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Dear Marymary, this was not the first or even the second occurence. This time it was Anda's turn to get her shop prominently featured.
Admin chimed in on this thread 5 times before shutting down the thread. Etsy, did your customers catch you with your panties down? Below are some of the defensive responses from Etsy Admin:
Thanks so much for expressing your concerns with admins that have shops and the possibility of them being featured on the site. To be perfectly honest, we have an internal rule that items from admin shops are not to be featured on the homepage or in the gift guides.
This rule has been in effect for close to a year now and if for any reason you see an item featured on Etsy that might be from an admin shop, you are welcome to send us an email to community [!at] etsy.com and we will have it removed.
A treasury with an item from an admin shop would not be denied a highlight on the front page. The item from the admin shop would simply be excluded from the list of item ID's that are loaded on the front page.
Admins must disclose all of their shops on Etsy in their profiles, yes.
If a treasury is selected and loaded on the front page, the admin item would simply be excluded and in it's place the first alternate would appear.
You can find a list of all admins right here: www.etsy.com/about.php
If the admin has a shop/s, it will be listed in their profile. While I can see how a public list of admin shops might be helpful to some, it also might be viewed as further promotions to admins or unfair in some way...so I don't see this becoming a feature any time soon, I apologize.
The items featured in that article were chosen by a guest writer from Domino magazine. We have since removed the item in question; it should not have been included, and we apologize for the error.
Etsy, Etsy...... tsk. You make it sound like this was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. How stupid do you think your customers are? Tens of thousands of shops on Etsy. Yet the same people are highlighted in the Gift Guides, Etsy Finds, on the front page Etsy Admin curated treasuries. That, Etsy, is pathetic.
Screenshot credit goes to Eclipse, sorry I forgot to post that last night.
36 Comments:
Kinda like how mass produced items never exist on the site, featured or otherwise? Riiiiight.
"This rule has been in effect for close to a year now"
ORLY??
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eclipse_etc/2312225232
This was the etsy front page on March 5, 2008. 8 months ago. Two different admin items were featured.
One of marymary's items (username: contrary) was featured in a FP treasury last night. Yes, these stringent rules are still being followed.
Funny, that ring in the corner was also featured in Etsy Finds. Guess their friend is really desperate for a sale.
If I had the time, I'd love to search the Flickr group
http://flickr.com/groups/etsyfrontpagers/
for each of the admin shops and post those stats in the forums. Of course, I'd surely get muted for calling out admin :)
Dear Etsy,
You have both an ethical problem and a credibility problem and your constant violation of business ethics spills over on the rest of the site. It also points to just how lazy you are, and what little concern you have for reputation, quality and future credibility as a viable online business that acts as a host to over 200,000 small businesses.
Many sellers are completely aware that Etsy now controls about 25% of all front page treasuries, which contain the VERY SAME items that are featured AT THE VERY SAME TIME in these other areas of the site:
*Featured Seller
*Dozens of blog posts
*Gift Guides
*Etsy Finds Emails accompanied by Etsy Finds blog posts.
So, no wonder sellers are seeing double, triple and many items popping up 10 or more times --- and you can bet your visitors and shoppers are seeing the same pattern.
You can remove the frequent complaints about promoting your own stores on Etsy by doing what every other online business does - remove your employees' stores immediately and restrict the activity and promotions of stores belonging to employees' relatives.
And figure out how to rotate stock and automate your promotions. Just call Amazon and eBay and ask them how they do it.
You're so full of shit Etsy. Same old story each and everytime, hoping that a new set of members will be oblivious to your sellers of choice.
I love the guest writer excuse. Hello - edit much?
http://flickr.com/search/groups/?w=779551%40N24&q=contrary&m=pool
Copy and paste the link to see that MaryMary's shop, Contrary, has been featured several times since the group began.
Liar, liar, pants on fire...
I asked ArtFire to NOT feature me in twitters etc. The content girl had a couple times not even thinking about it, but I feel that I have to have higher ethics even though I'm just the contractor. I'm on the team, and damn it, someone has to have standards.
Wow. Just Wow.
That is unethical and unprofessional. There is no excuse for that. I can't believe those two are allowed to keep their job.
Straw that broke this camel's back.
I am so utterly disgusted, and ashamed that I spent so much energy promoting etsy in its early years. And when this blog started, I was in the "bitching because we care" camp. No more.
This FP slap-in-the-face comes on the heels of a FP yesterday that featured a direct competitor of mine, who also got a Dorque feature when her shop was less than a month old (admiting she was learning the craft) and a bunch of Gift Guide features over and over again.
