a page to get the curl command we need to scrape the Amazon data. Copy it to the clipboard by clicking the “Copy to Clipboard” button, then paste it into a new terminal window. It should look like this:

Unlike other web scraping tools, the result that will be displayed would be in HTML page format.

According to our analysis, Zenscrape has a 98 percent success rate, with 98 successful requests out of 100 and a latency of 1.4 seconds. This ranks it lesser than the preceding tools, but it has one of the most intuitive and elegant user interfaces, and it gets the job done.

5. ScrapingAnt

ScrapingAnt is a web harvesting and scraping solution that offers its users a complete online gathering and scraping experience. It is a facility that manages Javascript processing, the headless browser informs the management, proxy variation and rotation, and proxy diversity and rotation. This scraping API has the high availability, dependability, and feature flexibility to meet the needs of any organization.

As before, we go through the same process, initially, create an account on Scraping Ant and make use of its 1000 free requests for scraping amazon product data.

Replace our URL in the URL input field, copy the curl command to a new terminal window, and hit ENTER.

This will yield an HTML structure that we can parse using Cheerio or another markup parser. ScrapingAnt's key features include Chrome page rendering, output preprocessing, and scraping requests with a low risk of CAPTCHA check triggering.

According to our analysis, ScrapingAnt has a success rate of 100 percent and a latency of three full seconds. Although has one of the highest success percentages on this list, the 3-second latency is a major issue when scraping a large amount of Amazon product data.

Final Thoughts

We sought to figure out what the effective tool for the occupation was during this process. We were able to examine and analyze five scrapers and discovered that the outcomes were not that dissimilar. They're all capable of getting the job done in the end. Each scraper's delay, rate of success, amount of free requests, and pricing makes a difference. When it comes to scraping Amazon data, Web Scraping API is a good choice because it has one of the smallest latency (1 second) and a near-100 percent success rate. It has a free tier for those who don't need to make a lot of requests, as well as 1000 free inquiries if you just want to play about with it.

AScrapingBee is another web scraper we certify, however, the results are unsatisfactory. We have a hard time getting the information we needed on our Amazon goods with a success rate of only 92.5 percent and a somewhat long latency.

ScraperAPI is also one of the fastest scrapers we've come across. It has better effects in the level of technical criteria, with only a 1-second delay and a 100% success rate. Its disadvantage is the user interface, which appears to be the most basic. Another flaw is the price plan, which does not have a free tier.

Zenscrape features the most user-friendly interfaces of any scraper we have evaluated. WebScrapingAPI is the only one that comes close. Zenscrape has a 1.4-second latency and a 98 percent success rate.

ScrapingAnt is the most recent scraper we tested. It's an excellent option for extracting the Amazon information we require, but it's a little slow, with such a latency of around 3 seconds and a rate of success of 100%.

Finally, when it collects Amazon product information, all of the web scrapers we examined perform admirably.

Instead of trying yourselves, we recommend contacting iWeb Scraping services for genuine amazon data scraping delivery.

We are always available to deliver the best services.

https://www.iwebscraping.com/which-are-the-best-scraping-tools-for-amazon-web-data-extraction.php

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), Early May 2024

Welcome to my latest coverage of Etsy and other ecommerce news, early May edition. I am off for a short vacation Monday, so thought it best to get this report out now.

Want to get shorter versions of these reports but more frequently? Become a paying member of my Patreon. I will be adding new resources and content there once I get back from my trip.

Want to get these posts via email? Sign up here.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy’s first quarter financial report for 2024 was not great, but that was expected.  The real news is that they no longer expect the current quarter to be much better [Tumblr post by me]. Also, they are still planning on changing search. 

Canadian shipping service Chit Chats is shutting a dozen offices in 4 provinces, starting April 29 through May 15 [LinkedIn Post by me]. It appears they expanded too fast and have much more competition now than when they first opened, so the additional locations were not very busy. Some may be replaced by drop off points. There is a thread in the Etsy forum with more info.

