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We here at Etsy Bitch recieved multiple tip-offs to this little gem of a locked thread. I'll simply let the opening post speak for itself:
This is a blog post from Caterpillar Cowboy.
http://www.socialstartups.com/2008/05/28/how-much-listening-is-too-much/
He started this thread some time ago asking if we would prefer improved search or improved view counters.
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5635290&page=1
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How much listening is too much?May 28, 2008 at 8:31 pm · Filed under business, etsy
Customer forums are always interesting, particularly for e-commerce sites. There is something about staying at home and being bored that ultimately leads people to “window shop” online, which leads them to socializing with other people who are doing the exact same thing. The range of personalities is wild and wildly interesting.
Four hundred and twenty eight posts ago, I started a thread on the Etsy forums. The thread was intended to have two purposes. One was to simply get a sense of the community and introduce myself to them. Second, I wanted to get some better intuition as to how sophisticated Etsy sellers (the majority of forum posters) are about running their business and the e-commerce business generally. So I asked a basic prioritization question - would you rather us make search better or fix a bug that would occasionally reset the page views counter on your item listing pages? (For those curious, the views system is stored entirely in a cache, and when the cache gets full and a record gets evicted, the page view number resets to 0. Clearly, the system was not engineered to be used in this manner.) My follow up was, if fixing the view system is not a priority, would you rather we get rid of it entirely or keep it broken.
The danger is to get lulled into an urgency to please. When hundreds of users are demanding a feature, you may feel compelled to acquiesce and build the requested feature. Before you do that, stop and consider Henry Ford: “If I did what people said they wanted, I would have built a faster horse.” (or something like that.) Customers are excellent gauges as when something is wrong, but can be extremely misleading about both what exactly is wrong and how it should be fixed. Furthermore, customers do not (or should not) have better visibility than you do into strategic goals, key business metrics, engineering resources, etc. They don’t have your long-term vision nor your understanding of complex dependencies. So don’t jump the gun. Listen, follow the comments to the source, and solve the root of the problem.
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I don't take issue with the third paragraph. However, if the purpose of his thread was some sort of social experiment, I rather resent it. That thread strongly implied that Etsy would be doing something about either views or search. But apparently it was nothing of the sort. People are running businesses here, for some of them it is their livelihood. They participate in threads like that in the hopes that their feedback will help Etsy to improve the site and therefore help them sell. It's not cool to jerk people around like that, IMO.
Lab rat vs Guinea Pig
Discuss.....
56 Comments:
The speed with which it was locked with the caveat that it was the personal blog of an employee tells me everything I need to know.
Damage control once again.
I guess Caterpillar Cowboy and DXO are BFF.
We are all just lab rats in a huge psychological experiment.
Looks like Caterpillar Cowboy was rolling in EtsyDust right from the beginning.
This quote just drips with arrogance . . .
"They don’t have your long-term vision nor your understanding of complex dependencies. So don’t jump the gun. "
Well, then I guess Etsy doesn't know how to listen since they fixed the views and didn't follow the comments to the source to solve the root of the problem. It doesn't take a genius to know that views resetting was not the problem but a lack of reliable stats available to sellers so they can make good, concrete decisions on where to focus their attention and money.
As far as being an experiment for someone's project, I'm sure it wasn't the first time and isn't the last, but the fact that an admin did this under their own name is not kosher.
I don't know what astonishes me more (and frankly, I should be used to this by now, I don't know why I'm astonished but I am): the extreme condescension of that blog post or the level of stupidity of the blogger. Was there no little man in his head saying: maybe, just MAYBE, I shouldn't post this on a PUBLIC website for all to see...
For fuck's sake, I'd like to have just ONE day where I don't find out yet ANOTHER crappy fact about etsy, its staff, or its leader. good god.
I suppose I could save myself the agony by not reading EB any more, but then I'd miss you bitches too much...
I feel so used and violated to be part of some large experiment. I wonder how many other threads started by admin are exactly the same kind of thing? How much behind the scenes laughing (*at* us) really goes on?!
