A Tale of Goods and Sundries; Or, How Direct Checkout Works on Etsy
Step 1.) A customer purchases two of the items in your shop, totaling $87.50.
Step 2.) Somewhere in a building just east of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, a half-moon-bespectacled staff member at Etsy puts down his corncob pipe. He looks wistfully at the fob watch he's just plucked from his waistcoat pocket, dismayed at the interruption of his morning routine of attending to his correspondence on vintage hemp paper handmade by monks in the mountains of Nepal. He sets aside his bespoke steampunk quill pen, and almost knocks over the accompanying boysenberry ink. The kerfuffle has put him right off his tea, and he is now late to his appointment at the local haberdashery.
Step 3.) He angrily picks up his heavy wooden answerphone, and bellows into the receiver. "SARAH! Get me an outside line! Murray Hill Seven, Klondike Five!" Sarah is aghast. Once connected to the financial institution, he screams the order information over.
Step 4.) The customer receives a telegraph at the postmaster's leisure, informing her to expect an officer to come collect her funds in a burlap sack with a dollar sign on the front of it. He loads it into the back of the horse-drawn carriage, where it's to be taken to the bank three to five days hence, to be converted into gold bullion.
Step 5.) 6 months later, I receive payment for the items I've shipped off into the fucking wind without assurance that payment actually cleared when I did it. The bank officer has since died of consumption, Sarah has twisted her ankle in the rain and succumbed to the vapors, and I remit all of my earthly possessions to a convent and go live in a goddamn cave.
It takes 3 to 5 business days for money to be deposited into your bank account when someone buys something via Direct Checkout (instead of PayPal.)
It's almost 2015. NOTHING electronic has any business taking 3 to 5 non-weekend/holiday days to process. I hope you trip over that kitschy floor lamp made out of a taxidermied deer leg, fall into your ridiculous red phone booth and are never heard from again.
