Another platform crash? A large number of sellers said their account funds were deducted

Recently, the well-known e-commerce platform Etsy has attracted attention from the outside world for forcibly freezing sellers' funds. After the news broke, it caused quite a stir both at home and abroad.

However, just as the sellers were expressing their opinions on this matter, the Etsy platform sent an email to the sellers, inviting them to participate in a new lending service launched by the platform - YouLend .

The sellers are a little confused now. What is this operation? The platform withholds the sellers’ money on one hand, and then starts to lend money to the sellers on the other hand. So the wool comes from the sheep, and the sellers’ own money is used to lend to the sellers?

A seller who has been operating on Etsy for four years said in an interview with the media that he did not know why the platform suddenly withheld the funds in his account.

According to the seller, he woke up one morning and saw a notice saying that the funds in his account would be used as "reserve funds" for 90 days, and 75% of sales would be withheld during this period.

In fact, as early as early April this year, many sellers reported that their account funds were frozen. Etsy issued a statement on this matter in May this year, saying: "When the reserve fund is activated, part of the funds in the seller's account will be used as a reserve fund. This is the platform's way of urging sellers to better fulfill orders and not to backlog orders. In fact, the funds for most orders in 2022 can be returned to the seller within 2 weeks after the order date."

In addition, Etsy also advises sellers to pay attention to risk factors that may lead to payment account reserves, including a sudden and significant increase in order volume; orders always lack logistics information; orders are not shipped on time; and there has been a recent increase in refunds.

However, the sellers are clearly not buying it. One seller posted: "It's really ironic. The platform has deducted millions of yuan from our reserve, and now they are asking us to take out a loan. Is this fair?"

Some sellers have also discovered that YouLend is actually a service provided by a third-party company, which also poses risks to the security of sellers' funds.

In recent years, Etsy has been plagued by controversy. After Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in March this year, Etsy defaulted on payments to a number of sellers, sparking strong dissatisfaction among sellers.

Now the "reserve" is being introduced, which is really making the sellers miserable. If the platform does not find ways to improve the business space for sellers, a group of sellers may choose to run away in the future.

Thunder

Etsy