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Because I think it's bitchable on it's own and because I just noticed it: the featured seller in the clip in the last post has a statement in their Etsy intro to their OWN off-Etsy site, with url, offering a $4 discount if you buy their underwear there INSTEAD of Etsy.
Hey Etsy, isn't that against the TOS??? (FYI - yeah it is.)
Wow, nice way to prove that the rules for ordinary Etsy sellers are NOT the same rules their favorites get. Real Nice.
EDIT: Thanks to a commenter we learned that within a few hours of this and the below post the offending foul language and violations were removed from the shops' intro. Who says we never help anything? :D
Monday, March 30, 2009
As an aside...
Posted by The Cranky One at 6:18 PM
Tagged: favorites, favoritism, rules
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24 Comments:
Wow. Just. Wow.
Of Course!
Maybe I'll add my new stuff to ArtFire or 1000 Markets instead.
i just watched the video like 10 minutes ago- but now when i dropped back in to check out the seller in question the video has been removed! i guess i'll just have to trust EB
This surprises me so little.
hmmmm, interesting. Someone slipped up letting that get past.
And please don't forget that many Etsy Admins spend a good portion of their paid working days twittering about THE VERY SAME STORES AND PRODUCTS they put in all their promotions that day.
Every day, even weekends, Etsy works overtime to advertise and promote only a couple of stores and products FOR FREE, and for several hours each and every day.
These sellers who get promoted FOR FREE pay the same fees you and I do. What did Etsy do FOR FREE for you today?
buy underwear?
from them?
not in a million years.
eeewww, just eeeewww.
re: redirecting to your website which sells products identical to those sold in your etsy shop
wasted breath complaining - these are the usual teflon etsy faves
TOU/TOS therefore mean nothing
anyone want to chime in with personal experience on how quickly admin will shoot out a TOU infraction email if there's something 'amiss' with a shop announcement or similar
The Funny One said...
What did Etsy do FOR FREE for you today?
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Well, they pissed me off for free today.
Does that count?
EDIT: Thanks to a commenter we learned that within a few hours of this and the below post the offending foul language and violations were removed from the shops' intro. Who says we never help anything? :D
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Love it!
I got a TOU e-mail that wasn't even correct as I had no offending links. If I get another one, I'll just point out that I saw some of their promoted sellers linking to their other stores, so I thought it was okay.
Etsy FAIL.
All fixed to look pretty...NOW.
Etsy, you really, really, really are clueless.
Sorry Matt, even you.
Every. Last. One. Of. You. Are. Totally. Clueless.
Time to hire some people with actual business experience. And not just some trendy has-been marketing guy who needs a new paying gig to get him through the recession until rich people who are easily manipulated start buying again.
All the actual marketing people I know have 4 year degrees and actual business experience in their field.
No, a formal degree or formal training is not the be-all-end-all, but the painful and useless "Etsy Experiment" does point to the need for actual learning from proper teachers in a authentic academic environment and then some actual real world experience rather than just a f-ing crap shoot of a business.
So much wasted time and money and so many ridiculous mistakes. The VC people must be so proud.
(gag)
Only idiots and masochists embarrass themselves over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and and don't change anything and don't do things differently.
FYI - Twittering all day is NOT actual business experience.
Epic. Massive. Ridiculous. Wasteful. Fail.
So much wasted by so few hipsters.
I guess they should be an award for driving a huge business into the ground without having a clue they are driving a business into the ground.
Typical fail, typical correction.
Admin are kids playing with matches, then running around to stomp out the fires.
No comprehension of the concept of "cause and effect."
it was a huge mistake to feature a niche seller on a program that has an older demographic. also a seller that may not make market-ready products. but if their intention was to portray etsy as a place where you can sell thrown together items that may not last they succeeded.
i dont mind the age group of the etsy staff at all. what i do mind is their confusion of counter culture ideas.
counter culture works when you have hard work behind it- not superficial lip service. and twitter is going to go the way of myspace due to its gratuitous self absorption.
I am also concerned that not only do their blog and site feature the same sellers over and over but they also twit these sellers as well. they must be getting massive payoffs and free swag to supplement their meager incomes. why else?
