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Doing interviews of course! Who has time to address their customers when they're being a CEO. Answering all those email and phone interviews is tough business. Why actually spend time controlling your employees when you need to talk to the Guardian and auctionbytes about fraud.
Nevermind the customers asking about it. No, the press is what matters! It's free advertising!
Maria, if we may be so informal, do you think you can come out of your office for a sec and actually, I don't know, maybe, just maybe, smack around a few of your employees and answer some of the concerns of the masses? I don't know, maybe telling your customers that you hear their concerns about fraud and infringement might just make your employees' jobs a little bit easier. Or, hmm I don't know, actually tell your customers about the interviews (they are not listed on the press page and there are no Storque articles by pesmou, Maria's username).
Or not...what do we know!? I mean, it's not like we're in the same business or anything.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Where in the world is Maria Thomas?
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24 Comments:
a major overhaul sceduled for October 27th? Yeah baby!! Just what I wanted for Christmas!
"So add to Etsy's list of challenges the issue of whether it can remain focused on handmade goods, which it must in order to keep the trust of its current community, or whether it will find itself unable to turn down other areas of ecommerce, something investors may ultimately demand."
Holy crap, the supplies and vintage people are going to go berserk!
Another missed opportunity to tell about the "other" areas of Etsy.
Seriously.
We have to find stuff out from articles outside Etsy?
WTF?
I bet if no one brings it up in the forums, there won't be a dorque article about it either.
You know, how they slap shit together at the last minute and quick plunk it on etsy somewhere (think back to school promos)
But cross your fingers and get on your knees and pray, because if Etsy is working after 10/27, it will be a miracle.
Reading that Guardian interview, thought, hmm, maybe Maria thinks fraud is a serious problem on Etsy, but doing something about it on Etsy is a whole 'nother story.
It smells the same as those "Matt Promises", hey, hey, ya know.....
"We will have a town meeting about the holiday ad and promotions plan on 9/28." Huh? When?
Followed by an actual response to 49 threads asking "Update on the holiday plans?" dated 10/21----"Something will be posted in the Dorque NEXT WEEK." love, Matt.
Oh, OK, next week. Site meltdown, zero sales, confused shoppers, wacked out Etsy Admins. Nothin' different there. Those Dear Etsy Admins can't do 2 things at the same time.
OK, sellers, get ready, you know the familiar drill: cross your fingers, get on your knees and pray.
And please, no more begging. It makes those Admins laugh so hard, they forgot the one thing they meant to get done next week.
Bye, bye potential holiday sales!
How did they get ahold of that story? I guess admin isn't locking threads and muting people fast enough.
And why didn't Maria mention that they DO have a solution to fraud! Change the record of sale! Add a word here, take a word out there, and poof! What fraud?
so much to say, so little time.
If Maria would step out of the ivory tower for just a moment she could see that her employees bring a whole new level of incompetence to the business world.
But really, Matt is the "yes" man, the front man,so why bother.
As for Oct 27....I think I'm copying all my descriptions to word so when they get lost, I can cut and paste.
DUCK said...
"So add to Etsy's list of challenges the issue of whether it can remain focused on handmade goods, which it must in order to keep the trust of its current community, or whether it will find itself unable to turn down other areas of ecommerce, something investors may ultimately demand."
Holy crap, the supplies and vintage people are going to go berserk!
Another missed opportunity to tell about the "other" areas of Etsy.
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I doubt it. Auction Bytes seems to be protecting the interests of its business relationships (do you know anything about that?) with companies who offer antiques, collectibles, vintage, supplies, and drop-shipped knick-knacks...and have a history of indifference (or downright hostility) to the work of artists and artisans. Years ago Auction Bytes forums deleted a post by an Etsy seller (who did not also have a shop at the venue preferred by AB) as 'spam' because she had a link back to her Etsy shop. The thread of responses to her post was not deleted, just hers -- and she was completely within their forum guidelines.
The last thing AB wants their readers to know is that they can open an Etsy shop to sell pretty much anything the venue associated with them allows...at much lower fees.