Not looking for sympathy here. When the playing field is level, I welcome competition to keep me innovative and perfecting my craft. Just sayin that I finally see that etsy's blatant favoritism will never end.
Time to say goodbye, etsy.
huh...can you say nepotism?
but, why are we surprised and shocked about this, hasn't it always been going on?
what's even worse are the people in the thread who say they are satisfied with admins answers.
It's crapola like this that is turning me off of shopping on etsy.
I love to support the sellers and have gotten some amazing things but when admin pull this shit it makes me not want to support the site. But I don't want to stop supporting the sellers.
Ugh.
Etsy grow the fuck up please.
Anonymous at 11:09. You get be anonymous. Pick a name, any name and we'll be happy to post your comment.
hmmmm? although it's sad that admin who run shops should not be accessing the same promotional avenues as the rest of us sellers can they should realise that by being admin they are already tapping into a vast marketing opportunity not available to the rest. i say 'bad, no, no' to this latest stunt - Etsy, please introduce some effective editing and proofreading into your system!
and PS: the new Featsy service (see link in the UEN sidebar) should provide interesting reading on its stats page!
Anon at 11:16, pick a name please.
in fact here's the contrary stats page http://www.subsushi.net/featsy/stats.search.php?SEARCH=contrary
i guess there's really no hiding place now
teawithfrodo I say this: Even if the Etsy admin ran over a group of school kids in a crosswalk the cheerleaders would be slapping their ass telling them how great they are!
I have learned Etsy does what Etsy wants when Etsy wants~ I get so tired of hearing why random items can't be displayed on the front page. Everyone pays their fees but only a select group of ass kissers are ever featured. They admin scream their not everyone knows they are! Don't speak up about it either because they'll shut that shit down FAST!!
While asking for a clear list of admin and their shops received no clear response it is clear that they really don't want people to know the connections.
I have been doing some cross checking on this (admin shop owners and featured on the FP)but it is quite the task. But in my research I noticed that marymary is also unelephantrose. Which was featured on the FP 8/4/08. Or am I confused?
Unelephantrose here:
http://www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=5193618
And front page 8/4/08 here
http://flickr.com/photos/29136480@N02/2732824591/
ebbandflo said...
and PS: the new Featsy service (see link in the UEN sidebar) should provide interesting reading on its stats page!
Holy shit! That is some interesting reading. For example: "'XYZ' Has been featured 66 times this week, and 11 times today. 4 times on the front page, and 61 times on the giftpages." That is a lot of free advertising for one person!
http://www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=1751
from contrary's Profile...
"P.S. I also work for Etsy in Brooklyn...feel free to contact me at mary [!at] etsy.com or send a convo to my admin account, marymary.etsy.com with any questions, I love making new friends. Please also check out Contrary's sister store, unelephantrose.etsy.com."
marymary on FP 7/9/08:
http://flickr.com/photos/winklepots/2653400694/
unelephantrose on FP 8/4/08:
http://flickr.com/photos/29136480@N02/2732824591/
Contrary on FP 5 times times:
2/9, 7/28, 9/10, 10/16, 11/17... all in 2008
http://flickr.com/search/groups/?w=779551@N24&q=Contrary&m=pool
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No freaking wonder this one etsy ADMIN has so many sales! Looks like she'd be able to quit her day job... ha!
I personally find it hard to believe that she's doing "admin" work the whole time that she's on the clock, which is probably yet another reason why things are the way they are around Etsy.
"Tens of thousands of shops on Etsy. Yet the same people are highlighted in the Gift Guides, Etsy Finds, on the front page Etsy Admin curated treasuries."
-Exactly! This is a problem that I have been bitching about for a while. I get sick of seeing the same sellers and sometimes (even tho it is not their fault) I get turned off towards the seller. Mainly b/c I am jealous.
I don't get turned off toward the sellers because they aren't the ones responsible for the repetition. They benefit from it but they don't control it. Unless of course the seller is also an admin. :p
I know it's possible to install a filter that just will not allow items from certain stores to be put on the front page. For all I know it already exists, and all the grumpy haters names are on it, LOL.
They have a filter that doesn't let you buy from yourself, heart yourself or send yourself a convo. So do the same for admin shops. Automate the damn thing. Because editing and proofreading manually is not working for them.
hmmmm said...
http://www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=1751
from contrary's Profile...
"P.S. I also work for Etsy in Brooklyn...feel free to contact me at mary [!at] etsy.com or send a convo to my admin account, marymary.etsy.com with any questions, I love making new friends. Please also check out Contrary's sister store, unelephantrose.etsy.com."