...man...we have similar personalities. ;_; I'll work hard to improve myself.
Etsy, the place to find over-inflated self-images and huge egos.
The Lab Experiment Admin posts & shenanegins have turned into an Admin trend (and how we know Etsy Loves Trends), and let's face it, those employee-intro pix wearing white lab coats must have gone to their big ol' heads.
And, you know, when you treat us all like a bunch of rats, we multiply like rabbits.........
Has anyone checked out the rest of his blog? Here he writes about starting with Etsy.
http://www.socialstartups.com/2008/05/22/returning-to-normalcy/
Note a few things:
"Because I love delighting people and fostering strong relationships."
Really, Dave? You're off to a pretty shitty start.
"I then said, “But I’m several years away from applying, I’m still way too inexperienced.”
...
"I didn’t expect much considering the lack of a job posting and my lack of experience. Instead, they asked me a few questions over email, interviewed me in person, and voila, I’m hired!"
Thanks for admitting you're woefully unqualified for the job, Dave. And for verifying that Etsy doesn't bother to hire people with the proper experience.
"I’m using Summize to track all twitter messages containing the word Etsy, so if you want to leave me a surprise, drop me a line."
Sure thing, Dave. I can't wait to foster a strong relationship with you.
"They don’t have your long-term vision nor your understanding of complex dependencies. So don’t jump the gun"
this comment speaks volumes when it comes to a ragamuffin team that has yet to make a profit. try running a business for ten years or so, feeding your family and a few others along the way and then tell us about your ability to make a long term vision happen or articulate a complex dependency
"or fix a bug that would occasionally reset the page views counter on your item listing pages?"
Except he didn't use that phrase, at least not in the opening question!
"They don’t have your long-term vision nor your understanding of complex dependencies."
TRY ME. Super Internet (at least) Genius.
While this d00d's attitude may suck, his question of view counters vx. improved search really does (in my opinion anyway) sum up the issues facing Etsy in dealing with its customers and facing a seller deciding on whether Etsy is a good venue for them.
A site that expects to make $$$ on fees/commissions for sold items wants excellent search capabilities for buyers to access as many goods as possible on the site (better chance for a sale, and a commission). A site making $$$ disproportionately from listings wants the sellers to feel encouraged enough to stay, list, relist, and recruit more like themselves. The focus will be on tools that are rather simple to program and need not improve the experience of potential buyers visiting the site.
Etsy is not alone in multi seller venues in pushing search function to the background in favor of tools like guest books, mailing lists, newsletters, wish lists and so forth. Site cheerleaders tend to favor these over search because they want to believe that there is little possibility of visitors to the site in general -- as opposed to visitors that followed one of their specific promotions or traded links -- will care enough to search for a product, find their shop and buy something. It's very flattering to a seller with a small inventory of inexpensive items to think of themselves as 'a brand' that buyers are looking for by name. Sure, it happens. And, sure, you have to start somewhere. But sites that profit on listings over sales feed the shop owners vanity enhancers.
C. Cowboy may be obnoxious, but he ain't all that dumb.
Is there a culture at etsy that the staff doesn't respect the seller, or do you think this is isolated?
I'm sincerely asking what your sense is, not what the public face of admin says.
Dave wants to know how sophisticated an Etsy Seller I am? Well, Dave, why don't I fly to NYC and give you a super atomic wedgie?
I'm rubber and you're glue, dude.
Why is it automatically arrogant to say you know something that others don't?
"This quote just drips with arrogance . . .
"They don’t have your long-term vision nor your understanding of complex dependencies. So don’t jump the gun. ""
The above makes sense when taken with the other points and surrounding context.
Wow.
you know- I remember seeing that thread, and thinking, "What rock have you been hiding under, Sherlock?"
I've always half-joked about Etsy forum being a psych experiment. Guess I was correct. :)
The doors to the Etsy building on Gold Street must be huge. There is no way such big-headed people, with big headed arrogant egos, can fit through a regular door frame.