Oh what I wouldn't give to replace Etsy's useless vids with one of Maria slapping the employees.
That would be number one with a rocket on YouTube!
"So add to Etsy's list of challenges the issue of whether it can remain focused on handmade goods, which it must in order to keep the trust of its current community, or whether it will find itself unable to turn down other areas of ecommerce, something investors may ultimately demand."
Mark my words, they will start letting anybody and everybody sell anything on Etsy and do away with the "Handmade" appeal.
They will evetually fuck it up as bad as Ebay is right now.
The gap between Etsy staff and shop owners is getting bigger every day.
I'm very worried about monday-morning/afternoon....
Oh, good lord, could they just let us suffer with Etsy as it is until the holiday season is OVER?
Those who suffered through the catastrophe that was V2 know exactly what I'm talking about.
My advice? Sell elsewhere. Etsy is going to be one hot mess.
jeezuz.
Grace said...
Mark my words, they will start letting anybody and everybody sell anything on Etsy and do away with the "Handmade" appeal.
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I, too, think Etsy will continue to drift into being more of a generic marketplace. That will lose Etsy its 'handmade appeal' whether or not this is the intention of the owners and investors.
While I don't care much for the Steiners (Auction Bytes), they do know how to play the game. They obviously see Etsy as competition for some of their associates -- which it wouldn't be as a mainly handmade venue. Already one of the mods from AB Forums has an Etsy shop (not handmade, of course). Etsy has reached a major transition point, and competitors are watching.
My question is why Maria, the investors, or all concerned, would be interested in changing Etsy's unique appeal -- the source of its phenomenal growth -- to the generic goods market place. While Etsy has grown -- and continues to grow -- the generic quasi-vintage venues are way down in terms of sellers and traffic compared to 3-5 years ago. Dunno????
It is starting to smell like burning. When I read the article this morning I went and copied everything from listing to feedback to sold items list from my etsy store.
And the fact they are muting so many of us old sellers is more than revealing. We are the one remembering there was an "ethic" behind etsy. It went away such a long time ago, but it surely totally disappeared in the dark night of corporation land with the buy out.
Fraud in recent 'weeks'? WTF? Like this is a brand new issue and by golly we're on it?
Please
And I REALLY need to update my Google alerts so I can stay on top of the bullshit.
The OP Sez:
"I mean, it's not like we're in the same business or anything."
Uh... You are NOT in the same business, you know - she's the CEO of a rapidly growing internet startup competing with ebay and a dozen other sites that want to cash in on the same idea. You are disgruntled, self-employed bloggers who sound like a crazy ex-girlfriend about ready to key Maria Thomas' car because you saw her talking to someone else.
But one day she'll realize it's you she really loves and then she'll come crawling back. Until then, you should continue to analyze her every move and criticize her every word because that's the only way she's ever going to realize how wrong, wrong, wrong she has been not to cc all of you personally on all of her communications. So keep up the obsessive ranting - it worked for Rob, right?
Shit - she's probably talking to the staff RIGHT NOW! She's probably giving them all kinds of INFORMATION that she'll NEVER TELL YOU! Because YOU DON'T WORK THERE!
I know it's heartbreaking. Hang in there, sisters.
you think that's bitchy, you have no idea who we are. We all have lives and jobs and experience...that's one reason we started this blog.
Many many sellers on Etsy have far more experience with selling, branding, and marketing handmade as well as site design and shopping cart integration than Etsy seems to do.
A gathering place to sell handmade was a wonderful dream, why give us shit for trying to save it and our investment in it. We all have money in Etsy, paid 20 cents at a time, but it has amounted to a large investment in our own little corners there.
And we may not work there, but we're their customers. And they SHOULD tell us certain things that have to do with our business relationship with them.
Go eat your sarcasm dusted pom poms
You sound a little disgruntled there, youthinkthat'sbitchy. Did somebody piss in your kool-aid this morning?