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman made over $16 million in 2023, roughly the same amount as 2022 [pdf; see page 56]. Almost all of that was stock options. Chief Financial Officer Rachel Glaser made over $8 million, as did Chief Technology Officer Rachana Kumar. 

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy buyers are receiving emails asking them to rate their recent purchases, as discussed in this Etsy forum thread. The owner of Garden Path Rosaries at Peter's Square Marketplace sent me the screenshot below, which popped up after they clicked the email to confirm they had received the order.

These questions may be connected to details popping in recent reviews, even though the popups and emails say the feedback “won’t be shared with the seller or shown on Etsy.” See this screenshot from Kathie from PillowDetail’s shop:

It’s also possible these review details come from a different test, or even from the act of leaving a review, as some buyers report getting similar options when they leave public reviews. [As is usual with Etsy, they change a lot of things without explaining how any of it works.]

Etsy seems to have deleted most Messages in seller spam folders without any warning, and some shop owners are not happy about it. [The only one I have left is a recent Message that Etsy moved there erroneously.]

Etsy is still promoting its TurboTax discount to Canadian sellers - even though the integration only works in the US. [post by me on LinkedIn]

Canadians no longer need to have a Canada Post Solutions for Small Business account to use Etsy Labels - and the discount for Tracked Packet to the US is very good. [Patreon post by me]

NBC News calls out Etsy for AI crochet patterns that don’t work. While the article blames the images being made by AI, I’ll bet the patterns were too. 

Despite this type of criticism over allowing AI items to be sold on the site, Silverman told a recent investors conference that he is still all in on AI in many forms. “Many sellers on the platform are generating content in collaboration with a machine, Silverman said, and a large amount of new item listings are generated in collaboration with GenAI. But given that Etsy is a platform for handmade goods, the boundary between man-made and machine-made required some clarification. “We had some discussions about, is that handmade or not? Does that belong on Etsy? And we decided, ultimately, that it was—in the same way that electronic dance music, the most popular form of music in the world right now, is collaborations between humans and synthesizers,” said Silverman. “I think this collaboration between humans and machines to generate art is actually going to be the next frontier.” He did admit that the search chatbot tested on the app many months back was poorly received. [The article is really worth reading, in my opinion.]

Gift Mode has now launched worldwide [text with embedded video], and gift teasers will soon include videos from the giver. The teasers have been growing in popularity, with 7% of gift orders in March using the teaser. 

The Marketplace Trends report for spring & summer is out, and apparently there has been a 266% increase in searches for divorce gifts. Even more impressive is a ”2,159% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for lawn games”. Skim through the whole report if you want to know what is trending up. 

Etsy released 2 different “impact goal” posts on Earth Day, which included Reverb and Depop. While you can read a lot more detail in the 2023 Integrated Annual Report [pdf], here are the individual posts: 

Environmental impact goals: reduced carbon emissions, on track to be net zero carbon emissions by 2030. “[S]ellers created 108 million listings with circular attributes on the Etsy, Depop and Reverb marketplaces, including vintage, upcycled, used and secondhand items.” The document mentions increasing Disaster Response Grants (for U.S sellers only) and “open source resource guides that help makers access climate-related disaster information and funding.” 2024 goals are listed. 

Social impact goals: discusses gender, race and disability representation in its workforce, and funding for “creative entrepreneurs from low-income and underserved communities.” 

Related to the environmental impact goals, Etsy published a disaster guide (mostly US-focussed), and put out a (very short) funding guide for US sellers at the same time.  

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon added over 5 million sellers since 2018, 2 million of them in the US. That's only about 100,000 more than Etsy in the same time period, comparing 4th quarter 2018 to the end of 2023. 

There are now Amazon shoppable livestreams on Prime Video and Freevee. “Amazon Live’s FAST channel will feature 24/7 programming from popular creators and celebrities, such as reality TV stars …Brands like Tastemade and The Bump will also host streams to sell their products.”

