Posts
Etsy is an ecommerce venue, right?
So why doesn't Etsy offer any real statistical tools to its sellers?
Etsy has never offered its sellers any stats, although it's been vaguely promising them for almost as long as the site has existed. (This is consistent with Etsy not offering a slew of features that most people would consider standard for an ecommerce site: streamlined listing, bulk image uploading, searchable sales, a proper printable invoice, vacation mode. They've only just now given us bulk feedback, for pity's sake).
The end result of Etsy offering no stats is that sellers are working almost totally in the dark. If they run an advertising campaign for their Etsy shops, they have no way of tracking where their traffic is coming from, and, therefore, whether that advertising was successful. If they change their product line, ditto. Without statistics, sellers are flying blind when it comes to running their shops like real businesses.
Etsy has the stats, of course. Most people have noticed Etsy's own Google Analytics loading while they're waiting for a page to open on the site. It doesn't fly blind. It just won't help its sellers (unless those sellers are Admin. We've heard a few reports from people who've visited Etsy that Admin there have lots of access to stats). So, Etsy has lots and lots of statistics for its own use, particularly misleading ones it can trot out in monthly Stroque articles. But it has consistently refused to share basic statistical information with its sellers.
Views and hearts.
The only thing resembling statistics that Etsy has given sellers are 1. item view counters and 2. "hearts". ("Hearts" are given by other Etsy users to sellers or to specific items when those sellers or items are added to another Etsian's favorites list.) Not dazzling. Not terribly useful. Not even reliable (views were seriously wonky from at least August 2007). But they were the only stats we had, and we made the most of them.
We made the most of them, largely thanks to the initiative of other Etsians (not Admin).
Etsy sellers doing it for themselves.
Since February 2007, Etsy's sellers have tried to compile their own stats on the site. Lots of sellers have tried this, including the redoubtable loosewirestudios. This is all of a piece with Etsy rolling out features (in this case an entire ecommerce site) that has enough holes in it to require its own users to come up with work arounds.
An extended example of sellers doing it for themselves was the founding of off-Etsy sites which sprang up to fill the statistical void, notably EtsyTools and The Heart-O-Matic.
The Heart-O-Matic was launched by Etsy seller, juln, and turns Etsy's view and hearts counters into fairly useful statistical tools. From January 2008, until EtsyTools' demise on April 1, 2008, the Heart-O-Matic was offered as part of EtsyTools (see below). Now it's gone back to its original site at http://www.majaba.org/heartomatic.php, where it continues to provide some very useful information for Etsy sellers.
EtsyTools (founded in August 2007 by interrobang and vertis) was another unofficial, off-Etsy site which offered incredibly useful charts of Etsy data culled from Etsy's API (application programming interface). Etsy itself always seemed a little snippy about EtsyTools, perhaps because it was slightly embarrassed that two sellers were able to grab Etsy's data and provide some of the stats that Etsy sellers had been pleading for for so long. For whatever reason, a concerted effort was made by a few seriously unbalanced people to shut down EtsyTools. Finally, it was the death threats that did it, and Etsy Tools closed its site on April 1, 2008. It is much mourned.
Both of these sites were brilliant pieces of work, but nothing Etsy couldn't have come up with itself, as a service to its sellers. It didn't.
The whole view thing
As I said, views were pretty unreliable from August 2007, but they were completely unreliable for over three months, from March to June 2008, disappearing sporadically to the considerable consternation of sellers. During this time Etsy displayed its patented cavalier attitude to its sellers and their needs. Anyone asking questions about views was directed to a month's old thread (which itself referenced a month's old Storque article.) On May 27, 2008, a thread was posted in the Ideas forum by a staff member CaterpillarCowboy, asking us to choose between having accurate views and a decent search, and telling us to defend our choice. This employee finally closed the thread, after having delivered the somewhat upsetting news that the engineers who built Etsy (that would be RevolvingDork himself) didn't allow for the exponential growth of the site, with the result that the view counters were degrading and would continue to degrade. Fixing this problem was going to be a huge undertaking and we weren't to hold our collective breaths.
