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Why Matt? He's the only one there who can string more than two words together in any cognizant and moderately sincere-sounding way that also doesn't manage to insult or infuriate large portions of the user base while simultaneously looking like a moron.
(We like Matt. We believe that he believes what he's saying - but you'd think after this many times he'd start to get wise that nothing is going to change and he'll be back fighting for his life after being thrown to the wolves again in a couple weeks.)
In this Dorque post he tries to talk sellers off the Cliffs of Insanity by admitting:
1: Their communication with customers (sellers) lags significantly behind other more successful methods like smoke signals, Morse Code, and pictographs written in Elk blood with a stick.
2: Plead guilty to changing how they are batch loaded now that every one has noticed, and that it gets you NOTHING for your money.
3: They thought no one would care when they admitted that had been fleecing sellers with their prolific advocating of renewals all this time then change it up on them when no one was looking. Oops.
So we'll give them a biscuit for admitting they fucked up and feigning like they want to improve - but they don't get to eat it. No, they have to stand there and look at it, dying to eat the sweet rewards of success but unable to. Just like we sellers have to when we deal with Etsy.
That fucking biscuit is gritty and bitter anyway, Matt, you're not missing much. (We've tried to eat them and never could keep them down.)
25 Comments:
I read this Mashable article yesterday and it immediately reminded me of what is so lacking at Etsy. Maybe Etsy's admin should have to read it...say about several hundred thousand times...how many sellers are there anyway?
The 5 Lessons, while written with social media communities in mind, nevertheless hold true when applied to Etsy and their relationship with their customers, the sellers. See what you think:
http://mashable.com/2009/01/28/social-media-revolt/
I've heard the apologies and promises to change before. I won't hold my breath.
If this latest unannounced site tweak did not convince most sellers that Etsy doesn't have a clue about what they're doing, hold your wallets! Etsy rakes in a huge chunk of revenue from listings (new, renewed, whatever)and they just told everyone that this payola scam is for nought.
Add that to Etsy's "We're too cool" to do a big all-site promotion for Valentine's Day (heaven forbid one of their non-fave sellers actually sell something!)what's left to make any (non-fave)seller stay with Etsy?
Hell, they even confiscated the FPT for MORE of their fave picks!
It's a wonder that sellers aren't lining up to demand refunds.
Matt can revise what he said 30 times and it still doesn't change the facts. 20 cents equals 4 months per listing and nothing else. 20 cents equals free ads, tons of promotions and lots of real estate on Etsy if you are a favorite Etsy seller selling Etsy products for the Etsy price.
If anyone followed Etsy's attitude during the search change, they would not be surprised by this attitude.
Vintage & Supplies have been feeling the 'you get 4 months of server space and that's it' vibe since last May.
I mean, we're lucky to be allowed on Etsy! Right? We should be thanking then for the server space and not expect any visibility from Etsy at all. Etsy is the best community ever and I'm just happy to have a few kb of storage space there. And I'll renew like mad because I love giving you my money 20 cents at a time.
But really, I am still awaiting the day when a real competitor can step in and blast Etsy away.
the cupcakes are going to tell Matt how wonderful he is for being so honest with them.
HONEST??? are you kidding me, they've been screwing sellers around. So unless you have your head up admins' ass then you're just getting screwed.
how do people ignore this? You wouldn't take this kind of crap from any other company.
So at last the have finally what many of us have been telling people for over 6 months. Relisting is a total waste of money!
The bollox they talk and the lies they spin over on Etsy made me leave. My advice to anyone willing to listen is get yourself off the Etsy site, set up your own site or list on another sell through site. You cannot trust a word they tell you on Etsy and that's not a way to do business.
Here is a question I asked on Site Help back on November 16th. http://tinyurl.com/d4lo7v "My views have been so low that I decided to go to the front page and watch recently listed items to see if two of my new listings had popped up. I waited for 10 minutes and never saw them. Anyone know whats up with that?"
At first a couple cupcakes answered, but THEN a whole bunch of people said the same thing was happening to them. Of course, admin did not weigh in on the discussion. I am mightily disgusted with how we all have been lied to.