Amazon drone delivery is ending in California, but continues in Texas and will soon start in Arizona. 

Amazon’s first quarter was great, but note that ⅔ of its operating income comes from the cloud services, not ecommerce. 

BigCommerce

BigCommerce announced many new features, including more country localization, new builder options, syncing inventory through Feedonomics, and of course, AI. 

eBay

eBay is now testing an Explore feature to put together a clothing shopping feed with AI. I don’t have this in Canada yet, but it has been spotted in the US and the UK, and the links in the article do work in Canada. I selected a bunch of women’s options and was presented with a feed that had a lot of men’s clothing, so this appears to work about as well as Etsy’s Gift Mode, which Liz Morton compared it to.

eBay’s sales and revenue were both up slightly in the first quarter, while active buyers were down 1% from the year before. 

Shopify

Shopify is reorganizing Support, in part to inject more AI into the process. Employees are worried about possible layoffs. 

Walmart

Cart.com is now helping new sellers start on Walmart Marketplace, and is offering multi-channel syncing for existing businesses as well. 

All Other Marketplaces

Vinted has turned a profit for the first time, riding the trend of interest in secondhand clothing.

Ruby Lane will be increasing its shop fee to $45 from $25 as of June 1, and will be removing the rebate for listing 15 new items monthly. 

Bonanza’s annual Spring sale runs May 8th to 15th. The coupon code sellers must activate is SpringSale2024. 

The EU has forced Shein under the umbrella of the Digital Services Act.”The European Commission specifically noted new requirements for Shein around illegal products on its site. The company will have four months to submit a risk assessment report and will need to introduce mitigation measures against “the listing and sale of counterfeit goods, unsafe products, and items that infringe on intellectual property rights.”

Shipping 

Labels service Shippo is introducing paid tiers for any businesses printing over 30 labels a month through its service. Anyone printing 30-200 labels a month will be charged $19 monthly; under that is free.

Canadian customers - who are already being charged 5 cents USD per label - are also affected, although we get fewer features and carriers [Shippo just confirmed this via support ticket.] Sounds like there are cheaper options for most of us elsewhere now.

[looye29]

In today’s time with multiple avenues for expenses, we just cannot depend on a single salary. With prices being hiked all the time, depending on one income is never advisable. You have to look for an alternate means of earning, which ideally should not take too much of your time and energy. When you search the internet for additional earning options, you would have come across the term affiliate marketing. They claim just with a click, you can earn hundreds of dollars each day! Sounds very tempting, I’m sure! However, you should be careful in picking a reliable site that does not run away with your money but helps you in achieving what you want from them – more income. Some people run out of luck in affiliate marketing, while many make good money with just a few clicks. Want to know a legitimate site that works? Let’s review the site called Affiliate Bots 2.0 developed by Chris. What is Affiliate Bots 2.0 Affiliate marketing is selling others’ products for them, and you can choose the products that you want to promote and sell. You will be getting affiliate links that you can use to post about the products on the internet. When a product is sold, you get a substantial amount as a commission from the seller. Affiliate Bots is one such platform that has many upgraded features with a focus on improving traffic generation all the time. You get access to a multitude of tools, updated now and then to keep pace with the constantly changing industry. Affiliate Bots 2.0 does not talk about just one tool. It is a collection of many tools and apps to help you succeed in affiliate marketing. Each software has a distinct role within the Affiliate Bot 2.0. you will find buyer bot tools, affiliate marketing tools, website creation apps, and video creation apps. Only a few main affiliate networks are focused on Affiliate Bot. they are ClickBank, Amazon, JVZoo, and WarriorPlus. For the same price, you get additional 20 tools to make your task easy. How it works There are many steps involved in making use of the affiliate program: You have to buy the program to use all its features. Create a website with the help of the Click Video Pages tool, Click Affiliate Software, and Presenting Affiliate Ads. You will also learn to create a domain for the website with the help of the Domainaveli software You start to learn to generate traffic and earn commissions using Rapid Rank Software. This will help you to create targeted traffic on Google and YouTube. Affiliate Bots 2.0 is about making your efforts of building an affiliate marketing business that will bring you profits. It helps you with identifying lucrative opportunities, keywords, and traffic sources. You will get access to tools such as additional banners and upgrades to the AI search tool. Once you have logged in, you will be taken to a page where the tools are listed. You will find: ProClub Affiliate Program – this takes you back to the ProClub home page where you can look for top-selling products from WarriorPlus, JVZoo, and ClickBank AI Traffic Search Engine – you will be allowed to search, browse, and filter websites 10-in1 Web Widget – you will be permitted to personalize and include widgets such as popups and coupons to improve the conversion CB 250 – you will get a list of the top 250 products of ClickBank Rapid Video Software – you can convert text into a video using this software Domainaveli – you can find domains like GoDaddy Dropaveli – dropped or expired domains are listed here There are many such software that you get for the small amount that you pay as a fee for this. The program comes to you with tools that are helpful to promote sales of digital products from ClickBank, WarriorPlus, etc. Affiliate Bots 2.0 is not essentially a training program, but you will find PDF and video training material inside. The software tools offered by Affiliate Bots are very helpful. The Rapid Video helps you learn to convert text to videos.