Then, after months of outcry and frustration in the forums, without any warning, Revolving Dork announced that everything was fixed, for data from January 2008 to June 16, 2008. Not only were views fixed, but they had been restored from previously stored data. A sterling example of Etsy's fine communication, but, nevertheless, we were all pathetically happy to have even this tiny piece of information back.
Etsy asks our opinion ... and then ignores it.
Etsy Admin have, from time to time (about once a year), entertained themselves by seeming to ask our opinions about statistics. They did it in June 2006 and August 2007. Then Rokali asked again in April 2008 -- or, rather, he asked Etsy Forum participants to list their top three ideas for both selling and buying. 93 pages of input resulted in a Storque article on April 21 which disclosed that, tah dah! Statistics were on the top of seller requests. Since then ... nothing. Except maybe the threat that shop stats are something that we're going to be charged extra for.
A modest proposal
Etsy, please stop trying to reinvent everything from scratch, and just let us add a tiny bit of code so that we can use Google Analytics and/or statcounter with our shops. For example, take a look at how shopify.com has integrated Google Analytics so that their sellers can seamlessly track their own stats. In fact, take a look at shopify.com for a lot of great tips on how you can make the seller experience at Etsy better.
Also consider an idea originally suggested by dingo and seconded by littleput. "Even in aggregate some stats would be helpful. Etsy could - today - tell us what the conversion rates are for hits from search engines, bookmark sites, blogs, the front page, the gift guides, Etsy searches, category browsing, etc. They could be fixed up in a daily or weekly chart and shared with everyone."
*******
APPENDIX
[I want to thank a tireless member of the Auxiliary for compiling many of the links below. They give some of the history of sellers' call on Etsy for statistics. (Of course we may have missed some important threads because locked threads are not searchable). I know it's a really long list, but In some ways I think this sorry progression speaks for itself.]
NOVEMBER 16, 2005 :
Sellers want stats, Etsy won't give 'em
JANUARY 5, 2006:
More statistics from Etsy? RD replies that "We're planning on
expanding internal shop-specific stats in future revisions."
FEBRUARY 28, 2006
Seller asks for referral stats, RD replies that they're not in the plans.
MAY 2, 2006
Etsy seller happywhosists starts compiling some random stats from items viewed in The Sampler to show items sold, price paid per item and average price of item sold. She continued doing this, on and off, until January 2007. Well done!
Here's a forum search for "selling stats for" which will give you most of her threads
JUNE 19, 2006:
Rokali asks "Which Etsy stats can help you?" Apparently there was an internal discussion about stats panel. 11 pages of suggestions from sellers, until August 2006
NOVEMBER 25, 2006
Etsy Statistics? No reply from any Admin
FEBRUARY 13, 2007
Graph for shopping statistics? In the absence of Etsy-provided stats, sellers share workarounds
AUGUST 6, 2007
EtsyTools.com launched by two sellers to fill a void -- using Etsy API, they provided some tremendously useful stats until they were harassed into closing in early April 2008. Eight months. That's how long they lasted. (This thread was locked for misinformation)
AUGUST 27, 2007
Views: Why are they restarting and when will they be back?
RD tells us that view counts are stored in RAM, and that all the information is saved, but not visible. They are "currently trying to overhaul the view system to make it more robust and prevent this sort of thing from happening" , it may take "a few months to be implemented.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2007
Sellers start gathering their own demographic stats to answer the questions: what is our market? What is the sales to listing ration? How long is normal before I make a sale? What day of the week is best to list?
SEPTEMBER 19, 2007
loosewirestudios starts collating the user-gathered data on Etsy Statistics (from the above thread) on Flickr
SEPTEMBER 24 2007
DrWoohoo asks for Seller Stats requests.
This was also a Storque article (of course).
