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It’s ALL up to you, sellers, to jump on the Etsy Brand "formula for success" & brush up on your Etsy-fication by making your reservations for the rest of the Virtual Labs listed in this post from you-know-who!
We're just thankful that we missed the "better photos" Labs since we already covered them.
Clicking on this intriguing "holiday" topic in the Storque (which is so painfully obvious on the top of the new Community Hub page), we thought we’d see a list of new Etsy promotions designed just for Holiday’09 open to ALL sellers to help them promote sales in a year when most sellers need all the promotion help they can get.
Alas, our hopes were quickly dashed when we saw who the advice was coming from and what topics were included. Aren’t there 350 tips just like that in the never-ending "Etsy Handbook"?
We can add our own seminar for the "Etsy holiday rush" — "If you make and list what Etsy likes to promote (so everything on the site looks the same) we’ll promote you for free!"
The rest of the sellers can do what they always do - forget about getting ANY HELP AT ALL from Etsy for the holiday shopping season. Another Etsy "holiday season" that usually starts on December 15, too late to ship one damn thing.
(And how ridiculous is it that they have a jump page between the community page and the Storque? Why can't they just link directly? They already have server issues! -Righteous)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
It’s an Etsy Branded Holiday Season!
Posted by The Funny One at 12:35 PM
Tagged: daniellexo, Etsy, holidays, storque, virtual labs
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22 Comments:
OMG, they are trying to dictate what sellers should be making, for Etsy, so that their items "fly off the sellers shelves"
*facepalm*
So if it is not sanctioned by Etsy,forgetaboutit.
Don't bother with your own craft/art, just do what Etsy tells you to do and it will get promoted/sell....
I hate Etsy
Wait a moment...Etsy began promoting Halloween items around August 1. That's 90 days, roughly.
Tell me you didn't seriously think that this year would be any different than the previous 3.
Same ole, same ole...and will undoubtedly continue until the site implodes from all the 'cuteness'.
lets have an informative article on why ripping off another artist's work is not cute, flattery, sort of ok, a grey area or even remotely acceptable.
an article on why measurements, materials and actual info is fucking important and not just boring stuff for people who shop the mall or can't be artistic enough to think up a super great story about mustachioed bunnies playing in fall leaves.
why the 'get over it and move on' attitude toward every business fail is defeatist. it's not cute, sweet or zen. it says bend me over, because i'm too weak and cute to say no.
So true that bending over is making someone a lot of money, and it ain't the people who create quality handmade. I hope there's enough collective effort to wrestle the trademark "all things handmade" from a company that has managed to sever any relationship whatsoever between the handmade product and the person who made it.
What in the world has branding got to do with handmade?
I would be very happy to see Etsy's negative effects on pricing, quality, and the reputation of the handmade product to be a distant memory and part of the vast deadpool. They have done way more bad than good for real handmade.
I have the perfect slogan for an EtsyXmas:
"for those who still believe in Santa Claus" and we ain't takin' about young at heart, either.
Get on the Brandwagon, the Etsy Brandwagon.
If you make what we like, you can ride all day.
And we promise, if someone else steals your artwork, and sells it on Etsy, we won't ask you for an FVF.
We'll get it from them...
why would I want any help from Jenkiabaphotography? Her photos are... shit. I have an art degree, I can totally see the "D" grade quality work there. I would sooner smack her over the head with a camera than waste 1 minute of my day having someone try to dress up how MANY photoshop AUTO-features they ran their pictures through. Holy fuck.
When you edit your images THAT much after taking them, and then have them "professionally printed" — exactly what am I supposed to think? That you're quality? You have got to be joking, etsy.
How about putting up CHRISTMAS items? Not horses or old shitty boots from 1982, ruffle dresses, or fingerless gloves, or, ha-ha, terrariums. You know, all the useless non-functional shit that has nothing to do with the holiday. Put something on the front page, gg, and all other free promotional tools that isn't the same useless crap by the same people. Don't give me advice from hacks and know-nothings.
I wish I could be snarkier and more fun. But really, I hope etsy reads this and gets their feelings hurt.
Because I can already imagine the forum jackasses who say things like "I work on my photos all the time" and "oooooooh, I love all the useful advice in their articles!!!!!"
Thanks for continuing to be alive and well... and snarky... and truthful... and blunt... and funny.
My mini rant for today (because it COULD be a daily thing... it's that bad) is that I've flagged a Michaela Frey brooch twice now because the seller has it in HANDMADE... well, unless the seller IS Michaela Frey (which she is not) then Etsy needs to remove the goddamned thing from the handmade category and bitch-slap the seller.
But they won't. They won't do squat. Not sure WHERE they're putting their man-power, but it sure as hell ain't into making Etsy follow any of its own rules.
The level of hypocrisy (sp?) perpetuated by Etsy defies my understanding. At least eBay never pretended to be something it wasn't.
