Here We Go Again: Etsy Wholesale

Remember my love/hate relationship with Etsy? I love to shop there - mostly for supplies* - and hatehatehate to sell there. Or rather I'd love selling there, if I ever actually sold anything! (I technically still have a store - two in fact, one for pottery and one for soap, but there's nothing in either of them.) Two things made me walk away from Etsy last time:

1. I realized I was spending as much time promoting as I do making stuff, chasing after the Etsy dream. 
2. I noticed when people buy things from Etsy, that's how they describe it: "I got it on Etsy." The seller's name is lost to the mists of history. So all that promoting? Benefits Etsy more than the seller.I decided if I was going to promote, I might as well be promoting me.
    

The fees were adding up, too, as I had to keep listing and re-listing to keep my items visible a search. 

Ugh, I am having flashbacks. I swore off Etsy more than once but now? Now there's Etsy wholesale. The thing is, I've been wishing there was a high profile online means to reach wholesale buyers - kind of an ACC Baltimore, online. Wholesale show are crazy expensive, and I am small enough as a business that I couldn't fill the 50K worth of orders that would make it worthwhile. The only other way to find accounts is to email & follow up with in-person visits - suuuuper inefficient. 

Etsy Wholesale would allow me to expand my handful of wholesale accounts, to maybe two handfuls. I wouldn't need to expand to "a truckload" just to make a show worthwhile. 

No listing fees, that's big. It doesn't make sense, to me, to be asked to pay before I sell anything! You do have to apply - I have started that process already - and who knows? Maybe I'll write all this angst and get declined anyway. I'm not entirely sure what they criteria are, and I am reading comments from lots of established Etsy sellers that their application was declined, so I guess that's good, right? It means they have standards, you won't have paper-clip-on-twine necklaces, unless they are really amazing paper-clip-on-twine necklaces. 

As I poke around further, I've discovered that Etsy Wholesale has existed since 2014. How did I not know this? I just found out recently because I saw a Facebook ad. It the intervening time, have you had an Etsy Wholesale shop? Is there another online wholesale venue that I've missed? What have your experiences been? Would love some input on this. 

*Now I guess there's Etsy Studio for supplies. When did that happen?