SEPTEMBER 26, 2007
Sellers recommends alexa.com as source of Etsy stats
NOVEMBER 13, 2007
Where do I find Etsy stats? Not on Etsy, that's for sure.
NOVEMBER 14, 2007
Sellers try to compile their own Showcase Statistics
DECEMBER 3, 2007
Idea: Shop Statistics
MARCH 6, 2008
Intrepid seller complies some Etsy stats on his own
MARCH 18, 2008
Storque article on view tally reset, cause and future solutions
MARCH 26, 2008
Curious seller wants to know where she can find site statistics.
MARCH 30, 2008
etsytools.com is closing down because of harassment
APRIL 11, 2008
Minutes of Town Hall meeting -- Rokali announces that shop stats will likely cost sellers more money.
Rokali: one word on shop stats: this is something that's very server-intensive, meaning that it takes a lot of resources for us to provide these stats. Rokali: there will be several differing levels of stats, starting with free and moving onto a couple packages that cost a couple bucks a month (pricing to be set). We'll give you the most we can for free ;PAPRIL 15, 2008
Rokali wants our input as to the top three ideas so that Etsy can "prioritize development". Of course you do, Rob.
APRIL 21, 2008
Rokali announces the results of his forum thread gathering info about our top three ideas for improving Etsy: Seller Stats is number one.
APRIL 28, 2008
RD tells us that views are not a priority, and that the current view tally systems has "some problems with storing data reliably". He refers to the March 18, 2008 Storque article.
MAY 13, 2008
Seller begs for Shop Stats. marymary says they're something Etsy is working towards
MAY 16, 2008
Are we ever going to have statistics?
MAY 27, 2008
CaterpillarCowboy (aka "Dave") asks us to choose between a better search and working views, and tells us to convince him that views are needed. It later turns out that this is an experiment.
MAY 29, 2008
"Dave" calls us all his friends and spills the beans that views are broken because the engineers who built Etsy (that would be Revolving Dork) didn't allow for site growth. They will continue to degrade (the views, not the engineers)
JUNE 4, 2008
Seller would still like some stats, please.
JUNE 11, 2008
"I wish I could see stats!" So do we. It would be even better than seeing dead people.
JUNE 11, 2008
Is there anywhere else I can get stats on my Etsy shop?
JUNE 12, 2008
Shop statistics: any idea when they might be available? How cold is Hell getting, these days?
JUNE 13, 2008
Aren't you ashamed, Etsy? OP about lack of communication, but a lot of discussion of views and stats. Locked on June 18 after 84 pages, and called "long-winded" by marymary.
JUNE 18, 2008
RD suddenly announces that views have not only been fixed but they have been restored
JUNE 21, 2008
ETA on site statistics for individual shops? marymary notes suggestion, and that they have shop stats on the list of "user requested features" (as if the designers of an ecommerce site couldn't have suggested that shop stats would be a good thing), but no ETA.
JUNE 26, 2008
Is there a section on Etsy for stats?
JUNE 27, 2008
Sellers asks how to view shop stats -- usual responses from Etsy community: majaba.org, you can make your own, etc.
JULY 15, 2008
So, Etsy ... How Are Those Seller Stats Coming Along?
JULY 22, 2008
Etsy, you have stats available for your needs -- please share them.
JULY 23, 2008
Charging sellers for shop statistics is a bad idea. Please don't.
JULY 29, 2008
Can we please have daily etsy stats in the aggregate
AUGUST 5, 2008
God, I need stats. So do we all, honey, so do we all.
66 Comments:
OK. Tonight. After I have been sedated, I will read this. It looks very interesting and comprehensive! So glad to see a new post here, it seems like ages cause we are all caught up in the forums.
I don't really have anything to add...we're all aware of the ongoing and ridiculous stats problem. But I do want to thank you guys for all the research you put into that post. I know that was a lot of work.
You'd think with 27 million dollars, they could manage to give us stats. Sometimes I feel like I'm selling at a goddamned lemonade stand.