I feel more like a monkey with electrodes jammed into my brain. :-(
One of the reasons why that fake "choose views or search" thread annoyed me, (right from the beginning, even before we knew it was all a scam) is that whenever they release something useless like birthdays or how-tos or invites, and people complain "why did you make that instead of ___?", some Etsy admin will invariably say that it's NOT an either/or choice, that different people work on different projects, that all the fluffy garbage they feed us is not slowing them down from making useful tools, blah blah blah de fucking blah.
SO WHICH IS IT?
If projects really are either/or choices then they have been lying all this time.
Wow, what a tool!
(headdesk)
On another note, I can't wait to tell my software engineering friends about the reason behind Etsy's view system falling over. Only dumb astonishment is preventing me from laughing so hard that I fall off my chair.
godot said...
Is there a culture at etsy that the staff doesn't respect the seller, or do you think this is isolated?
I'm sincerely asking what your sense is, not what the public face of admin says.
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I tend to believe it's the office culture.
I've seen it mentioned in the forums that there was an admin who had a blog that was bashing Etsy sellers, though I didn't see it for myself. Having seen Dave's blog now, I'm inclined to believe it. Rumours, truth? Maybe someone else can enlighten us.
That being said, I don't think every Etsy employee looks down upon their customers. There's a few good people there.
I sincerely wish that Etsians would stop degrading themselves and just walk away from the ideas section.
WE ARE BEING USED!!!!
The Malevolent One said...
I've seen it mentioned in the forums that there was an admin who had a blog that was bashing Etsy sellers, though I didn't see it for myself.
...
I saw it.
It's been deleted a while ago but I had already saved all the pages as html documents, and as screenshots. You want me to email the files to you?
Don't look if you have any kind of seizures though, because it was literally the UGLIEST site I have ever seen- neon colors and HUGE fonts and vibrating flashing gifs and just fail beyond words. It almost triggered a migraine for me.
I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. Not claiming great prescience but I read the original 'views' post and though "you are either too innocent to be let loose on your own or you're up to something"
I am getting so tired of this. I don't like playing games and I really don't like having to try to guess the rules before I start.
Eclipse, send it on over, definitely.
"They don’t have your long-term vision nor your understanding of complex dependencies"
I've seen no concrete evidence as yet of Etsy having a long-term vision or understanding of complex ... well, anything much, really! Sad, but true.
As for the other website eclipse mentions, I saw it too when it was live and can vouch for it having been a reality and absolutely connected with a well known Etsy staff member - the Google/Blogger account used gave it away. Also sad, but true!
The retail model you detail, elstinkoarmpit, may be the model Etsy is trying to duplicate, but Etsy does not take it to its logical conclusion.
The newsletter and other accessories (labs, chats, etc.) that are supposed to drive sales in a passive manner are way oversized compared to what sales they generate. Etsy is 3 years old, and there are many established sellers who came to the site with their own large customer bases and they were NEVER accomodated.
The main problem is that Etsy has turned these accessorites into mini-platforms that MOCK creators and sellers of handmade, and belittle the handmade community. If buyers were to enter Etsy through a Virtual Lab or Storque article, they might decide to go no further, since they see infantile projects/subjects geared to 5 year olds and the buyer might concude the site is full of crap.
So, the model stinks because Etsy works very hard at defeating the whole purpose of having quality sellers on the site.
On top of a host of other very serious problems, Etsy will fail at any model it tries to emulate because it does not have the ability to FOLLOW THROUGH on any project, plan, agenda, or even its main mission. Etsy has a notoriously short attention span, and it just loses interest before it finishes a sentence.
No matter what model Etsy muddles through, it will continue to eat away at profits because most of its employees are paid to work on sections that do no and will never generate the revenues it needs to support such an immense payroll and overhead.
And if one model does not fit, Etsy has also shown it lacks the ability to change and adapt.
Andy Mathis said...
Wow.
you know- I remember seeing that thread, and thinking, "What rock have you been hiding under, Sherlock?"
I've always half-joked about Etsy forum being a psych experiment. Guess I was correct. :)
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lol, yep. i definitely get that feeling from the forums at times.
i would also love to see those screen shots from eclipse. will there be any posted?
