Etsy to Offer Giftcards this Coming October

                                          Etsy Made Easy

Etsy gift cards! To some people that sounds like Christmas. In order to keep with this giving spirit, the handmade crafts site is waiving all credit card processing fees for new and existing users of its newly introduced direct checkout platform in the month of September in order to let sellers test the feature before the holiday season.

The gift cards are the first product offered to consumers from the direct checkout platform, launched just over six months ago and helps make buying on the site easier by streamlining checkout and payments between buyers and sellers. Etsy has already signed up more than 100,000 of its shops and processed $50 million on the platform.

Etsy is issuing and managing the gift cards to keep with the security and legal protections provided through the new payment system to make sure that gift card holders have all the legal protections required by each state and that sellers are not personally liable.  Shoppers have the option of emailing the gift cards directly to a friend or printing them out to give in person and they can only purchase the cards with a US credit card. The gift card credit will be in the form of a code, which buyers can use towards purchases at any shop accepting direct checkout.

Camilla Velasquez, director of payments at Etsy, said,  “The average order value for direct checkout orders is $2.50 higher than those without it and $4.50 higher when the buyer can choose between direct checkout and PayPal,” and since the site has no plans of doing away with PayPal, it will be more of an incentive for customers to quickly sign onto to the direct payment platform. Etsy is already  a mainstay in the handmade goods world, so adding gift cards to its repertoire of items makes visiting the site all the more sweeter for its shoppers.

By Ashley Paintsil

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