I think the real reason that etsy doesn't want to give stats, is that people would realize how little etsy is really worth. My etsy bill averages between 500-750 dollars a month. If I was to invest that money I having a website made, one with stats, vacation mode, all that good stuff. then invest it in this new invention called advertising, I'd be an internet millionaire over night!
I always think the reason why they will not give us stats is to keep us believing that our sales come from renewing, appearing on treasuries, FP, and buying showcases...
If we got to see the real stats, that our sales come from blogs, search engines, or whatever else, then their whole system of milking us for every last 20 cents we have will completely break down...
Same reason why they don't remove resellers... a resellers 20 pennies are as good as anyone else's... and they can still buy cupcakes...
Etsy will never be considered a serious venue until it provides stats to sellers and a decent search.
Until then, sellers will join only to leave when they find out how lame it is.
sadly i think it is more of what they want to hide rather than what they want to enable.
occasionally in a virtual labs session a snippet of stats info will spill into the transcript. i'm amazed at how much is known and yet not shared. a lot of these stats would alleviate the frustrations seen on a daily basis. alleviating this frustration and providing selling stats would be such a benefit to the community etsy maintains it serves by its weekly round of mutings and silencing.
ok etsy - you ask us to be constructive in our criticism. how about you doing something constructive for us by giving (free) access to decent stats?
what a cash cow Rob invented, eh?
Once you give them the money, it's pretty hard to get them to give it back to you in the form of needed services.
And even if we stop renewing, there's a line of resellers a mile long waiting at the door to get in.
Disgruntled One,
Thank you for a very thoroughly researched article. I'd now like to collectively smackm Etsy Admin with my trusty "Clue by Four".
the way the system is set up we'll all keep renewing with or without stats. it makes a noticeable difference in my sales and that is the only info i need to keep relisting (until etsy buys advertising, ha ha).
what is patently unfair is that staff is allowed access to stats and access to what customers are looking for and it sets up an unfair precedent which has yielded them bad press, blogs like this and in general bad juju for them.
give us our free stats, it's only fair
that sort of sucks to think that Admin are using the collected stats to run their own shops, while the rest of us are bumping around in the dark.
I still would rather see a decent search function, and no bleeding categories, before seeing stats.
I really really really want to reply to all of these and bump them all to the top!
The number of threads regarding the need for seller stats is insulting. Hell, my $0/ month website gives me stats. For free.
It's downright shameful that, in the great e-commerce facility called Etsy, sellers STILL don't have access to stats. I started promoting my own URL instead of the Etsy shop's a year ago, just so I could have that little bit more info about traffic sources. Now I have my own shop and Google Analytics rawks. Sorry, Etsy. Fail.
Great article.
am i getting moderated?
Yeah, one of those threads is mine. I actually felt sorry for marymary when she answered, because it was clear from the tone of her post that she was SO not the person in charge of that, & yet she got to be the face of Etsy (and the ensuing disappointment).
I have this sense whenever I start a thread these days (and that is happening less and less as the people I like disappear and my paranoia increases) of overwhelming futility. Especially when the subject of the thread is something I really care about, like stats. I am completely certain that I will have my own site built and running (with stats, OMG HOW CRAZY!) before I have access to stats on Etsy.
asking for stats since 2005...wow.just wow.
yeahyouright, we've been a little slow on the moderation
etsytools closed it's doors in april 2008 not august like you have it listed the second time..
etsy's less of an ecommerce site and more of a circle jerk.
It's really depressing.
Etsy stopped doing anything interesting 18 months ago. The site has rocketed to over 170,000 stores (Etsy's #) and nothing has really changed. The front page is the same, the promo tools are all the same (inadequate and boring as all hell) and nothing innovative has been added.
And, it sure seems like no one is at home on Gold Street, especially on weekends.
So, guess that means no hoiday plan, no stats, no new tools, no customer service dept., no real improvements, but!!!!!!! wait!
