Today, January 27, 2023, the following letter was sent to all registered vendors at FeelGood Fibers. Here on the blog, we’d like to chat a little more about the reasons behind this decision and our hopes for the future of FGF. We are so appreciative of your support and hope to continue to serve the needs of our community even better going forward!
Dear FeelGood Fibers Community Member,
When we started FeelGood Fibers in February 2020, our dream was to create an online destash marketplace for quilters to buy and sell secondhand fabric. For the past three years, you have worked with us to nurture and grow FeelGood Fibers into the vibrant, sustainable community that it is today.
As this community has grown, so have the costs and resources associated with running the site. For us to maintain (and improve) the FeelGood Fibers platform at the level of quality that our community deserves, it is necessary that we introduce a new fee structure to help offset our infrastructure costs.
Effective February 19, 2023, FeelGood Fibers will collect a 5% transaction fee at the time of sale. This percentage will be applied to the listing price and will be separate from any payment processing fees. Please be assured that we have made every effort to keep this fee to a minimum and to offer a fee structure that is lower than that of other marketplaces. We will continue to honor current price structures up to February 18, 2023.
We know change is always hard. And we greatly appreciate your continued partnership and support of FeelGood Fibers and the community that we have built together. If you have any additional questions or concerns regarding this new fee policy, please do not hesitate to reach out. As always, we are happy to discuss with you.
Sending love and good vibes,
Kim & Tom
And now, we just want to share some of our plans for the future with you, as well as some of the reasons behind the above decision.
What the 5% will be used for?
Storage: One of the main reasons that we need to implement these changes is because owning a website is expensive. For the past three years, we have run FeelGood Fibers at no cost to our users because we simply want to see this platform exist in the world. However, now that we have over 1000 vendors with listings and sales occurring daily, the site’s need for storage and maintenance has increased — and data storage is costly. In addition, there are software requirements, domain registration, site hosting costs and more The 5% fee will enable us to continue to operate the site securely and safely, while providing capability to expand as FeelGood Fibers continues to grow.
Maintenance: Our awesome and involved community emails us all the time with ideas for features and improvements they’d like to see at FGF. And we would like to give that to you! Collecting a fee will allow us to keep a developer involved in our site on a monthly basis making upgrades, updates, and making sure things stay running smoothly. How awesome is that!?!
Giving Back: One of the goals we have for the future is to donate a portion of FeelGood Fibers’ profits to not-for-profits that advance the missions of sustainability and preserving quilting.
If you’re going to charge a fee, why should I use FeelGood Fibers over Etsy?
A few reasons, actually.
- Even at 5% our fees are still significantly lower than Etsy’s. Etsy charges a listing fee of $.20 per item plus a transaction fee of 6.5% on the total listing price plus shipping.
- Etsy has so many sellers and items for sale that it is almost impossible to stand out without advertising. FeelGood Fibers is dedicated to sewists selling to sewists. It’s easy to find recently listed items and other fabrics using our search features.
- FeelGood Fibers is a community of like-minded sewists. We are supportive, creative, and sustainably-minded.
Why would I use FeelGood Fibers over Facebook or Instagram to destash?
Great question!
- You don’t need a large social following to get the word out.
- We collect your payment at the time of sale, so there’s never any worry that you’ll ship something and then not get paid — or pay and not receive your fabric.
- Amazing customer service (have you ever emailed back and forth with Tom? He’s the bestest!)
How much money will FeelGood Fibers be making now?
Just to keep it all in perspective — 5% of $1,000,000 in annual sales would still only be $50,000 for the year. We’ll let you know the year that FGF has $1,000,000 in sales. We’re not there yet, but if you continue to spread the word and buy and sell secondhand, maybe one day we will be!
Happy 3rd Birthday FGF!
