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We received this from a very organized and observant Etsian:
I just sent HeyMichelle an email, as she requested in the umpteenth thread in Ideas today, with a list of TEN repeats that I found (sellers in multiple GG or the same item repeated). And one of kfarrell's (admin) items in one GG. Seriously, kids, how hard can this be? Don't give me the crap that you don't feature your friends. And, BTW, I like a few of these sellers a lot, and have no issues with them. It's just silly that there are so many complaints about this and it continues to happen. How hard is it to keep track of this stuff?
Gift Guide repeats:
Item appearing multiple times:
Together Charm by elisasherejewelry appears in Her (page 3), $20-50 (page 3)
Sellers appearing multiple times:
PEAPOD by muyinmolly $20-50 (page 1); Large and skinny earrings by muyinmolly Her (page 1)
Petal Earrings by esdesigns $20-50 (page 1); Simple Hammered Rings by esdesigns Seasonal Fashion (page 2)
Set of 3 Roly Dot Bowls by papaververt Mom (page 2); Plant Cozy for 3 inch pot by papaververt $20-50 (page 5)
HelloSweetness by soap Mom (page 4); Sheer Tint lip balm by soap Stocking Stuffers (page 3)
Notorious Luxury Cowl by fringe Mom (page 5); Out of Print Cowl by fringe Her (page 5)
Winter 2008 scarf by desirapesta Winter Accessories (page 2) ; Winter 2008 dress by desirapesta Seasonal Fashion (page 2)
Eyeglass case – penguins by Oktak Seasonal Fashion (page 3); XL frame pouch by Oktak Her (page 3)
Admin item in GG:
Build your own tinysaur by kfarrell (Etsy Admin) Stocking Stuffers (page 1)
Edit: As of the time of posting, kfarrell's profile states that she works for Etsy, but HeyMichelle responded to the Aux's email stating that she does not work for Etsy. It was also pointed out that they only worry about duplicates in the same GG, not in the total. Which is bullshit.
30 Comments:
It's rampant! Ten sellers with two spots each! Out of over 2600 in the gift guides! It's almost half a percent! I can't believe how blatant and obvious it is! Etsy said they wouldn't have repeat sellers and they are only 99.96% successful! They lie! It's favoritism! There's proof!
does etsy make any sense anymore?
Great sleuthing!
check this out: One seller, one the front page 9 times in 8 days:
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=staroftheeast&m=pool&w=779551%40N24&s=rec
Alas more nepotism ... GAG!
Reading this makes me feel like I'm not doing enough to fight the fight! There are so many items - great items - out there that there is no reason to repeat items or sellers in the gift guides.
There really are so many amazing items and sellers to be found on Etsy, who have professional/clean photos that it really is silly and so unnecessary.
I don't understand why they just ignore the easy stuff...this problem could be dealt with immediately, and permanently, with hardly an extra brain cell used, if only they would let that one extra brain cell kick into action. Silly.
And they wonder why we bitch. If we can't trust you to fix the sall stuff, why should we trust that the bigger issues will be fixed? It's a classic case of sloppy PR.
I think kfarrell might not work for etsy anymore.
bluh said...
It's rampant! Ten sellers with two spots each! Out of over 2600 in the gift guides! It's almost half a percent! I can't believe how blatant and obvious it is! Etsy said they wouldn't have repeat sellers and they are only 99.96% successful! They lie! It's favoritism! There's proof!
____________________
I don't think it's favoritism as much as sheer laziness on the part of admin. Also, it happens all the time. ALL THE TIME! Every time I take a look at the gift guides, I see repeats. It's bordering on surreal.
bluh said...
It's rampant! Ten sellers with two spots each! Out of over 2600 in the gift guides! It's almost half a percent! I can't believe how blatant and obvious it is! Etsy said they wouldn't have repeat sellers and they are only 99.96% successful! They lie! It's favoritism! There's proof!
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Admin over and over post that this WILL NOT and ISN'T SUPPOSED TO happen...yet again and again it does..etsy GG submissions =FAIL
totally slopapalooza.
It is clearly Etsy's intention to promote themselves and their relatives and friends, including those Etsy has crowned "Etsy Trendsetters" who continue to produce Etsy-condoned products for the Etsy-Approved-Annointed-Few.
The fact is, Etsy has perfected this self-perpetuation for the profit of the company while calling itself a "community based" site which is just a mask for an "Etsy-Approved-Community Clique".