We have tons of forum complaints, gazillions of new Dorque articles highlighting RESELLERS and mass-produced items in their very own features, and more lame labs, and oh no!!!!! Another 45 Dorque articles are going up on Monday morning!
I would really be surprised if they ever gave us any meaningful stats. Without stats they are free to blame poor sales on the sellers who don't blog and post and advertise enough.
I just want to add, that on May 2, 2006 Eileen from Happywhosits asked about stats and then started on her own to compile them by hand on an almost daily basis, based on the last 100 sold in the sampler, and she would go in 3 times a day and compile them and then post them in the forums. She did this for 6 momths. You can do a forum title search for 'selling stats for' and just look for her posts.
A lot of time and effort went into compiling those by hand and it gave us a good idea of what types of items were selling, price points and a daily average.
3 cheers for Eileen!
"Etsy is an ecommerce venue, right?"
maybe Etsy really is just a social networking experiment pretending to be an ecommerce venue
You would think that ETSY would be embarrased about they're shortcomings.
Why not?
Stats for free seem like it would just go with being a seller?
Charging for them is completely greedy, because we all know they can provide them for FREE.
Who the heck thought of that idea anyhow? Maybe they are not satisfied with what they get paid for being admin and are not making sales on etsy themselves.
I would love to know how many sales I make are from my actual website... or from a treasury.
What can we do to help this along? Petition? Revolt? Riot?
It's stupid that this site doesn't have stats availble to sellers! On big cartel its $20 a month and you get loads of stats!
With the money people pay in renewing (which Etsy seems to encourage because it gives them more money) they can easily afford stats but instead they waste it on silly things like that rainbow loading thing. Theres so much useless stuff on that site!
This Rokali forum thread just takes the cupcake:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=13096
Apparently, they want to know what is the least amount of data they can get away with, and be able to say "Hey, it's what you asked for..!"
It's incomprehensible why Etsy thinks they have to build a completely new stats platform, spend lots of that development money on reinventing the wheel, then try to tell us they have to charge us for it because it's such a huge undertaking for Admin.
It would be cheaper and easier to just integrate Google Analytics, like hundreds of other ecommerce sites do for their shops and portfolios. And they wouldn't have to do pretend research to figure out what to offer.
Maria: hire some real programmers and marketing specialists. Dump the Flashers and Lab Rats.
holiday plans...put a bow on your store
advertising.....can we offer you a rainbow mandala
stats....no, but we've made the renew button easier to find.
stale showcases, quit your day job and still live with mom, but, we're here for you.
It's time to stop asking questions. As good as it gets was last year.
Maria has been at the helm 4 months and it's getting worse.
eCrater is 100% free, still run by one guy (I think), and even though it doesn't allow HTML, found a way to enable Google Analytics.
I continue to be baffled by etsy staff. No vision, talent, experience, knowledge, empathy or integrity--yet they all probably think they're hot shit. Clueless to the fact that the sellers made etsy what it is....not a damn thing that they did.
I'm trying to understand why the stats issue has gone on like this. Is it:
a) Etsy is lazy?
b) Etsy doesn't have the talent to complete the task?
c) Etsy is afraid of what we'll learn?
I honestly don't get it!
they run an advertising campaign for their Etsy shops, they have no way of tracking where their traffic is coming from, and, therefore, whether that advertising was successful. If they change their product line, ditto. Without statistics, sellers are flying blind when it comes to running their shops like real businesses.
----------
AMEN!
And if I could just add a google analytics code to my shop I'd be pleased as punch.
I have no idea if that is a hard feature to enable, but it would seem from someone who willingly admits I don't know much about all of this stuff--is a pretty easy fix.
It's sad to think that sellers have been asking for stats since they started the forums. That is one of the first forum threads I read about when they put up the forms and I still see many of them every day. Pathetic
Oh, and you left out Haim. It was Rd and Haim that helped Rob start up Etsy, followed by Jarod a few months later.
