I’m Leaving Etsy…Finally…For Good

I am closing down my Etsy Shop.

I have shut down my Etsy shop many times in the past due to low sales but in the past I was still receiving some sales.

When I started selling on Etsy in 2006, I was very casual about it. I was sewing, beading, crocheting and paper crafting a variety of things and used Etsy as sort of a virtual craft show booth. I made a few sales here and there. It was enough to buy more craft supplies and it was fun. I needed it to be more though.

Here is the condensed version of my story. More to come in other blog posts or on my YouTube channel.

I am about to get very personal now…

I live with severe anxiety, OCD and panic disorder so it has been a dream of mine my whole life to somehow create a business for myself where I could successfully take care of myself in a way that did not involve a lot of in person interaction or leaving my house on someone else’s schedule. It is very difficult for me to hold a job for very long because employers tend to not appreciate when you late or have to leave early due to a panic attack or having to leave because someone in the office is ill and I am literally terrified to catch whatever it is. I am also super awkward and frequently misunderstood but I will save that for another time. Anyway…starting a handmade business where I could sell things online and do in person markets if I felt up to it seemed like the logical route to take.

Sometime around 2013, I was making dog collars and other accessories for my dogs Angel and Lily. I received a lot of compliments and a lot of people asking me if I could make them a collar or bandana or whatnot for their dogs. I started listing dog collars and bandanas on Etsy and started making way more sales. So many sales that I believed if I could figure out how to streamline the process and learn how to make other dog stuff that I actually had a chance.

In 2015, I made it Angel & Lily Dog Collars + Accessories an official and legal business. I started my website and started selling on my website as well as Etsy. Business was great! For the next three years, my sales revenue grew exponentially year over year to the point where in late 2018, I quit my full time job. Everything was good until 2020.

So the lockdown of 2020 happens and then BOOM…no more sales. It all came to a screeching halt. Then Etsy pushed all of us Etsy sellers to make fabric masks when there were no masks to buy from the store. I happily participated in that and 2020 did end up being one of my best years. Then it dropped off drastically and I went from making 10 sales a day to 10 sales a week. Now today in 2026 I am lucky to make two sales in a month.

There were some changes at Etsy that affected my sales. Etsy started allowing mass produced items, they changed the way their paid ad system worked and started pushing fast and free shipping.

Now a lot of my dog accessory competitors are large companies with factories with laser engraving and commercial embroidery machines which give them the ability to offer personalizations at a price that is half of what I have to charge to make a couple of dollars in profit. There is even a guy selling dog collars who has developed a program where you can pay to join and he will give you everything you need to sell dog collars on your own but he will make them for you like print on demand. From what I can see, there are a lot of shops on Etsy who are working with this guy.

I shut down my Etsy shop at the end of the year last year because quite frankly I am disgusted by the whole platform now but decided to try to resurrect it again this year because it was the only place I actually made even a little bit of money. I also sell vintage things on eBay and a different Etsy shop and other random platforms but that was not going well. I also at the same time decided to pursue selling on Spoonflower and Zazzle since I had been dabbling in surface pattern design. My thought was that maybe being able to offer some one of a kind fabric options for my accessories would help.

I cannot complete with the mass producers and resellers. Every listing costs money to list and maintain. The system requires sellers to continue to list and list and list and list constantly so that we can remain relevant and show up in search and even then we need to be running a sale so that we show up in searches that are filtered for sales or cheaper items.

Also, I can’t complete with the people who are really good at social media, YouTube and TikTok because I am not good at it. I can’t afford to hire someone to do it for me. I don’t feel like I am likable or pretty enough to build a personal brand in order to sell dog collars.

It’s not fun anymore. It’s soul sucking. It’s expensive.

I’m also part of the Etsy affiliate program, which means that I can post links to items on Etsy and make a small commission if items are purchased from clicking on my link. I was doing this because I believed in Etsy and Etsy sellers but now if you click on an affiliate link in a blog that goes to Etsy and buy something, that seller on Etsy is likely going to incur a 12-15% extra fee because Etsy now includes affiliate links on blogs in their offsite ad program which many sellers do not have the option to opt out of. More on that later…possibly on my YouTube. I am no longer going to promote items on Etsy with affiliate links in any blog posts going forward.

I am kind of just done with Etsy and their gross, predatory practices.

I will however be continuing to add new items here to my webstore that will be available for sale while supplies last.

Are you an Etsy seller or shopper? Let me know in the comments how you feel about Etsy these days!