Yesterday morning Etsy requested links to the places in etsywiki and the storque where the renew relist was being pushed to improve views, and to the places where Etsy states that new items will show up on the front page when renewed or relisted. What did they do with the facts? Immediately after recieving the information at 3:00 they went and changed the information this was 2 hours before the storque article was posted at 5:00. The storque article used the letter written to them as an outline to "answer" questions being posed in the forums for two weeks plus.
Then they sent a thank you to the author of the letter and informed them that they had changed the info.
HOW does that help?
@Libby...when I compare my item views on Art Fire and Etsy, Art Fire just blows them out of the water. A print I listed on Art Fire got more page views in a week than four months on Etsy.
Refund...Refund...
Yes, something in the way of an Etsy comp for partial renewal fees would be nice, but it will never happen.
The best thing to do is walk away from Etsy. List your stuff elsewhere or on your own.
Etsy is a huge black hole that will suck any creative energy you have into the abyss. In my opinion, that site has become sort of a study in necrosis. The only way to alleviate yourself from the Etsy gangrene is to remove the affected mass, i.e. your etsy shop.
Whether it is this latest screw job from the Etsy Admin, lack of communication, poor business practices or the rampant abuse from some of those in the Fora, the whole site is a disaster waiting to happen.
JJ & PaintedBull
Helps them cover their asses. (in response to anonymous)
With the information sent in a Tech Update:
"Renewing may or may not get your item at the very top, but it will place it closer to the front in features that display listings in reverse chronological order. Nothing has changed there. That said, we think something should change. Renewing was never intended to be an advertising tool, but the way it was built – along with the emphasis on reverse chronological ranking throughout the site – allowed renewing to function as a promotional strategy."
And the money that constantly streams into Etsy because they refuse to provide ANY PROMOTION TOOLS FOR SELLERS, on top of their admission that HAVE NO PLANS TO HELP SELLERS that are not on their favorite lists to sell, you have to ask........what the hell is Etsy doing for my store?
A lot of nothing with no plans to change the ho-hum, boring, and predictable Etsy Formula for plugging a FEW stores on the backs of monthly (listing, relisting, and renewal) fees from ALL stores.
May the wind be behind the sails of the new sites for handmade!
I have to stay there as I'm still getting sales. NOTHING like a few months ago, but I am getting some. This pseudo-apology is sickening. How about apologizing for lying for months, as in blowing off any inquiries and whistling as they happily plug the "in" crowd's items.
That hasn't changed much. I saw a few different front pages right when the big hoopla was going on, but now it's back to business as usual.
The problem is, Etsy does get traffic, new sellers, new buyers. Much more than the newer sites. I hope this changes, we need a winner to step forward to obliterate the sloppy, half assed etsy.
Really, all this stuff being bitched about is Business 101 class info. ANYONE who runs a business knows all these basic principles, but after 3-4 years Etsy STILL acts like they don't understand...
Etsy may be the #1 handmade site now; but their poor business practices, poor communication and just not giving a rat's ass about the average seller will ultimately
do them in.
You couldn't have said it better, when you talked about the sellers on the cliffs of insanity.
I really appreciate these sellers putting up the good fight. I personally have none left in me. I actually write things to post, delete, write it again, delete....
I have seen today a theme front page that had almost EVERYTHING one of the sellers in the good fight makes, MADE BY ANYONE BUT HER!
It cannot be a coincidence! It is not a coincidence.
This is the same reason I don't go to the forums anymore. I am scared of the evil which is Etsy.
Unlike some people, I hate Matt. I think he is full of shit, calling us "friends" and doing thing out of "love" for the community.
People can't honestly think that Matt is just learning that there is a lack of communication there.
It's all well and good that Matt has admitted that they communicate poorly about vitally important things - and he communicated it well, as ever.
However, why hasn't anything been done about it now that the problem has been recognised and acknowledged (again)?
No email has been sent to all sellers about this issue and if it wasn't for the fact that I keep a close eye on what goes on in the community, I'd have no idea whatsoever of the change. Surely the majority of sellers continue to know nothing about it.
What is the point of admitting there's a problem when we all know there's a very easy solution ... and yet nothing is done?
Etsy has sent out emails to all sellers before and there's surely no reason why they can't do it any time they choose. Every other business I deal with at this sort of level will email all customers about key changes to their service - it's a no-brainer.