"Charging for them is completely greedy, because we all know they can provide them for FREE."
Well, they wouldn't really be free anyway. We're all paying for listing and commissions, of course, but let's not forget the oooooodles of dollars many are spending on renewing, renewing, renewing.
The amount of money my bill is each month is more than enough to warrant stats being included in the cost - often it's more than the fees for my intermediate level Shopify account, which comes with its own stats and Google analytics built in. Oh, and it's really well designed, features truly excellent functionality and even things like discount codes too! All that is included in the price ... just imagine!?
I'm going to reiterate, BigCartel $20/month and I have basic stats. I have a list of referring websites, including Google searches so I know what product is actually bringing the most people into my shop. I know what pages are getting the most views. PLUS, I added Google Analytics for detailed stats (tho I've been pretty happy with my basic stats so far). Oh yeah, and I can rearrange my shop to my hearts content and put it in vacation mode with one click.
I have to agree that Etsy doesn't want to give stats because everyone will figure out that most traffic is being driven in through outside sources. I think Google search is probably the top one, with blogs being second. I think this concept is supported by the fact that most of MY sales are from first time buyers with new accounts.
Once everyone discovers this, they'll realize that they don't have to renew as often as they think. They'll see that those Showcase ads aren't doing them any good. And Etsy's largest revenue source will decline.
Whoever thinks Etsy is making its money off of sales is kidding themselves. If that WAS the case, they'd be chasing down new buyers and bringing them into the site. But they're not, they only target new sellers who they can easily manipulate into renewing their entire shop on a regular basis.
Virtually all of my sales are from first time buyers with new accounts too.
It took me a long time to realize it, but I've come to the conclusion that Etsy's business plans have little to do with satisfying their customers (us sellers). It's frustrating because it seems they want us to believe that they have our best interests in mind, but so much of what they do, or don't do, says otherwise.
The other day I was reading the job descriptions of positions that Etsy is currently trying to fill.
http://fix.etsy.com/jobs/job_Biz_Ana_Rev.html
http://fix.etsy.com/jobs/job_Prod_Manager.html
Maybe it's just me, but reading them made me think Etsy was even less concerned with satisfying their customers, than I had realized. None of their plans or practices , that I can see, really have anything to do with what is best for sellers.
The lack of stats enrages me. The fact that they are so unwilling to share, only leads to me to believe that they have something to hide, or that they are unwilling to help out it's sellers. Either way, WTF Etsy.
Thanks for the correction, glib, I'll amend it on the article.
And thanks for that information, windys, I'll add happywhosits threads to the timeline. I agree, Eileen deserves a big shout-out for her hard work.
Wow. what a compilation of sadness. And an extremely well-researched article. "Etsy stopped doing anything interesting 18 months ago. The site has rocketed to over 170,000 stores (Etsy's #) and nothing has really changed"
agreed. While stats my not help my sales, it might giver me a better clue. My other website offers them as part of the $5/month hosting.
Etsy???? you're getting my renewals -- now get me some stats!
As everyone has said, if Etsy gives us statistics, sellers will be shocked by the results stop pumping the Etsy coffers full of cash through showcases and renewals.
Another BASIC TOOL I have begged for several times is the ability to view more than 21 items at a time when performing a search. When I am looking for something, I get so frustrated with clicking through pages that I just give up. If I, a seller and person with a high-speed connection, get fed up and stop browsing, imagine how first-time visitors or dial up users (still a larger population) feel!
Nice work documenting the history of this issue EB.
Psssst...etsycorp, your Lame is showing.
more snark for your viewing fun.
Nipple tassels in the back to school showcase. Just what every highschooler needs.
Etsy needs to sit down and spell out what sellers ARE to the company.
I joined with the understanding that I would be sort of a stockholder in the overall company. That's obviously not true.
So I set myself up thinking that I was a store set in a mall. Sort of a leasee in their space. But no, I'd still get amenities for my rent.