I love that they are going to have Etsylabs on promoting your shop adn getting noticed. HA! Even if you follow all of their "instructions," you will NOT get noticed on Etsy because you are not one of the "elite" poor quality sellers that are their favorites. I mean really, some of those jewellry sellers that the feature over and over and over and over.....really not even that great. Give me a break!!!
And I will NEVER, EVER, EVER take advice from daniellexxo or however you spell it. And no thanks marymary, you definitely have your favorites. So, even if I take your advice, it won't help me get recognized on Etsy. I wish more buyers would start to notice Artfire.....
Off topic, but has anyone noticed something wonky with the categories?
Like it just randomly switches from list to gallery and whole groups of pages disappear then reappear?
It's been happening to me for about the last month.
This Lab is just soooo wrong:
Hosts: Daniellexo & MaryMary
Topics covered:
* Product development brainstorming session
* Colors and styles that will be hot this season
* Tips for photography and tagging from a merchandising expert
For starters, what kind of artisan opens a shop without knowing what they have the expertise to make and sell? And how are those hipster doofus' suggestions going to relate to that expertise?
Colors for this season? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say... green & red? with some silver & gold?
And which one of those kids is a merchandising expert? In 3 years I've never seen either of them act like a professional anything.
Although, I am looking forward to seeing how badly they contradict the TOU in their tagging lab.
hah- you're right. The tags are very frequently wrong -- anti TOU -- esp with marymary.
Check out the GGs-- full of things mistagged as vintage or handmade when they are the other. Proofread? Vetting? Nah, why bother. The TOUs are for suckers.
"For starters, what kind of artisan opens a shop without knowing what they have the expertise to make and sell? "
Ha, did you see the new 'advice for new sellers' article they posted recently? It has a whole bunch of the usual Etsy-ish advice for new sellers, but what kills me is it doesn't get around to 'have a decent product' until the very last point, after such gems as picking a memorable shop name. Silly me, here I thought the FIRST thing you should think about was just what, exactly, you plan to sell.
And just to point out the obvious, badger, is that the CH page, Handbook and the Dorque have plenty going on between the lines. Etsy is telling sellers and would-be-sellers to make what Etsy wants them to make.
It sure sounds like a retail company that orders products from wholesalers but never pays for the product up front. Meaning, sellers have to take the risk of buying the supplies, providing labor, setting up and maintaining a storefront, PAY FEES to do so, and still don't get paid for their "commissioned products" up front. Etsy is clearly "ordering" certain kinds of products.
A new kind of online sweatshop that has the same overwhelming effect of a big box chain --- they've driven prices into the ground and cheapened the actual value of handmade. Which encourages sellers to list everything but the kitchen sink, as long as the pictures are Etsy-stylized and the descriptions read like a scary DXO novelette!
Pretty scary indeed. By next halloween, let's hope that's all that's left on the site and real handmade has gone elsewhere to sites that remember there's an artisan connected to the handmade product.
handmadevintage said...
"hah- you're right. The tags are very frequently wrong -- anti TOU -- esp with marymary.
Check out the GGs-- full of things mistagged as vintage or handmade when they are the other. Proofread? Vetting? Nah, why bother. The TOUs are for suckers."
Bingo.
Today's etsy find tags for the asinine grunge feature:
1990s, 90s, accessories, autumn, Clothing, emilybidwell, Etsy Finds, fall fashion, Get the Look, grunge, Mod, music, October, Pacific Northwest, plaid, retro, rock n roll, Seattle, shopping, SPOTLIGHT, trends, Vintage, Washington.
Mull over that steaming shit pile for a moment.
My plan was to be off of etsy by Jan. 1 when the floodgates would open to all manner of 90's(as if they aren't already), but I pulled the rest of my stuff last week.
It's like they deliberately fuck with people. How the fuck can sellers be expected to follow the TOU when admin are pulling this bullshit? Thanks for sending a clear message to disregard the TOU, assholes. What a huge Fuck You to legitimate vintage sellers.
I do sell 90's items...on eBay, where they belong. FYI dumbshit admin, we didn't dress that way on the West coast back then. But you probably aren't old enough to realize that. End of rant.
wait... emilybidwell is a tag?
@ the "grunge" feature tags...
WTF does MOD have to do with grunge? They're almost polar opposite styles.
Etsy plays it safe and supports the sellers who want to prescribe to this method of 'creativity'...or should I say 'cutesytivity' Caring about what is trendy is ok for hacks. Its ok to be a hack as long as you are not pretending to be something else.
Heaven help those who make real handmade products, because emilybidwell (the new Etsy annointed "tag") has issued a preview of their Holiday Gift Guide:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/etsy-finds-gleeful-anticipation-5690/
and you might need a gallon of antacid by the time you get to the end of this (very predictable) Etsy-picked list.
Yep, that's all folks, Etsy's done with the holidays!
Sadly, there wasn't one thing chosen that piqued my interest enough to click on it, much less want to visit their shops.
Serious question: Is toybreaker paying somebody off?
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