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Quicker than you can say "Oh shit, we forgot!" those fab Etsy Admins have slapped together a "promotion" for the Back-to-School and Off-to-College Etsy buyers.
Did they make an announcement in the Forums? Yeah on page six of this thread. Send out an email announcement? Um, that would be like spam. Buy ad space in Bust magazine? Hellz NO! That would cost money!
So the fine folks at Etsy put up a Storque article announcing a Back-to-School showcase that goes on sale, tomorrow. But don't bother buying, unless you're selling clothing. Apparently, that's the only category worth promoting.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
"Look Honey - A Back-to-School Promotion!!"
Posted by The Kinky One at 7:56 PM
Tagged: admin, advertising, business, embarrassment, Etsy, incompetant, marketing, storque, stupid
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17 Comments:
Back to School showcase is ONLY clothing.
Great.
Perhaps I should roll out my line of Back-to-School Birthday Suits, and throw in a "free" dorm quilt with every purchase.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I'm expecting to see a showcase full of baby/toddler dresses/onesies and screenprinted T-shirts.
The explanation was they either had to let all categories or reserve it to only one category so they chose clothes. WHY did they set it up to only allow one category?
Back to School items can be found in children, clothes, geekery, bath and body, accessories, bags and purses, books and zines, paper goods, knitting, etc. This is one showcase where you could open it up to everyone. A Mom to three small school age kids may be looking for scarves, hats and notebooks, but a college kid would like mugs, art work, and laptop bags.
Limiting the showcase to clothing makes as much sense as limiting it to toys: NO SENSE. Hey, how about notebooks, pencil cases, date books, organizers, backpacks, bags, purses, earrings, iPod cases...
Oh, and I wonder how many HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of college freshmen have dorm rooms to decorate with ALL NEW EVERYTHING?
Probably none. Nevermind. It's cool. Carry on.
I think they limited it to clothing after reading EB, to avoid the felt school bus.
OH for fucks sake...etsy take part of the 27 million and BUY a CLUE!
Really IS there a marketing Dept?
I don't know why it has to be limited to a single category. The main showcase and the Storque showcase are open to all categories. Can't they just have a human screening items for relevance?
Well, eclipse, if Etsy opened it to all related products, they'd have to set aside more than 10 minutes to screen stuff, and they just have too much else to do!
That's just too much time to spend helping sellers sell. Wadda ya think this is, an ecommerce site?
I don't know what to think. One moment the promo is rolling out in a couple of weeks the next moment it is up and ready to go.
Here's a poll:
http://indienightmares.blogspot.com/
By limiting it to clothing they will have their fav items in the showcase===printed t-shirts.
It's such a simple and fast fix and to the liking of the admins, just like everything else on the site. Looking "brooklyn style" or actually being from NYC gets you an entrance card into almost everything, GG, featured seller, storque. Blah, blah.
How ridiculous. I like elizabeth's comment!
Plus, what the heck do you need notebooks, bags, etc. for at school? You just show up in a cute outfit and you're set!! :P
OT but just hoping you guys noticed that Good Morning American seems to think that Etsy is a spiffy place to work from home - http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5522191
Soooo we'll have even more crafters joining the bandwagon.
We took my college-bound cousin to do her Back to School shopping LAST week. At IKEA.
Because when people think "back to school" they think Target, and IKEA, and yes, Walmart, but not Etsy.
WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?! IT SEEMS SO UNFAIR!!!
But...we did it...and we liked it...in all truth though...this kid was on a budget far below what any self-respecting craftperson should be charging for their work. This is true of many students (who wouldn't be going to college at all if it weren't for scholarship money and student loans) I'm not sure that promoting Etsy as an alternative to other Back to School destinations is much of a service to us makers of handmade...for example: cousin was buying 99 cent mugs. If I see anyone selling a 99 cent mug on Etsy, they need a good ass-whoopin'. My cousin is not a cheapskate looking for a deal, she's a kid on a serious budget.
BUT...Etsy does need to get a clue about the retail/seasonal calendar...
This really isn't about budgets it's about giving people a chance to CHOOSE handmade. It's about Etsy positioning itself with the rest of the retail world. They say they want to help handmade businesses. They say they want Etsy to be a place where people come to find handmade. They say they want to promote handmade as a buying alternative.
Sorry, but you can't do that without a LITTLE conformity. If Etsy wants the average person to even THINK about handmade, they need to be making an effort to be visible and on schedule with the targeted release of manufactured products. Back to School is not major but my guess is this will be Etsy's approach to every upcoming holiday and shopping event for 2008. Do you really want this shit happening for the Christmas season?
Sitting there doing your own thing like a mental person might get you attention, but it does not make you a competitor.
If most users of the site actually read the Dorque, maybe that article would be useful.
But...alas.
Now the Dorque (I love that term) has two features up about dueling dorm rooms. Most kids I know could not afford to spend that kind of cash once their done buying basics like books.
http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/spotlight/
Does anyone at Etsy have even a germ of a clue?
I get the feeling they're all going through the motions of running a real ecommerce site, but their hearts are just not in it.
"This really isn't about budgets it's about giving people a chance to CHOOSE handmade."
Good point.
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