Sigh.
If Etsy doesn't really think that even its most sophisticated sellers, many of who have "real world" business experience, understand its "vision," then I wish they'd just abandon the charade of asking for input and pretending it matters.
I'd have no problem with an Etsy that said, up front, "This is what you get, and that's it," and left it at that. But Etsy admins - including Rob himself - start forum threads asking for input on specific features, and in fact say that they're working on those features.
What a waste of everyone's time. If your priorities are determined internally, fine, but then do away with the "Ideas" forum and tell us that you don't have the time or inclination to listen to us.
I don't pretend to know about or understand all of Etsy's business model (if there is one, really). But I do know what I could use in my own shop to make Etsy a more effective place to sell, and therefore I've asked for things as part of the service I pay for. I will no longer bother to do that.
This is the second etsy admin blog I have come across bashing etsy sellers, knowing full well the whole world could read those blogs. It seems to confirm what the staff really think about the sellers, not the public face they show.
The collective business experience of etsy shop owners is vast, and yet it is summarily brushed away as if we are errant children who know nothing.
Like Stone Soup, I no longer will ever ask for something to better my shop again. Most of our ideas have been put forth in hundreds of threads and an excel spreed sheet I culled together.
Etsy is now beholden to a new agenda set forth by the investors. Making money, above all else, even ridding the site of resellers is paramount.
It would be best for all if they eliminated the ideas section of the fora completely and let the new agenda manifest itself. At the very least, it would be honest.
Andy, your comments reminded me of "The Truman Show", spot on.
I've been selling online for way longer than etsy has been around. I've sold on most of the available platforms and my own.
While some of the multitude of etsy sellers may not really understand the full picture, many of us do. In fact, many of us have more experience than etsy employees.
I'm sickened by them more and more everyday.
What a waste of time and resources and money etsy has become.
I do hope some of the post eclipse mentioned will be shared. I think it will be icing on the cake.
"Orrr, maybe he wasn't actually experimenting on anyone? Nah. That would be the giving-someone-the-benefit-of-the-doubt answer, and thus, is not acceptable."
Re-read his blog post. His thread in the Etsy forums was in no way intended to actually do anything but make us waste our time. In his words: "One was to simply get a sense of the community and introduce myself to them. Second, I wanted to get some better intuition as to how sophisticated Etsy sellers (the majority of forum posters) are about running their business and the e-commerce business generally. So I asked a basic prioritization question ".
But the funny thing is, he didn't have the courtesy to clue anyone in when he made that thread. Social experiement? Sounds like it to me. If nothing else, it was a big fat waste of our time.
Innocent people are getting "outed" as the 'Etsy 9'. I may not know who you all are but I know for sure a few who you are NOT and I am sick of these couple annoying forum posters making the same accusations all the time.
http://www.etsy.com/
forums_thread.php?thread_id=5718343&page=10
with that post...
I believe I have had it w/ Etsy.
My weekend project will be to clean out my shop and work on my long neglected webpage.
etsy admin=asshats
I have seen those comments referring to "the 9" as well, and I am baffled. Any cursory glance at any complaint or policy question thread shows way more than 9 people asking the questions. I knew who the "etsy 5" are but I have no idea who "the 9" are.
Are they referring to EB owners? But there are 11 of those. And they don't overlap with the etsy 5 so that's 16 people, just in those 2 groups. That's not even counting all the commenters here, and all the people who question on Etsy and don't comment here.
Is there some secret club I don't know about? Or is someone just hitting the pipe too hard?
Hey 9, hook a sister up!!
The Funny One said...
The retail model you detail, elstinkoarmpit, may be the model Etsy is trying to duplicate, but Etsy does not take it to its logical conclusion.
The newsletter and other accessories (labs, chats, etc.) that are supposed to drive sales in a passive manner are way oversized compared to what sales they generate.