Apparently, I'm supposed to be a wide eyed follower of a cult leader, given nothing, but giving everything to etsy.
Hey, never saw those job descriptions before. Thanks, ginat.
Looking at the employment homepage is pretty funny. Usually corps use these places to tout their diversity. But according to the photos on this page, to work at etsy you must be young, white, bearded (if male) or a long-haired brunette (if female):
http://fix.etsy.com/jobs/index.html
Way to confirm your lack of depth, dudes.
looking at all the black/white photos of the etsy staff there's little diversity to be seen.
and i don't understand why all the areas at the bottom seem to link to the storque.
i'm also not sure that computers on fire exactly is the recruiting message you would want to send.
looking at all the black/white photos of the etsy staff there's little diversity to be seen.
and i don't understand why all the areas at the bottom seem to link to the storque.
i'm also not sure that computers on fire exactly is the recruiting message you would want to send.
http://fix.etsy.com/jobs/index.html
Wow, at the very bottom of the page the little black and white drawing in the middle shows a person pointing to a board that says:
Help
Computer
And the two employees looking at it are saying:
WTF
OMG
Seems about accurate, really.
oh but it's "Great fun" to work there!
and, and, and, it's a "start-up company"
and you get a great salary and full benefits! Wow! I want a job there. I can't be any less qualified than the current employees!
Thanks for the heads up (or nipples up) whoot whoot, since I never look at showcases, and there they are....and I'll go right back to ignoring showcases along with the GG's, & the hundreds of Dorque articles that are showing mass produced in just about every feature they post. Slippers? From what factory?
I'm with all of you who can't figure out what's going on with Etsy these days, but there is an underlying tone of decay. Maybe it's laziness, maybe they're all acting out or pouting because their jobs may finally be on the line, but to be THAT careless for this long sends a message. Even then they pick their own "faves" all over the damn site, they fail to weed out the resellers and mass produced.
If they want it to look like no one cares, it certainly does.
Wow. Just clicked on that About Us page. Rob, Chris, Haim are in the top row, Jared just below Rob.
Maria is dropped in like an afterthought at the bottom of Biz.
No wonder she has no "hand."
Step up, bitch, and put yourself on top of a pyramid structure, and stomp some mass produced Gortex Boots!!!
whoot whoot said...
more snark for your viewing fun.
Nipple tassels in the back to school showcase. Just what every highschooler needs.
------------------
I just went and looked...copyright infringing nipple tassels no less AND drawers- what the hell, I mean...I just don't know what to say anymore.
I heard they wouldn't let in lunch bags, that they were focusing on just clothes with this gg. But what school are they catering to where the kids buy pasties and high-rise underwear for class?
What a great site. I totally agree with Admin having their head placed far up ... well, you know.
my dayjob stresses servant leadership... and at first i didn't think much of it, but now i realize that the etsy organization could learn a lot from this concept.
"At heart, the individual is a servant first, making the conscious decision to lead in order to better serve others, not to increase their own power"
Anyone have a spare sock puppet I can borrow? I want to cut and past this article to every single thread listed here, bumping them all back up to the top.
Anyone, pretty please?
Many of my sales are from people who signed up that day. Which tells me that they are probably finding me through Google. So I focus on being at the top of Google- not real rocket science there IMHO.
Stats would be great- it might let me know where to focus more advertising but I don't have them so I make do.
Maybe my sales would skyrocket with stats- maybe not. I try not to fret and focus on my craft, being at the top of google,blogging,etc..
Almost all of my sales are from people who found me on Google (I asked them) so I stopped playing the Showcase Games and renewing 10 times a day lonnnnng ago. I'll use Etsy as an online portfolio and list new items - - but I have seen for myself how any traffic I get is mostly driven off Google and Yahoo searches.
Etsy doesn't want to give us all the stats that would show this is the case for many, many sellers.