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Hmmmmm. In ever place I've ever worked, if people used their work email to conduct other business, they would soon not have that work email address because their arse would be out the door.
But hey, it's Etsy. The rulz is, there ain't no rulz.
After reading so many great comments here, it struck me that the ethical dilemna of allowing Admins to have stores and sell their products AND make money AND use their inside knowledge (and power) to promote themselves also heavily affect all the decisions Admins make about WHO else they promote on the site.
Admins probably are NOT promoting stores in direct competition with their own, and are probably NOT choosing a bigger variety of products to promote because they have personal preferences based on what they sell themselves.
Admins have been "filtering" out their personal preferences (and omit their direct competition) for 4 years, which has resulted in uniformity and repetition.
Etsy Admins have actually created the impression and reputation that they only carry about 25 different product types (which include products in their own stores)and this, in the end, helps them sell more of their own products.
Etsy really is built on personal preference and it's starting to look like it------since these people ran out of creative ideas a long time ago.
Maybe they're spending too much time selling their own stuff, and the rest of the time making sure their direct competition gets as little attention as is possible.
Make money in your store (with a lot of help from the site) and collect that paycheck every 2 weeks - smells pretty fishy to me.
When Stella stated policy had changed last year, do you think she really knew it hadn't or didn't bother to check the facts?
Either way she's not competent in her role and she doesn't tell the truth. Time to remove her from the side bar.
Maybe she can start up her shop again and Anda and Mary can feature her.
willbitchforchange says:
-Exactly! This is a problem that I have been bitching about for a while. I get sick of seeing the same sellers and sometimes (even tho it is not their fault) I get turned off towards the seller. Mainly b/c I am jealous.
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Years and Years! You'd think the admin wouldn't have any asses left after being kissed that many times for that many years! lol
Etsy is losing credibility fast. And obviously Maria et.al are so busy at the top they're not noticing what's going on at the bottom. They better read here to see what the hell is going on.
Give them a choice: your shop(s) or your admin job. Simple as that. Too much favoritism, nepotism, all kinds of -isms going the hell on. It also creates ill-will towards sellers who who may have nothing to do with being "favorited" as it were.
Etsy really needs a corporate culture, complete with handbook an policies. This shit is clear out of high school and really dates etsy. Don't depend on them to do the work for you, PROMOTE yourselves, create teams, get your own ads, etc. Show them that it is US who is the hot shit, and ass-kissing will not be done. The revolution will NOT be televised
Cool! I started that thread. I didn't even get to be part of the locked mess it became :(
This is a serious conflict of interest. A new system needs to be implemented for front page items that leaves admin out of the decision process. The front page never represents the diversity of items on the site. Of course not all items are front page worthy, but the narrow range of items that appear on the front page turns people off and contradicts the "all things handmade" statement.
The bitching isn't going to stop until the ethical issues are resolved. Even fixing all the site functionality issues cannot restore customer confidence at this point.
FOR SHAME.
Many sellers are completely aware that Etsy now controls about 25% of all front page treasuries, which contain the VERY SAME items that are featured AT THE VERY SAME TIME in these other areas of the site:
*Featured Seller
*Dozens of blog posts
*Gift Guides
*Etsy Finds Emails accompanied by Etsy Finds blog posts.
_____________
This part really really bugs me. Admittedly, I have made the FP in an Etsy admin curated treasury(ONCE). But the thing about seeing the same items over and over really in every available featurable space on Etsy bugs to no end. I get more and more depressed when I look at the gift guides or read Storque articles that might have a theme that my stuff fits and time after time, I'm not there. I mean really, since when does a necklace go in "decorate your table"? And I rarely bother reading all the above usual places because I see all the same stuff and same sellers over and over again. I use Undiscovered in Pounce and look at new listings on the FP to discover cool stuff. I wish someone ( I am not brave enough) would just out and out ask admin in the forums why the same people are featured over and over again. People dance around the question, but I don't believe anyone has ever asked "Why do you do this?".
Siiiigggghhhh.
No doubt, the previous site administration was a total failure at setting a professional tone. These randomly chosen girls who were hired were free to do basically whatever the hell they wanted, it seemed, and get paid for it. that seems to be changing, but not quite fast enough!
If I freaking see Yokoo on the front page ONE MORE TIME I am going to throw something at my computer screen.
Seriously.
There are SO MANY awesome knit shops to feature, why does it have to be the same one over and over again? The same one who admits to ripping off another seller for an idea??!!
Again, etsy, stop being all high school cliquish.
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