I notice ArtFire has signed up about 80 new 7/month sellers in the last 24 hours.
Methinks the etsylove may be winding down, esp. with the challenges sellers will face during the recession and with etsycorp obssessed with it's Storque world flights of fancy more than it's sellers getting exposure.
I think Matt is a fairly sincere person but his baby, The Storque was a stupid idea that has been very poorly executed.
Frankly, I prefer AF's linking members to other blogs/websites on the log in page.
I actually follow some of those links and learn stuff.
It's neat.
I don't hate Matt, I don't love him. He's just a dude.
He still talks BS sometimes, but I think he knows it's BS which is a level more evolved then most of them who work there.
He kind of reminds me of this quote from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.
"You're not dealing with any dumb two-bit
trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines, little piggy eyes and no
conversation, we're a couple of intelligent caring guys that you'd
probably quite like if you met us socially! I don't go around
gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it afterwards in
seedy space-ranger bars, like some cops I could mention! I go around
shooting people gratuitously and then I agonize about it afterwards for
hours to my girlfriend!"
Simone I did get an etsy email about this issue today. The Tech Updates emails. Ar you subscribed to those?
You couldn't have said it better, when you talked about the sellers on the cliffs of insanity.
I really appreciate these sellers putting up the good fight. I personally have none left in me. I actually write things to post, delete, write it again, delete....
I have seen today a theme front page that had almost EVERYTHING one of the sellers in the good fight makes, MADE BY ANYONE BUT HER!
It cannot be a coincidence! It is not a coincidence.
_____________
Insanity = me
I have very little fight left in me, except that I realize I must ignore the crap and stay in my store, making my stuff, not venturing out into the forums, the treasuries, or looking at the front page. Either that or start heavy sedation and become a Stepford cupcake.
I find the above statement about the fp very very interesting. Off to investigate.
eek, no, I'm not subscribed to them, just as I'm sure the majority of sellers aren't subscribed to them and don't know anything about them! I do subscribe to the RSS feed for that section of the Storque, so I probably see the same info (along with a whole lot of fluff of course!), but again I bet most sellers don't do that either.
Needing to subscribe to get different types of non-essential information is fine, but every single member of the site should be emailed if there's something important - or every seller if it's only relevant to them.
I'm now officially crazy, too. I'm looking at the FP, and it's full of Admin's favorites again. The usual suspects curated by the usual suspects.
I wish I could believe that something substantive would change about the place and the way it's run, but I can't.
Matt calling us his "friends" reminds me of McCain during the campaign: insincere and vastly irritating when repeated about a million times.
I think he and Etsy stink.
Meh, check the listing dates on the FP picks by search words. The one I looked at today had all items listed on Thursday. So they aren't even digging for other items, just THE MOST RECENTLY LISTED!!!!!!!!!
Scratch the surface, still reward the frequent listers and the little pet projects and you have the same old same old day after day.
How many times has it been now, that Matt has come in to the forums and had to apologize for etsy's fuck ups? Always saying he knows we need a better communication in place, but nothing is ever done but to throw a few bones for us to gnaw on. Suggestions that never come to fruition.
I'm just so tired of it all. Weary to the point of exhaustion.
You know...I've been on the front page of Artfire three times now, thanks to their randomized "item of the hour" feature. Nobody picks the item, it's automatically selected totally at random.
Granted, sometimes the item of the hour at artfire is not so great, but it's only for an hour and IMO still the most fair way to handle it.
So maybe Etsy is poopooing a randomized front page because they want their front page to look super nice. Well, I say that if that is the case, then maybe they should exercise a little more control over what is allowed to be sold in the first place.
Maybe if they opened that page and the first thing that smacked them in the eye was some wal-mart piece of crap, being passed off as "supplies or vintage" then they'd be a little more quick to respond to flags.
Just a thought.
Maybe if they opened that page and the first thing that smacked them in the eye was some wal-mart piece of crap, being passed off as "supplies or vintage" then they'd be a little more quick to respond to flags.
____________
The current way they do things means they can pretend this crap doesn't exist. Although, IMO, some of the stuff that is up every damn day is not that nicely done, nice photos to be sure, but nonetheless is still crap. Just my .02.
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