Technology

If you want something welded or smashed on with a hammer and you don't bring me the materials, I want cost of materials + 50% up front for custom work. Shit's expensive.

@skates

The article also goes on to show the typical Etsy customer and seller mentality (and as an Etsy customer I can say I also share this mentality. Keep in mind that most of the things sold on Etsy are small artisan/crafted goods and a lot of times the shipping cost can cost more than the item itself, much less tracked shipping):

A lot of sellers don't want to force their customers to pay for tracked shipping because international tracking can rack up a huge cost.

Steen Ross, from Norwich, has £1,800 held in a reserve on her Etsy account.

She has sold custom costumes to a largely American customer base on Etsy for a decade and relies on her Etsy income to pay rent.

"Most of my sales go to America and about 90% of people don't want to pay the additional cost of tracking because it's so expensive, they are happy for me to just provide proof of postage.

"I'm worried that if I raise prices to include tracking, I'll lose a lot of sales, but if I don't Etsy won't release funds from my reserve before 45 days."

It seems to me that, given the bespoke nature of so much stuff on Etsy, they should absolutely have a pay-up-front option for items that are being manufactured to order. In any other kind of bespoke trade, putting down a large deposit or even full prepayment would not be considered unusual at all.

Sure, there would be risks associated with doing this as a buyer, but I bet a lot of people would do it for a reputable and trusted vendor. Especially if the alternative is seeing large additional fees added to the order.