The 1-Click Affiliate teaches you to convert headlines and improve copywriting skills. Affiliate Bots 2.0 is meant to help you in running an affiliate business. You can make use of the software to make an inroad into affiliate marketing. There are a few bonuses that come with the buy: Details of Techniques used by Chris to generate massive traffic 3 Bonus systems Additional Training on creating income Additional Training on using each software and features Upgradation Pros Easy and informative software tools Very affordable Money-back guarantee after 60 days Compatibility with all niche markets Comes with Quick Start guide, a PDF Quickstart videos Anyone can become an affiliate marketer using this tool. No qualification or age specifications You can easily convert the products into sales and thereby earn commissions You can get the program online after the payment You need not work on the payment process as the businesses will take care of it Cons Many claim that it is misleading market Not ideal for a beginner as he has to go through the Quick Start PDF guide thoroughly Some complain that the dashboard is not organized properly. You have to browse through the pages to access the one you want. Many tools are made available to you only when you search for them manually The training kit is not updated There is no social proof from other fellow affiliate marketers about this No free trial and no private coaching available Should You Buy It? Affiliate Bots 2.0 comes with extremely helpful tools that can take your business to new heights. The software and the easy-to-understand instructions can help you make three times more profit than you are currently making. It is certainly not a scam - you will get a refund in case you are not happy with the product. But you can be sure that with all their strong and tested features, you will make money – you have to trust it, learn it, and implement it. You pay for the program only once and there are no upsells involved. With 37 programs, tools, and systems involved, you can make good money using this program. Your satisfaction is fully guaranteed. I recommend giving a try to Affiliate Bots 2.0, considering the enormous benefits. I will certainly give this program 5 stars!

[cindylouwho-2]

Recent Ecommerce News (Including Etsy), October 2023

Hello and welcome to my new format for ecommerce business news updates! Instead of jamming everything in one long report, I am now going to divide them up into 1) ecommerce site news, including:

Etsy news

all other marketplaces and website builders

payment processing

shipping

and 2) a SEO & online business news update, including:

social media

general SEO

content marketing

ads & stats

consumer trends & psychology,

graphic design tools (images, video etc.)

The new plan is to release the ecommerce one more frequently, and to do less frequent updates on SEO etc.

Remember, if you want to get more regular updates on these topics - especially Etsy - please follow me on Twitter, on LinkedIn, or on Bluesky. I also post major updates on Reddit.

Please let me know what you think of these changes!