Etsy gives not only the impression, but proves their point. Whatever Etsy says is "buyable" is making money for them, NOT building, helping, sustaining, protecting, or promoting THE HANDMADE COMMUNITY.
Etsy has perfected the myth that they are "helping artisans sell" but what they really have done is a huge construct of disposable trends, some of which might be handmade.
Benefit the handmade community at large? Are you kidding? Where everything is priced $15 and under?
I am just waiting to pass by the Staten Island Landfill and its piles of cowl-necked-fingerless-gloves-holding-tiny-snap-purses-with-feathered-hairpins-and-all-at-below-cost items!
Wow! You've got to hand it to Etsy for making the site look like their personal shopping list and do it with such thoroughness! All the while making handmade synonymous with Walmart, including bargain basement pricing. Piles and piles and piles.
If artisans complained about making the equivalent of 21 cents an hour before Etsy, they can now complain about making 2 cents an hour WITH Etsy.
Oh bluh....you're just so bluh.
I always appreciate constructive criticism, devil's advocacy and the like...in this instance the problem is that this is such an easy thing NOT to do. There are millions of listings on Etsy. Millions...and they list the same crap over and over. Again I say: lazy PR. Pazy period.
No, it's not the END OF THE WORLD bluh, you are SO SMARY...but it is a symptom of a sloppily run company.
I am so sick of Etsy and what they have done and are doing to craft.
Glad to see ArtFire as a sponsor here. I hope that a new site will rise to the top that is actually good for those crafters who are not part of their chose few.
Sign up people for ArtFire and let the new day dawn!
this is getting so old and tired. after last years brouhaha with a certain jewelry seller you'd think they would try harder, or put three free interns on it. gees, dont they have a stalker or two they could put to work on it already? we have to face facts that this is an issue of laziness and nothing else. and they simply dont care. meanwhile, the busiest week of online shopping will have come and gone. certain businesses will thrive and some will fail. and i sincerely doubt that people who have bravely spoken up, in one way or another about etsy issues, will ever be featured in gift guides or in articles or on the fp
6:15 PM Etsy Time:
Front Page entirely Etsy employee picks - the top feature box is now EDITORS PICKS from the blog! Can you imagine seeing double???? Etsy did it!
The FPT is 100% screened and picked by Etsy ONLY if it meets their requirements for Items-Etsy-Likes. (And many sellers have acknowledged that they make "Etsy-Approved FPT's" so they can up their chances of getting up there.)
ALL the features accessible from the Front Page are personal Etsy picks. See how many duplicates you can count!
kfarrell does still work for Etsy, she posted this admin announcement less than 2 weeks ago
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5917225
Kind of ties in with this Etsy forum thread under Etc.
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5941408
I haven't been visitng Etsy all that much recently (been working on my own shops, which are not on Etsy), but every time I do there is at least one item I've seen before on the front page, along with an item from a few sellers I see a lot.
There is even more repetition if you consider the same types of items that always seem to be on the front page -- the 'disposable trends' of the faux green Etsy dream economy.
*sigh* This is just one more thing that proves they are technically inept. How hard is it to write an f'ing script that checks for doubles and employees names. Damn, the employees names I could practically do with an Excel sheet macro.
Whatever. I'm giving it through January 31st. But, I don't think things will change much. It's unfortunate, because I really thought it would be a good place to have a shop that I didn't need to manage on the tech backend as much. Pretty sure I'll be looking into ways to build my own site with Google Shopping cart.
etsylabs have an item on the front page right now.
Must be nice to give yourself that kind of exposure.
I'll out myself as the source of this info...which was hardly scientific, as I told Michelle when I sent it. It was just something I noticed after browsing around the GG. And it's only a sample of the repeats that I found...after looking a while longer, I found about 40 more different repeats, with a bunch of sellers featured in the guides five or six different times.
There are 700,000 jewelry items on Etsy. Even if every single GG spot featured a piece of jewelry, that would feature less than .005% of the jewelry on the site. With a handful of jewelers (several of whom are good friends of mine, and are incredibly talented) having 3 or 4 pieces featured, that's a huge amount of exposure for a tiny number of sellers in an oversaturated category.
Hey - it's Etsy's decision how to promote listings. Michelle responded to clarify that Etsy tries to avoid repeating a seller *within an individual guide* so apparently my point was moot, and I misunderstood the admin request for reporting repeats.
Take that as you will. It's not my site to run, and it's not my primary shop anymore, so apparently all I did was waste a bunch of time.
bluh...I don't believe it's favoritism. I think the admins just have very consistent taste. But I now understand the complaints from sellers who've never been featured, when there are some people who've had lots of great exposure. Frustrating. :(
There may be only 10 duplicates out of 2600, but there are only 2600 spots available out of how many sellers on etsy?