I'm a former cupcake and I have to say that even I am horribly embarrassed about this. This was the WORST imaginable store to put on Sunday Morning. They made Etsy look like a joke, just a bunch of stupid kids who don't know what they're doing. Thanks Etsy, Rob, et all. Thanks for a whole lot of nothing. I'm so mad I wish I could quit Etsy right this second.
The more of this type of stuff I see, the less I want my work to be associated with the site. I made a decision last night to let my listings run out and not post any more. Suddenly this type of exposure is costing us a lot more than 20 cents, it's costing us our credibility if this is their seller they they want to put on national TV to represent all the artists on the site. =/
Oh, but Etsy is a joke. Just go to a craft show and poll the vendors. They'll relate their Etsy-Horror-Stories by the hundreds.
This post may have been one thorn that led to the removal of the rule-breaking behavior, but the pressure on Etsy was provided FOR FREE. Like "flagging" (but EB is so much more fun) sellers continue to do Etsy's Quality Control FOR FREE.
So, while Etsy picks 3,492 cloth flowers for the front page every day, sellers continue to labor FOR FREE by:
1. providing almost complete customer service for other sellers on the Site Help Forum;
2. providing FREE advertising for THE SITE when they do any marketing for their own shop;
3. offer hundreds of viable ideas for changes on the site that would make setting up and maintaining a store easier and more efficient;
4. continue to PAY Etsy for listing fees and occasional sales commissions even though they are 100% excluded from promotions that Etsy provides for a tiny number of stores every hour of every day.
I may bitch here at EB, but I feel kind of entitled because I gave them tens of thousands of hours of FREE LABOR and got jack shit in return.
there is also this issue of etsy in the news lately -ahem-
with potentially a less than scrupilous seller and a buyer who makes the worst dressed list seem elegant at times.
it makes us all look like a bunch of goofballs and not cool.
wtf etsy- get it together and start presenting us (all of us) in a favorable light
we are artists, not some fly by night hobbiests hoping to make a quick buck. this is our passion and OUR PAYCHECKS
That video should absolutely raise a red flag to all the sellers on Etsy. If they haven't changed their ways since beta, do you really think they are going to change now? Etsy is the biggest example of WHAT NOT TO DO TO RUN A BUSINESS.
Check out the former etsy sellers yahoo group. It is running over with stories from former sellers. The Vortex is another group of former sellers that have moved on to better and brighter things. The Vortex was started by 5 former TOP sellers from Etsy.
Artfire, MyHandmade, Lulu, RubyLane and BigCity are all really great alternatives to selling on Etsy.
Etsy has been making money off sellers for years by making them do all the work as far as advertising, marketing, traffic, ideas and business savvy go. They steal ideas from the very people they make they say they want to help.
Don't let Etsy have another cent. The only way to show them how wrong they are is to leave and to make them realize they cannot keep doing such ridiculous things.
Ha, that's so funny the shop announcement was changed. Way to go EB!! :)
I want to hear more about VORTEX, please.
His violation of the TOS was still there, as of this morning though.
Well, since Ruffeo can link his URL in his Etsy shop (as well as most of the other sellers Etsy promotes), I've gone ahead and added my URL to my shop too.
From now on, if it helps my sales the way it helps the clique's sales, I'm breaking any TOU that they do if it looks like it will help my business.
Permission granted by default. If Admin condones it for their friends, they condone it for me.
Funny One:
1. providing almost complete customer service for other sellers on the Site Help Forum;
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Has anyone else noticed, NOBODY from the tech team even seems to look at Bugs anymore?? It's like 100% flandersfield and MoonmothPress replying
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justbitchy said...
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100% agree. Yes, somehow even their new employees seem to be as halfass and have the same attitudes and incompetence as the old ones. WHAT have they been doing with all this time? They never improve anything, and when they do, it's usually at least 50% fiasco.. STILL. The site is NOT a 'toddler' anymore even if Kalin is still a teenage twit at heart. The funny thing is, just because he got lucky with Etsy, he thinks he's this amazing, 'creative' genius. Sadly, theres not much creative about Etsy.
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