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy has removed “Other” as a shipping carrier option for US and UK shops. I covered the basics in a short post, but the bottom line is, if you use a service Etsy doesn’t offer in the shipping option menu, you need to choose the one closest to it in delivery times. Buyers do not see the service used; you can still name it whatever you want for selections in the cart if it is an upgrade. The workaround is useless, of course, in the many cases where Etsy doesn’t offer any options that are close to true shipping times. 

This change, coupled with Etsy’s recent policy clarification that items that arrive after the latest estimated delivery date are eligible for purchase protection refunds, means that anyone shipping without tracking/Etsy Labels, or orders over $250 (or $500 USD from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31) is at risk of having to issue a full refund because Etsy does not provide realistic shipping times when listings are set up. Etsy is even promising buyers this upfront now; see my forum thread for more details. Etsy always claims they will update carriers for major delays, as they are doing again this year, but sellers rarely see evidence of that. On that note, per that last link, Etsy is also promising to “...amplify items with faster delivery options and items expected to arrive by the holidays to shoppers in December more than we usually do.” Note that does not necessarily mean they will add more localization to searches, as they stress shorter processing times, ready-to-ship items, and shipping upgrades as ways to be ready for those Etsy changes. 

The UK is the latest jurisdiction cracking down on online tax cheats, by asking various online platforms to report seller income to the government. “If you make more than £1,000 alongside your regular job in the tax year then you need to register yourself as self-employed and report your income to HMRC. You then have to pay tax on this income.” This may also catch people who didn’t declare money earned before 2022. 

Numerous shipping companies are not providing service to Israel and the Gaza Strip currently, and eBay is not allowing sales from the US to Israel. That link is being updated as new announcements are made.

ETSY NEWS 

As mentioned above, Etsy’s Seller protection threshold will be raised to $500 from $250, from November 1 to December 31 only. 

Support told a UK seller they will be able to opt out of Etsy’s Offsite Ads as of February 2024, due to the Digital Services Act. Don’t forget that shops in the EU as well as Switzerland can opt out now, but you do have to contact Etsy to do that. Note that some EU sellers are struggling to get Etsy to acknowledge the right to opt out now, with some Support staff stating it does not kick in until February 2024. Is Etsy’s legal department really that disorganized? Maybe I should come out of retirement…

Etsy says it has changed how it deals with automated flags of possible violations of its handmade policy. Listings will be deindexed instead of deactivated, and Etsy claims that anything that doesn’t get reviewed by human staff on Etsy by the 48 hour mark will be reindexed. I wrote a bit more about this on LinkedIn. Sadly, we aren’t seeing evidence of this new system yet, with plenty of lengthy handmade takedowns continuing. 

Any changes to handmade flagging aren’t stopping the usual “bought drop-shipped garbage on Etsy by accident” news articles, though. Also, USB sticks of pirated movies are also a big “handmade” item now. 

I covered Etsy’s new Share & Save program on my blog; it’s not horrible, but is also not worth changing your business plan for. Modern Retail referred to it as “...ask[ing] Etsy sellers to be their own affiliates." [soft paywall]

Etsy Payments - the marketplace's internal payment processor - is now available in Thailand & Ukraine; it will be coming soon to Japan, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and India. This means new shops can open in those countries, since Etsy currently does restrict new shops to countries with Etsy Payments (except for India). This is also a new source of income for the corporation, since Etsy Payments will be mandatory in these countries in 2024. Note that some of the new countries will require a Payoneer account, which has an annual fee in some countries if the business does not meet a minimum threshold. 

If you are in Canada and have been asked to provide Etsy with your Social Insurance Number, this is due to the INFORM Act, and affects sellers grossing at least $5000 in US sales a year who do not already have a GST/HST ID number submitted to Etsy. I covered this topic with citations on LinkedIn. 

There is a new Etsy gift receipt that includes a QR code for the shop, but unfortunately it doesn’t include the names of the recipient or buyer. I’m not joking. They say they are working on it, though! Because no one could have predicted that gift notes should have the name of the giver and receiver on them, am I right?