That's quite the analogy you're stretching. Are you suffering from a failed relationship yourself? Did Rokali not return your desperate love-notes? Talk about heartbreaking!
If you can tear yourself away from your obsession for a minute, allow us to inform you that Maria is an EB reader. As a CEO it's part of her responsibilities to understand public perception of her company. So when we bitchily reflect upon her actions, we do it with a purpose.
Also, please try to squeeze it into your love-addled brain that we are HERE TO BITCH. Not hand out cupcakes. Bitch. That's right. We even get paid for it. You, on the other hand, are being an asshat for free.
Ooh! Maria reads your blog! Hi Maria! Over here! Over here!
Don't mind the mean girls... I just got a ride from them, they're not really my friends or anything...
I just KNOW we could be really good friends - let's go over here in the corner where it's quiet...
Now - tell me - girlfriend to girlfriend...
What's Rob really like?
*sniffs you think that's bitchy?'s ass* Hrmmm, you smell an awful lot like a rusty orange colored familiar. Let me test you...
Cupcakes are:
A: A delicious desert treat.
B: An unexplainable yet trendy pop culture object that oozes retro kitsch girlishness.
C: A reliable source of blow jobs and vast amounts of money for rolling in.
What I love (read: don't love) about people who come to EB to bitch about the bitches...is that they bitch about the bitches instead of bitching about what we're here to bitch about. They plunk like a lead balloon into the middle off all of this thinking they're some kind of hero saving us from ourselves, without actually adding anything useful to the conversation. I'd love to see some contructive dissenting opinions...unfortunately we seem to just get blasted by asshats.
Show us we're wrong. By using something other than your massive sarcastic wit. At least the bitches mix their massive sarcastic wits with actual critique and information.
Wait a sec, if anyone's disgruntled around here, it's me.
And Rokali wears coral nail polish, as you well know, sweetie-pie.
It takes a lot of energy to even give a fuck about him anymore, since he's been shoved sideways so he can spend his time talking to Swimmy and leave running the "rapidly growing internet startup" (it's it about two years too old to call it a startup anymore?) to the big girls and boys.
Every now and then he comes into the forums to start a random thread that practically screams "Look! I'm still here! I'm still important! Worship me!"
Silly little commenter.
"Show us we're wrong"
Yeah, that's kind of hard to do with delusional people who think they're always right.
F'rinstance when the OP says that Etsy sellers and Etsy's CEO are in the "same business." I said that's WRONG. Incorrect. Not the case. The interests of a rapidly growing internet company with outside investors are WILDLY different than the interests of a single person working for herself, putting her own money on the line.
Of course the CEO should be representing the company. That's why she does interviews with national press outlets remarking on topics relevant to her industry. So why does your blog bitch at her for doing this? Apparently only because she didn't run it by the "Many many sellers on Etsy [who] have far more experience with selling, branding, and marketing handmade" first?
You know that really reveals what your biggest beef is. You all think you should be working for Etsy and are pissed because you know you never will be. That's probably why you are anonymous - if Maria ever found out who you really were, then she'd NEVER call you up out of the blue to ask your advice on how she should negotiate the next round of capital funding.
I don't give a shit if you're saved or not. Feel free to wallow pathetically in your own bullshit all you like. Just remember - if you can't start your own funky little craft site, the next best thing is to pretend you hate funky little craft sites and never wanted anything to do with them in the first place and people who like them are dumb. That's the bitchy way.
Dude,
We.have.jobs.
As customers of Etsy, we would like Etsy and Etsy Admin to do their fucking jobs.
It's.that.simple.
Oh, and Etsy is not a "funky little craft site" anymore. It's a big online business which means it should start acting like one.
You know what's funnier? I gave etsy all this free advice with my expertise in web design, and they did nothing. I presented clean and clear fixes for many problems, they muted me.
I'm now designing the newest competitor, and I'm designing all elements I tried to *give* Etsy I'm being paid for. This is what happens when a service thinks it's users are stupid know nothings - they'll prove they aren't.
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