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Very little, if anything, is implemented at Etsy right now to its full potential. In ny view, this is partly because Etsy started about 18 months ago (urged by investors?) to apply pre-web2 venue features on top of whatever the original Etsy was intended to be. Goofy crap like recommending relisting and winking at resellers -- and hiring staff for their looks and social style rather than techie qualifications -- were intended to increase listings and grow the hipster community. There was no apparent intention to attract buyers to the site in general, convey a feeling of quality and skill behind the products offered, and set a tone of professionalism, warmth, and wit in the forums instead of whining, silliness, a non-stop 24/7 keyboard foodfight.
Disappointing as all of this is, Etsy is doing well. Sellers who already had, or managed to build, a customer base are flourishing -- including some that don't fit the Etsy mold of hipsterism.
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TFO: The main problem is that Etsy has turned these accessorites into mini-platforms that MOCK creators and sellers of handmade, and belittle the handmade community. If buyers were to enter Etsy through a Virtual Lab or Storque article, they might decide to go no further, since they see infantile projects/subjects geared to 5 year olds and the buyer might concude the site is full of crap.
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Yes. And it started to really pick up steam after the outside investment $$$ became available. So it's difficult for me to see this process as mis-steps in the site's development. Rather than viewing the changes as moral/ethical/coolness shortcomings, I think what we are seeing is a coldly calculated plan to make $$$$ by giving keyboard lipservice to various warm and fuzzy concepts and causes. I mean, the amount of waste thrown into the environment by Etsy sellers making and hawking disposable 'stuff' is staggering. Not that there aren't many items on Etsy of lasting beauty and utility -- real 'keepers' -- but the so many items are consumables or potential throw-aways. The amount of $$$ funneled to developing world pollutors/sweatshops for supplies purchased (on Etsy and off) is awesome.
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TFO: On top of a host of other very serious problems, Etsy will fail at any model it tries to emulate because it does not have the ability to FOLLOW THROUGH on any project, plan, agenda, or even its main mission. Etsy has a notoriously short attention span, and it just loses interest before it finishes a sentence.
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I think a lot of American businesses are structured precisely on the principle of short attention spans and absence of longterm goals. Everything is linked to trends, fads, and pop culture. I think Etsy will do well. And I think quality sellers will limit their involvement with Etsy as Etsy fulfills its business plans. This makes me kinda sad because it would have been lovely to have a huge professional but fun site focused on handmade creative products and the people who make them.
I think the (ahem) 'Etsy 9' are innocent, too. It's just a random term picked by a random weirdo who obviously has some issssues.
Yes we once were 10, but have added an 11th in the last week or so, one of secret support staff who was too funny to be unseen.
We have never been merely 9.And we are not, nor have we even been any of the exonerated "Etsy 5". Shocking as that is, it's true.
So someone is toking the catnip rather healthily to say the least.
am i the only person who found it bizarre that after a few emails and a brief meeting you can get a job there. these folks probably are hiring off of the myspace. what have we done by entrusting our businesses to these art poseurs?
and 27 million isnt a lot to a VC. they get write offs if they take a loss. and many VC work as a group-maybe they are hedging their bets for a loss leader?
at any rate, with the economy, i doubt there will be an IPO before next year
the laugh may be on all of us for even caring so much as to bitch about it
who are the etsy 9?
this is almost as stupid as branding the etsy 5.
I am wondering if people have lives outside of etsy now.
this is almost as stupid as branding the etsy 5.
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Ah, but the Etsy 5 gave branded themselves. This seems something else altogether.
The etsy 5 actually exist, and there were actually 5 of them. There's lots of other misconceptions about them, but the identity and inclusion in the group is not mysterious.
'The 9' seems to be a figment of the imagination. I guess it's just one person's individual blacklist. Not anything those people did to organize or label themselves.
el-stinko-armpit,
I was not responding to you directly, but your first post had some valid points which made me look at Etsy in a different light. Your second post does as well, but again, I was not responding to you personally.