As promised in previous quarterly reports, Etsy has released a beta version of a price optimization tool. Here's what it looks like:

Thanks to Emily of EveryDayDabble for this screenshot.

For most shops, they will see very few listings analyzed at the moment, and sadly, it’s just as bad as the last time they did this many years ago. (Mine compares sterling silver to silver plate, for example, and also compares two very different types of clip-on earring attachments.) Currently not ready for prime time. Etsy forum discussion for your entertainment.

The third quarter results get released on November 1. I will post my coverage on Tumblr a few days afterwards.

Etsy has finally done something useful to stem the spate of scammers and hackers using Etsy Messages: a note explaining some scam elements, linking to a new Help file on the topic.

There is also a forum discussion thread with confirmation from Etsy staff. Even better, they now have a special section in Etsy Messages for contact from Etsy staff, and a “From Etsy” badge on those messages.

Sellers outside of the US report that the domestic pricing tool is broken, ever since Etsy introduced the “new” (and incomplete) listing experience earlier this year. Some report that switching back to the old listing page does not solve the problem. This means that anyone trying to add domestic tax to their domestic prices may be forced to pay that tax out of their pockets instead of having it covered by the tool. Etsy is so unconcerned about this issue that is stealing money from shop owners that forum mods are just closing threads without even commenting.

The Etsy Holiday Trend report says baking is still in, as is having a dinner party. “...[T]here has been a staggering 28,277% increase in searches for zodiac tea towels, a 5,980% increase in searches for natural linen placemats, and a 4,109% increase in searches for handmade barware or glassware.” Travel items are also up. 

Etsy’s holiday cyber sale runs for 5 weeks this year, and they are asking for discounts of at least 25% off. Since regular sales can only run for 30 days on Etsy, they provide a link to set up this special event for the correct number of days. If you use Share and Save (see blog post link above) and run a Cyber Sale using the sale link above, and use the seller app and approved image to post your sale on social media, Etsy is entering you into a draw for $40 worth of listing credits. [That’s a lot of hoops to jump through for $40, all to make less money per sale, promote Etsy, and let them track you through the seller app.] 

Use the hashtag #FestiveEtsyFinds on Instagram if you want a chance to be featured on Etsy’s feed. 

If you had recent issues with listing edits not saving while using the seller app, you may need to update to a newer version to fix the issue. 

I’ve seen some folks insisting that Etsy doesn’t use images for search ranking. If that were true, Etsy Ads certainly would not be showing irrelevant tags that are based solely on the photo, right? 

Etsy Labels for (domestic) Royal Mail now come with a QR code, so you can print at the post office instead of at home. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS (minus social media)

General

Shein has partnered with Forever 21, likely as a way for the ecommerce site to grow in the United States. Forever 21 clothing will be available on Shein, and the opposite - Shein products in brick and mortar stores - is also possible. Shein opened a third-party marketplace catering to the US last month. 

Goodwill is still struggling to compete in the ecommerce sector of used and vintage goods. [NYTimes gift link; no paywall]  

It is interesting to look at the top ecommerce sites by traffic worldwide, but remember that data like this comes from estimates based on tracking some people’s browsing habits. Only the sites themselves know what their real traffic is. 

Amazon

The big US lawsuit against Amazon was finally filed in late September. [Washington Post gift link; no paywall] “Fees, requirements and incentives let Amazon collect one out of every two dollars a seller makes on the platform, effectively resulting in a “50 percent Amazon tax,” Khan said. The FTC argues those costs are then passed onto shoppers.”

If you sell on Amazon Handmade, check your handling times, as Amazon is switching them to shorter times in some cases. 

Amazon Warehousing Distribution is now available to businesses for shipping beyond individual customers. The new offering is called Multi-Channel Distribution.

The holiday return deadline for Amazon purchases made between November 1 and December 31 is January 31, 2024. 

India Post and Indian Railways both have new agreements with Amazon intended to improve shipping options in the country. 