Many of my sales are from people who signed up that day. Which tells me that they are probably finding me through Google. So I focus on being at the top of Google- not real rocket science there IMHO.
_______________
Me too! They do "buy and run". Never to be seen again. I know that when I look for anything to buy and don't know where to go, Google is my first stop. It is ridiculously hard to actually find anything within the Etsy search, which needs desperately to be fixed. If they provided stats, the numbers would be sad and tell everyone that at the heart of it, the search function is really really bad. I seriously think that is the biggest problem on Etsy.
Often when someone who just signed up that day buys from me I'll ask how they found me (if I remember). Many times they say "I looked under 'earrings' and yours were on the first (second, third) page".
For me, renewing works at times. But it's a gamble, as someone once said.
I have to agree that Etsy doesn't want to give stats because everyone will figure out that most traffic is being driven in through outside sources. I think Google search is probably the top one, with blogs being second. I think this concept is supported by the fact that most of MY sales are from first time buyers with new accounts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It looks like a few of us realize that sales are coming from google search,blogs etc.. I am really shocked that people don't understand this concept and would be surprised when they realized where their sales came from.
It just seems like a no brainer.
I have never felt the need to renew or purchase a showcase- where did that concept come from??
Anyone has a suggestion for a a site to sell at besides Etsy? I don't want to waste all the time and money many of you have invested in a site that probably won't exist in 2 months.
Where is a good place for a small time craft person to sell online?
I still get requests for orders even when I haven't listed in ages (like recently). From first time signer uppers. So the search isn't what's bringing them to me. Unless they're all really that patient and feel like searching through weeks and weeks worth of listings. Just fyi, as unique as I like to think I am, this cannot be attributed to uniqueness...there's items similar to mine with similar tags listed ALL the time.
I'd like to see every single one of the OLD threads resurrected.
Let the newer members of etsy's community see for themselves how idiotic and hopeless the place has become.
I was playing around with wordle and different blogs, and I typed in etsybitch. This is what it came up with. Etsy over on one side.... sellers WAAAAAY over there. http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/144602/Etsy_alienates_its_sellers
From the current "Quit your Dayjob" seller:
What have you found to be unsuccessful promotion or something that's just not working for your shop?
"...I have purchased some ads on blogs as well, but I sincerely have no clue if there are actual direct sales from them. I know it does bring my views higher, so I chose up to now to keep that Web presence, even if faced with uncertainty."
Hmmm...she wouldn't be faced with that uncertainty if etsy provided stats, now would she?
Etsy is all about word of mouth advertising. They expect their sellers to go out and advertise for them, but they won't budge an inch when it comes to helping out the people who are clearly helping them.
Etsy is a greedy unprofessional company that has no clue whatsoever how to run a business.
Hahahahahhahahhahaha! Just read the job description for VP - Product Management and saw this in the Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
"Represent the company with the utmost level of professionalism and in a way that’s consistent with the ethos of Etsy." What a joke.
And what "products" does Etsy have to "manage" anyway? WTF is that job listing all about. "Product lifecycle"? Who are they kidding. I hope to hell they're not hiring this person for the EtsyLabs.
Oh my! Last night I started a thread about Dawanda and the fact that THEY have stats and yet no stats on Etsy. It started off in the business section and then moved to promos!!
Oh silly me....I'm promo'ing Dawanda!!!
Slap my hand with a wet fish!!
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5782523
I'm a very positive and optimistic person but things like this just push my Cynical Cindy button!!
It's nearly 6 am with me and I feel like having a glass of wine....not good!!!
Etsy is an ecommerce site? I find that hard to believe. It's more like myspace cept myspace might actually have experience in running a community networking site!~
The number one goal should be getting off Etsy and onto your own site! Etsy is more and more like a conglomerate.
Folks GET your OWN site NOW. Etsy is not interested in helping us with anything. Let me say it again!
FOLKS GET YOUR OWN SITE NOW. With the fees your paying you could have your own site!!
Post a Comment