Etsy may have set up its site to be hip and trendy, and dupe a bunch of investors when it turned out they actually could make money, but then, instead of turning it into a more efficient platform for selling, it decided to go social. The social (which Etsy sees as much more worthy of its time). And the social no longer supports the ecommerce, bey design and by attitude. And eats money fast. With money the sellers bring in by listing, relisting and selling. The sellers have ended up paying for a huge payroll that does little to generate sales and works actively to make handmade look like a trendy joke. Bite off the hands that feed it?
Sure, Etsy can have a short attention span, we all know they have clearly demonstrated their limited abilities-------and they can make money. But they also built up a revenue-generating 200+ thousand stores and then cut them out of the plan. And then expected the sellers to shut up and put up. And put out.
That seems a lot like a plan for self-destruction.
eBay without its sellers? Etsy without its sellers? Do they care? Obviously not, until the bank accounts all bleep zero. Trendy all you want, but someone has to pay for it.
i was a One once but have never been a 5 or a nine
heck i dream of getting back into a UK 10 these days!
so who are they?
omg, I'm a little shocked at how nasty that thread got, and I'm only about half way through.
Its ironic how they say that all the "complaining" will turn buyers off and not make them want to shop in our stores but if I were a newbie buyer I'd be far more turned off by these random attacks by the cupcake-eaters. They're vicious.
And yet the shit-stirrers are allowed to continue their random attacks of people in the forums.
Wait, what the hell? Another permanent muting? I had totally missed this! I didn't know anyone else got perma-muted after Windys.
Holy shit.
eclipse said...
The etsy 5 actually exist, and there were actually 5 of them. There's lots of other misconceptions about them, but the identity and inclusion in the group is not mysterious.
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Not for nothing Eclipse but you guys got banned from a fucking internet forum.
This is hardly legendary enough to talk about yourself in the third person.
Five people got banned at the same time, the only news here is that it was probably the busiest work day at Etsy headquarters ever.
I think coining the phrase, Etsy 5, was meant as a joke and it's a little played.
No, they never deleted my store.
Just muted in the forums, I could still buy, sell, use convos, make treasuries, use chat, post in the Storque, etc. There was never any problem with my store.
In defense of Eclipse, Ben, and the others - they did NOT coin the phrase "Etsy 5" - other people did. This was because no one was allowed to mention any of their names on the Etsy forums - it resulted in an immediate "this is a private matter" lock. (Of course, it got to the point where you couldn't say "Etsy 5" either.)
I think lab rats have better lives than Etsy sellers right now.
Ok wierd. I keep replying to comments and then later the comments are deleted which makes me look crazy(er). Heh.
My last reply above about my store never being closed was to a now-deleted comment and my comment about "another permanent muting" was a reply to a now-deleted comment.
So, sorry for the confusing posts, they made sense at one time, I swear!
"In defense of Eclipse, Ben, and the others - they did NOT coin the phrase "Etsy 5" - other people did. This was because no one was allowed to mention any of their names on the Etsy forums - it resulted in an immediate "this is a private matter" lock. (Of course, it got to the point where you couldn't say "Etsy 5" either.)"
And they happily took it on.
And we 'happily' took it on?! Oh yes, we were all skipping around throwing daisies about because although we had been banned unfairly and without warning from a forum we enjoyed being a apart of it was all evened out by the fact that we now had a "cool" nick name for ourselves. Riiiiiiiigggght.
OK, chill on the Etsy5 bashing. The phrase was coined, it stuck, get over it. Move on please.
I just today found your (excellent) blog -- great stuff! I'm appalled that this jackass wasted a bunch of Etsy sellers' time toying with them so he could pontificate about their stupidity on his own blog.
I posted the following on his personal blog, not that it will do any good:
For someone who throws around a lot of really fancy language, you have a pretty poor grasp of the ethical obligations that are considered industry standard for research of human subjects.
You might start here, for a brief overview of ways not to be an asshole when conducting research with human participants:
http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html#8
Re: your condescending attitude toward the people who pay your salary through their participation in Etsy, though, I’m not sure how to help you. Maybe Etsy can “help” you by firing your smug ass.
Then you’ll have more time to devote to projects you obviously care about more than your day job — like this self-congratulatory little blog!
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