South Africa is the latest country with its own Amazon site. 

Look out for a big change in US search in January, as Amazon adds a generative AI tool. “Amazon’s new generative AI tool will be developed using human AI trainers, who will continuously review the quality of answers the bot provides. Additionally, the tool will have access to proprietary shopping data sourced from Amazon’s extensive product catalog, complemented by user behavior data, and purchase and review information.” [Some of what staff said at a company-wide meeting echoed Etsy CEO Josh Silverman comparing keyword search with a more immersive experience that compares to shopping through an experienced sales clerk.]

eBay

eBay sellers who ship to the EU will have to display their addresses and other contact information to EU buyers starting in early 2024, to comply with the Digital Services Act. We should expect a lot more announcements in this area over the next few months, as platforms scramble to comply. 

eBay is testing a new tool that supposedly creates entire listings from just one photo, through AI. It’s only on the iOS app so far, but Android is in the works. The author tried out the earlier, simpler version, and didn’t think it offered much. 

Very affordable Canada Post tracked packages within Canada are now available to eBay sellers in all categories, for parcels up to 200g. 

Scammers are inserting fake listings on eBay that tell customers to click links to purchase. Even if the links do not lead to malware or phishing schemes, directing sales offsite is not allowed. Worse, the scammers are buying top-placed ads to get seen. 

eBay has now extended their presale ship-by date to 40 days from 30. “Even with the extended time period, presales will likely continue to be a point of contention between buyers and sellers as many listings fail to meet all three requirements of the policy and eBay is still lax in enforcing the policy or removing listings that are not in compliance.”

Here are the highlights of the Fall 2023 Seller Update. 

Poshmark

Poshmark is closing in India, Australia & the UK, to focus on the site in the US and Canada. The last day is October 25th. 

Poshmark is following eBay in the “AI creates a listing for you” category. 

Shopify

All Shopify websites in the US can now offer Amazon’s “Buy with Prime”, which “...enables merchants who use Amazon’s payment and fulfillment services to include Amazon’s checkout service and speedy shipping guarantees on items sold from their own sites.” The rollout should have been completed by the end of September. 

Like most website builders, Shopify is sometimes criticized for poor SEO, but there are ways to improve your site if you really want to. 

Walmart

Walmart held a “summit” for third-party marketplace sellers in Las Vegas, and wants more businesses to join. 

The Walmart extended holiday return period began October 1; anything purchased from now until the end of December can be returned until January 31, 2024. 

All Other Marketplaces

The Artisans Cooperative marketplace is in its final beta stage, with products from coop members now available for sale. The platform, which came together out of a sub-group involved in the “Etsy Strike” last year, will fully open with shops from non-members added very soon; there is a waitlist if you are interested. 

Faire has entered a deal with Shopify that makes Faire the recommended wholesale company for the website builder, and Shopify’s payment option will now be the recommended option on Faire. Shopify also gets some Faire shares in the deal. 

Mercari is also testing out a quick listing tool. All sellers need is a photo, title, and price, unless you want to add more. [Given how poorly machine learning and image recognition sometimes work, you will probably want to add more or correct some things, at least for the time being.] 

Etsy-owned Depop says free shipping isn’t as big of a plus as it used to be, and offering it isn’t an option with Depop’s shipping labels, which are compulsory for Depop seller protection. 

All Other Website Builders

GoDaddy has integrated Paze with both its Stores and Payments, but only to a few businesses at the moment as they test it out. Paze is a digital wallet. 

Payment Processing

Buy now pay later company Klarna is moving into more shopping options, with an image recognition tool to be used in its shopping app. 

Shipping 

Royal Mail hiked prices as of October 2. 

Many parcel companies have already released their holiday shipping deadlines:

USPS

Canada Post

Royal Mail

FedEx US (but includes international destinations)

If you ship into Germany and need a packaging permit for 2024, this Etsy thread explains how to get a discount.