288756 sellers (http://www.etsy.com/shops_sellers.php). Okay, minus some number of shops that aren't selling any more (like mine). But those 10 duplicate spots are rather important to the other sellers who would like to be in the Gift Guides. And I think "rather important" might be an understatement.
If I fucked up a project in my job, I'd double, triple & quadruple check my work to make sure I didn't make the same mistake.
If that first f-up was published for the world to see, you better believe I'd make damn sure it never happened again.
Apparently etsy employees aren't nearly this conscientious.
Which makes me wonder why.
1. They are lazy?
2. They are really that stupid?
3. They don't think there are repercussions for their mistakes?
I think it's #4.
4. They don't care & all of the above.
ETSY DOESN'T CARE.
They get their listing fees, they get their relist fees, sometimes they even get final value fees.
They have jobs; they are on a payroll.
They obviously don't give a shit if the front page is redundant, if sellers have logical tools to use or if the half-assed features they DO provide work well.
THEY JUST DON'T FUCKING CARE.
And I don't feel sorry for the employee mouthpieces that come into the forums and spread the bullshit.
Stella and marymary, do you actually believe the lies you tell us? Do you think you're fooling us with your talk of "usability studies"?
Get yourself some integrity, because you look stupid fanning the smokescreen.
KFarrell appears to have changed her profile today, possibly in response to this article. She no longer mentions working for Etsy.
Kfarrell does not work for Etsy anymore and Etsy policy allows for sellers to appear in more than one guide, just not twice in the same guide. Whether you agree with them or not, they are following their policy.
I have no doubt that ETSY Admin will do whatever it takes to seem blameless.
I sent an e-mail about an item on the FP that was violating ETSY's TOS. I never got a response to the e-mail, but the next day one of my items was in a FP Admin-chosen treasury.
Huh.
The seller whose item I flagged? She has at least one item in a FP treasury every day.
I do agree with stonesoupjewelry because, for the largest category on Etsy, and therefore the largest fee-payers, they sure get short shrift on the site. But, the category is not an Etsy employee fave (or Etsy Admin Store), so there you go.
It's so clear that the constant "mistakes" are intentional. It might appear to be sloppy and lazy, but isn't that the indie way? The hell with ethics and PC, we're in it for ourselves, so get out the fuck of our way!
My main concern is that Etsy has permanently damaged the handmade community, with a long tradition of quality and artistic achievement. And a community that is known for being generous and supportive of each other.
Etsy has spent 4 years chipping away at the handmade tradition and the snotty, disrespectful attitude of their employees (and how they treat sellers)is the underlying stink that smells right through to the Front Page.
"Snotty" is a good word to describe much of the administration, as are "unprofessional" and "patronizing."
What they don't seem to get is that if they'd just come out and treat us like adults with above-borderline IQs, and give us real, actual information in plain terms, sellers wouldn't get so screamy, which would reduce their own stress levels.
It's like they think that every Etsy development is some Classified Super-Secret Awesome Program that they can't talk about lest it be stolen by some other site. Hate to break it to you Etsy, but nobody is going to want to copy anything you do, given that the result would be what we have now, which is a big cupcake-shaped clusterfuck.
I counted a pottery person they love in at least 8 gift guides two weeks ago. It was unbelievable. Some categories were a complete stretch. Don't know if its okay to say the name here so I won't. But really..bad.
if you made a list for each hot list category (whimsical bullshit, hot mess modern, steampunk geek)- we could all come up with 10 or sellers in each arena that the admins go to over and over again for the FP. they may have consistent taste or maybe they all are so worn out from trying to run their etsy shops after hours (or during hours)they cannot recall any other sellers of quality or consistency. 10 shops between a couple? thats just craziness. everyday i run across a nice shop with 500+ sales that has never/rarely been seen on the FP or GG. its wonderful to run across these shops. its also depressing because you know they are stacking the decks against them as well by featuring such a narrow selection.
i've often wondered if they are running marketing experiments for their VC- picking a shop and then featuring the hell out of it to illustrate how they can make a break a business' success or failure.
also, as part of the branding (and so anti DIY culture), they are obsessed with featuring 20something year old girls(either as product or sellers) with doe eyes and whimsical product that it is a complete turn off. we need some diversity. bleh
The woodland crap is getting on my nerves, too.
Could Etsy get any more twee?
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