u/Neilss1

Serious post,
I have had around 700+ sales on this site but closed my store around 5 years ago to focus on other things outside of selling merch. I'm a professional merchandise designer fyi.

So after a long break because of some 'bad life experiences' I decided to reopen my store selling art prints and get back in the game (You can check my profile here to see the sort of stuff I sell just for reference)

I have come back to selling on Etsy and the marketplace is FLOODED with stolen artwork, a.i products that aren't even real. My hand drawn compositions/ paintings are getting removed and I cannot even appeal against it?!

Real art prints that I have produced from scratch are being removed while official artwork stolen directly from intellectual properties remains in the space.

The stolen work isn't really new but now I'm expected to spend more money to 'advertise' on the site and pay Etsy a larger premium for what seems like a massively restricted service to me as a seller. There's just more bills for me as an indie seller and less profit and more work to drive traffic to a site that doesn't seem on my side.....

What happened to this site? It used to be a fantastic place to sell products not its just a sea of fees to keeps Etsys profits up?