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Boy, were we glad to see this message included in one of the recent Etsy Tech Updates emails to sellers:
“As the New Year starts rolling in and the Etsy Labs' second birthday nears, we have decided to discontinue classes at the Etsy Labs, and instead partner with 3rd Ward to hold the classes at their wonderful facilities.”
Not only are we waving bye-bye to the Labs, we aren’t even gonna miss ‘em. With the hodge-podge “classes” aimed at the elementary school set, we started to wonder what value the Labs added to the ability of sellers to actually sell their products on Etsy.
In fact, we are kind of wondering why Etsy is chopped up into several sections that seem intent on steering potential buyers away from any shopping at all! Buyers can languish for weeks in the Dorque, end up clicking endless arrows in all those Promotion Boxes onthe Front Page---------------and forget they came to Etsy to shop!
What we do know is that Etsy funnels a lot of resources to these diversions, forgetting stores and sellers along the way. All that time and effort that could have been spent on REAL marketing and advertising, or on setting up an actual Customer Service function and, you know, help sellers do their best to entice shoppers and actually SELL something!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Bye Bye, So-Long, Toooodle-Loo Etsy Labs!
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18 Comments:
Somewhere in the article it said they're going to concentrate on selling their own products in the EtsyLabs store - which has less than stellar feedback.
Lovely way to increase the integrity of their company...give the Labs people more access to customers.
BTW, what is DXO gonna do now that the Labs aren't running classes for her to not know things at?
DXO runs the teams department alone, now that sarawearsskirts is gone. I don't think she's been on the etsylabs department for a while. She got moved around to at least 4 different departments: labs, marketing, a short disastrous stint as forums Kommandant, and finally landed in teams.
I have a feeling those classes were losing money. Maria has the sense not to throw away money.
I'm so glad that this feature is leaving Etsy. It was totally useless. I mean come on...how hard is it to teach basic crafting techniques. Anybody can go to there local community center, Micheal's or tune into Carol Duvall or Martha to learn more advanced crafts than what they were showing us. It seemed to me to be a ploy to attract the naive ones that will assume that they can immediately set up shop and sell the things that EtsyLabs were making. Also I agree with you RO... that time could have been best used to help sellers and advertise to buyers.
YAYAYAYAY!
They said they're going to focus on their own store? :o( What a disappointing thing to do, much less announce publicly, at a time when their focus really needs to be on all the issues they're having and the near mutiny of sellers they have on their hands.
People are becoming increasingly angry about the situation there and the powers that be seem to be either oblivious or uncaring.
Bigger and better companies than Etsy have gone into bankruptcy for becoming too arrogant and adopting the "if we just ignore this, it will go away" attitude.
ugh. can you all organize an en masse move to dawanda??
Unfortunately the Labs aren't going away, just the classes. Which is just as well, because their classes aren't worth the time or expense. I threw away $75.00 once and didn't even get $2.00 in supplies and learned nothing in 3 hours. Just BS from the teacher who was an Etsy fav who didn't have a clue how to teach a class. It will be interesting to see what they do with the labs now with all the crap stacked all over the place.
I re-read the article and the tidbit about their shop isn't in there - I must've read it somewhere else.
Anyway, the point remains that they're finally dusting off one thing that distracts from the e-commerce side of the site.
"We remain committed to using the Etsy Labs as a community space, and will continue to host our free weekly Craft Nights, monthly Church of Craft meetings, and other free happenings. We will also keep handmaking our own promotional goods and merchandise right here in downtown Brooklyn."
Is this portion that you are referring to?
"We will also keep handmaking our own promotional goods and merchandise right here in downtown Brooklyn."
Sounds to me like they will still be marketing their lab merchandise.
I interpret their statement to mean that they are still having classes, just not at the "EtsyLabs" facility.
I feel like this calls for a Wisteroni tribute video!
ah, yes! Thank you both for pointing out what I missed.
Combustion Glassworks said...
I feel like this calls for a Wisteroni tribute video!
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I think so too . . . I cant promise anything until the weekend, though.
I'll take a play from Etsy's book and tell you, "Thank you for your suggestion. It's on our list of things to consider. Now, shut up and bugger off!" LOL
We all know that Etsy isn't going to admit it had a failure, it's just being turned into something else to suck up more hours of useless effort.
Etsy decided it would be THE destination for handmade (read "crafty crafters who are cool and trendy")----then threw in everything and the kitchen sink. Without experienced and qualified people to handle it. It's just a mish-mash of half-baked elements that Etsy doesn't "do" very well.
Pretty soon, the trademark will read "all thing handmade the Etsy way at the Etsy price for the Etsy fans who make the same things that Etsy likes" and then blogs about it 'til the cows come home. It's just a self-perpetuation machine.
thank goodness! i took one of DXO's classes and it was a JOKE. she kept wandering off to eat and check her email the entire time. i didn't have the heart to give the class negative feedback, but now that i think of all the money wasted, i wish i did.
"Pretty soon, the trademark will read "all thing handmade the Etsy way at the Etsy price for the Etsy fans who make the same things that Etsy likes" and then blogs about it 'til the cows come home. It's just a self-perpetuation machine."
It's already there. They just need to change the strapline.
I'm surprised so many of you think the Labs were non-functional.
The lab was a great place to keep the kids busy playing nicely during those boring times when the site goes down "so there's nothing to do!"
Like right now. And all the other times the damn site crashes, or as the cupcakes say "Hiccups."
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