It feels a little sad.
I closed our Etsy accounts yesterday. Been going since 2008- sharing yummy Indian stuff.
It has been a possibility for a while really.
Here in India we use the post office to dispatch and the rules are that every item has to be made into a parcel. First boxed, then covered in cloth and sealed with beeswax.
This means one person is busy for much of one day just doing packing for dispatch.... then there is filling in all the paperwork that has to be stitched onto the parcel and going to the post office.
We do spoil our local post office with lots of sweets at Diwali and the occasional something through the year, so they allow us to go in the afternoon when they are semi closed, but it still takes a few hours to leave the workshop, make the postings and return for our designated post person.
Then each and every sale, not matter how small must have an invoice raised for it and printed out and added to our sales register. OK. The postage proof slip has to be attached to prove it left the country- an export or else we would have to pay a tax on it for domestic sale.
That was all we had to do- postage proof sufficient to prove export.
Payments come in via PayPal directly to our bank.
We just found out, with new layers to the GST rules unrolling- it started 19 months ago and we are still finding out the full system, that the postage slip or courier bill is not sufficient proof of export- we need to have more paperwork from the bank.
OK for export order- they pay bank to bank - we have a clear paper trail.
but Paypal - allowed and encouraged by the government collects the money from afar and transfers it from its Indian account to our Indian account.
No clear paper trail as far as government is concerned so we need to pay a fee of 100 rupees and apply to Paypal to provide the paper trail the government requires for each and every PayPal transaction.
A letter to an exact format, copy of sales invoice and copy of dispatch receipt PER transaction has to be generated and sent to PayPal's bank along with a cashiers cheque for 100 rupees.
Unbelievable.
so much wasted time on paperwork, so many trees.
Our accountant was down yesterday and we looked carefully at exactly what we got back for all our efforts.
Etsy fees have gone up from 3.5 % on merchandise to 5% on merchandise and postage. I just got hit with US sales taxes, VAT not even sure from what country. So my etsy bill doubled for the month
and
PayPal says
4.4% + a set fee per country
BUT by the time it gets to our bank this is adding up to more like 10%- they charge to exchange
currencies and they give poor exchange rates.
So for any sale it looks like we loose up to 15 or 20%,
not to mention the amount of labour that goes into packaging and then generating paperwork and TREES we have to cut down to print it all.
Just a loosing preposition all around
So we have closed our Etsy accounts.
We still have our shop - we can send courier and use a speedy bag system.
and as ever if you want anything feel free to email
I enjoyed the tiny contacts I had with customers through Etsy- oh well.
I closed our Etsy accounts yesterday. Been going since 2008- sharing yummy Indian stuff.
It has been a possibility for a while really.
Here in India we use the post office to dispatch and the rules are that every item has to be made into a parcel. First boxed, then covered in cloth and sealed with beeswax.
This means one person is busy for much of one day just doing packing for dispatch.... then there is filling in all the paperwork that has to be stitched onto the parcel and going to the post office.
We do spoil our local post office with lots of sweets at Diwali and the occasional something through the year, so they allow us to go in the afternoon when they are semi closed, but it still takes a few hours to leave the workshop, make the postings and return for our designated post person.
Then each and every sale, not matter how small must have an invoice raised for it and printed out and added to our sales register. OK. The postage proof slip has to be attached to prove it left the country- an export or else we would have to pay a tax on it for domestic sale.
That was all we had to do- postage proof sufficient to prove export.
Payments come in via PayPal directly to our bank.
We just found out, with new layers to the GST rules unrolling- it started 19 months ago and we are still finding out the full system, that the postage slip or courier bill is not sufficient proof of export- we need to have more paperwork from the bank.
OK for export order- they pay bank to bank - we have a clear paper trail.
but Paypal - allowed and encouraged by the government collects the money from afar and transfers it from its Indian account to our Indian account.
No clear paper trail as far as government is concerned so we need to pay a fee of 100 rupees and apply to Paypal to provide the paper trail the government requires for each and every PayPal transaction.
A letter to an exact format, copy of sales invoice and copy of dispatch receipt PER transaction has to be generated and sent to PayPal's bank along with a cashiers cheque for 100 rupees.
Unbelievable.
so much wasted time on paperwork, so many trees.
Our accountant was down yesterday and we looked carefully at exactly what we got back for all our efforts.
Etsy fees have gone up from 3.5 % on merchandise to 5% on merchandise and postage. I just got hit with US sales taxes, VAT not even sure from what country. So my etsy bill doubled for the month
and
PayPal says
4.4% + a set fee per country
BUT by the time it gets to our bank this is adding up to more like 10%- they charge to exchange
currencies and they give poor exchange rates.
So for any sale it looks like we loose up to 15 or 20%,
not to mention the amount of labour that goes into packaging and then generating paperwork and TREES we have to cut down to print it all.
Just a loosing preposition all around
So we have closed our Etsy accounts.
We still have our shop - we can send courier and use a speedy bag system.
and as ever if you want anything feel free to email
I enjoyed the tiny contacts I had with customers through Etsy- oh well.
1 comment:
Always make it hard for the small people.. I am sure that is their mantra.. these huge companies don’t give a rats about the hard workers! I surethat your sales will still be consistent and great!!
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