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Etsy sent a letter to members (twice in a week? OMG!) and posted the requisite Storque article on Etsy giving free 4 month extensions on a V&S listings.
If you have your tagging right. If the moon is in Leo. If you said your nighttime prayers and are wearing clean knickers.
They invite you to comment in a forum thread (any bets on how long it takes to spiral and require a second, third, and fourth due to locks?) as they have locked the Storque article.
Don't get me wrong, free extensions for V&S is a a pretty huge monetary concession for pulling a bait and switch considering most of Etsy's biggest sellers, and bill payers, are V&S folks. But I don't recall a huge outcry for Etsy to do this. Sure some suggested getting free extentions, but most of what I saw after they made this announcement (and after the change of search defaults ) was to have NO default thereby making the searcher pick what they wanted to look for being aware then that there was more than handmade on Etsy.
I see both sides on this. I see the need to be impartial when you have three distinct kinds of sellers, but I also see the need for cohesion of some sort when your tagline is "your place to buy & sell all things handmade" which is what I think Etsy was trying to do. Sometimes I do feel for them. They had a cry for vintage, they added it. They had a cry for supplies, they added it. They start to get complaints about them being the mass of Etsy's sales and are forced to cater to the handmade crowd as well. Sometimes they can't win for losing and for that I sometimes feel sorry for them.
If the moon is in Leo.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Vintage and Supply sellers to get reacharound
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22 Comments:
I think that Etsy wants to be fair, fair and square, they should give V&S an option to remove their listed items and be refunded, since they may have been listed on the premise of being mixed in with the original search.
From the day I first joined Etsy in 02/06 but I'd been lurking for a month or two before that vintage and commercial supplies were categories(handmade supplies were their own separate category). The cry for Vintage and Supplies came when last year Etsy declared they would not be accepting any new listings for those categories and they were being removed after a certain amount of time, along with new restrictions on digital and prints.
Etsy allowed these two categories to become well integrated into the community. They either should have stuck to their guns last year or fully accepted they were no longer JUST handmade.
Most suppliers I've interacted with don't really want the extension. It was only brought up as yet another promise by Etsy and wanting Etsy to acknowledge it. I'm beyond shocked that they actually appear to be keeping it.
No pie on the menu at Etsy tonight, just crow.
Etsy remembering thier promise may have been prompted by this fora thread:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5608337
It reminded Admin that sellers here have a long memory and it was printed in the Storque on Feb. 1, 2008.
http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/focusing-on-handmade/1146/
As for an extra 4 months..It may help for just a couple of minutes before listings fall into the 'black hole"....
*spell check please...EEP!
Etsy is a prime example (and I've worked at others) of what happens when management doesn't have a clear vision of where they are going. It leads to chaos and lots of bitterness in the ranks.
Don't get me wrong. I hope they keep V&S. But they need to flipping decide already, and then set up the site accordingly.
Four-month extension. Feh.
I said this on UEN too, but what happens when people need to renew to be seen? They lose the 4 months, so they technically got nothing.
It's a hollow gesture because of the sheer volume of listings, we have to renew like mad just to be seen. So... giving me 4 months more so I can sit in the dungeon, is symbolic only. I still can't be found on the site without heroic measure. It's 4 extra months they can avoid the addressing the debacle that is SEARCH.
Now, if they were letting me RENEW for free over and over, then I'd be hoopin' and hollerin'. The change in the renewal process means that those extra months are only present if we never renew. Uh... that helps me how?? It isn't going to help my bottom line, that's for sure! But I'm guessing all the listing V&S sellers will do before the 30th cutoff won't be hurting etsy's bottom line.
The reality is, some of us pressed etsy on this, because it was suggested as a "oh this will help you" measure. They knew the changes to search were going to be an issue long before they rolled them out: but playing dumb served a purpose. And in a brilliant diversion tactic they said, "We'll give you 4 extra months" which was really like saying,"OOh, look at the pretty present we're giving you! Hopefully you won't notice that, beneath the shiny wrapping paper, your present is broken."
The request to honor this empty promise only serves to make the point: Our mama's didn't raise no fools.
I would argue, that we don't really prove that point taking a broken gift we know is broken. But I'll say, "Thank You" anyway, because my mama raised me to be polite.
And that's enough about my mama. :D
sigh, i usually try to ignore all the storque stuff, but now that i've been paying attention to it i just get more and more frustrated.
there seems to be a lack of leadership and focus. lots of 'oh, wouldn't this be fun' types of projects with no real objective and no wholisitic direction for the site.
i enjoy this blog and and glad to see all these discussions in one place.
I don't see how an extra 4 months of listing on a site where no one can find them is doing any good for V & S sellers. Seems kind of moot to me.
Supplies make sense. I don't want to step on any toes here, but Vintage on a handmade site makes no sense. It should be sent to it's own corner of the world. I suspect partly, this might be the beginning of that. If the purpose of the site is for handmade sellers, why are vintage sellers getting coddled? This site isn't about them. Yes, they are allowed to sell on etsy, but the tagline reads "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade" not "and vintage" as well.
Supplies, I get. We need them. But It just seems like Etsy would greatly benefit from branching these out into seperate venues.
But, that would require work, and we don't want anyone over there to miss out on a rock band jam sesh.
Oh, and I got a kick out of this.
"GENERAL PURPOSE
Etsy.com is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. We are seeking a full time Product Manager to own the seller experience on Etsy.com."
http://fix.etsy.com/jobs/job_Prod_Product_manager.htmlzpu
"Etsy allowed these two categories to become well integrated into the community. They either should have stuck to their guns last year or fully accepted they were no longer JUST handmade."
I agree completely! Etsy has been all over the place on this issue.
I also agree that a four month extension means nothing. It will most likely cost Etsy next to nothing, other than the labour involved to make it happen. Relisting is a major reason for that, of course, but even with the recent changes to when items expire, many people still have listings that will last until years into the future anyway.
I'm grinning about the idea of someone 'owning the seller experience' by the way! I bet they'll be disappointed ;P
I just have to add:
"I bought the Etsy seller experience and all I got was this stupid bill for relisting!"
One thing I dont understand is why they just didnt spin off sister sites, one for vintage and one for supplies, they already have the software, change the graphics and maybe the color for each, link em up and be done w/ it.
Leave Etsy handmade.
Sillywabbit: One thing I dont understand is why they just didnt spin off sister sites, one for vintage and one for supplies, they already have the software, change the graphics and maybe the color for each, link em up and be done w/ it.
Leave Etsy handmade.
__________________________
As a Vintage seller, I would adore this---especially if they could have front page portal.
It's not a great feeling to be someplace you're not wanted, not supported, and basically ignored by admin--especially when you were sold a different story when you came on board.
I mean, I've had seasoned handmade sellers in the forua actually tell me to "stop selling my shit" on etsy.
And seriously, I'm workin' on it. :D
"But I don't recall a huge outcry for Etsy to do this."
...
Etsy volunteered to do it, well Rob specifically volunteered it, in February. After that, a few people did remember and showed intent to hold him to his word. I'm sure he and the company regret him making that promise. It really won't help the sellers much, I mean the extra 4 months will be at the very very back of the search pages, IF people can even get to the V&S searches at all. But they promised so they are keeping their word, technically. They kinda have to, or else they'd be shredded for lying.
Etsy is stalling.
I think they are being bought or Rokali has lost his mind completely and is too busy using the investors money on 3D to notice what is happening to his customer base.
Either someone is going to pull a new site out of their ass or this one is going to crash and burn the minute enough people realize they are only selling so long as they are perpetually listing.
I sell vintage and supplies in my second shop, and I would LOVE to see sister shops instead of having everything lumped together. I also buy v&s on Etsy, and since search is such a PITA, having a separate site for each would make my shopping experience that much easier.
OMG, I just wanted to comment that your title almost killed me. :)
whatever happened to etsyvintage.com and etsysupplies.com?
etsysupplies.com redirects to Etsy and etsyvintage.com is parked for free at GoDaddy
Interesting, no?
Thanks for pointing those out.
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