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We were so awestruck by the pretentious head of product development, Sara, and her big-bag-of-wind "Talking Product" in this incredibly convoluted and novel-length Dorque post
that we almost thought we’d never get to the last paragraph! The only thing that made any sense was the long, laborious explanation of "code lockdown" and the importance of the holiday retail weeks. But what the hell? Etsy has NEVER paid any attention at all to holidays or, for that matter, paid any attention at all to 95% of their sellers! Heaven forbid a megasite like Etsy thinks about the retail calendar!
Not only is this the biggest piece of pure bullshit (yeah yeah we get it, you're working on it, just like you have been for 2 years), but it doesn’t include ONE THING on the list of sellers’ priorities pinned to a solid date of implementation... shall we repeat what we need? YOUR SELLERS KNOW THE LIST BY HEART!
Whoever you think your audience is, Etsy, it clearly isn’t sellers. It’s ALL ABOUT YOU Etsy, and the sellers are nothing more than the means to an end, to your benefit and not much else.
No wonder you don’t have the time to come up with any solutions for what sellers really want you’re too busy crapping all over the site with a bunch of stuff that shows you have NO IDEA who your sellers are and what they need. You couldn’t care less.
Your capacity for arrogance is astounding!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Talking Product - aka Encyclopedia of Etsy BS
Posted by The Funny One at 2:20 AM
Tagged: circle-jerk, Etsy, hot air
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So painfully obvious (1) no one edits anything at Etsy (2) this crap is already detailed (yawn) in 30 other Dorque posts (3) Etsy Admins clearly have to justify their existence by writing copious BS 5x a month (4) who the hell has the time to read this overblown tripe?
The blather about the "customer experience" is interesting only because it underlines the sad fact that Etsy keeps most of the info that would HELP SELLERS SELL to themselves, revealing it only when they're trying to sound like they know what they're talking about.
Etsy basically did nothing for 95% of their sellers in all of 2009. What they did do is up the sales for a few stores, and trashed the rest. I'd love to hear from the sellers who no longer sell because Etsy's stacked the decks against them.
I have been “selling” on etsy for at least a year. Selling is a relative term, of course. Unfortunately, I don’t draw pictures that look like I have the skills of a 7 year old or “big eyed girls” doing semi-ironic things… I actually looked at the pictures in theblackapple’s shop a few days ago, and was blown away by her shoddy painting techniques. But, that’s what people are directed to look at. Without some etsy employee directing attention to my items, then I will only be able to sell what someone found in my shop through some form of search.
Now, I have an art degree, and I have a full time job. I have discovered that I’m not interested in twitter and don’t have 3 hours a day to spend playing blog tag with other people who are part of that 95% that etsy staff don’t seem to care about.
I’ve recently been rethinking my strategy. I’d love to fall in love with artfire or imagekind, but well, artfire doesn’t seem to have any customers, and imagekind seems to operate on the same kind of groupthink / team BS as etsy. I’m not a team player, I’m an individual.
So, I registered a new username, and I guess I’m going to draw different things… or rather I’m going to finish a series of drawings that I started a year ago and make them my focus… and all this I had concluded before I saw the flickr stream of the etsy Halloween party.
Seeing that photo stream was an eye-opening experience. It literally showed me the kind of people who have been standing on top of that glass ceiling over my head. I don’t mean that as a slight on their costumes. I’m an artist, I can always see the form beneath the surface… and I’ve seen that form now. And it saddens me, annoys me, infuriates me… and yet amuses me.
I know those people. I went to college with people just like them. And now I realize some of the intangible things that were driving me insane before, because I’ve seen the form beneath the surface.
I read some of this latest Storque article, although I admit, my eyes glazed over for most of it. I make things, and I’d like my shit featured. I’m anal enough (or ebay experienced enough) to know how to construct a google friendly title & description. Otherwise, there’s nothing that the article has to tell me.
So, time will tell if my new identity catches the eye of “those” etsy admins, because I would like to turn into one of those people who is mocked for being featured ridiculously.
Really, the article should just say: never post in the forums, make grey, beige, white items, make wedding things, draw like a 7 year old, sew something too ironic to be practical, and above all else, NEVER post in the forums.
People actually use Etsy search?!
Well, after this holiday I'm done with Etsy. I haven't had a sale since early April, when they started screwing around with search. In 2008 over 85% of my hits and sales came from searches. Now it's 9%.
I've started my own website, because I figured if I have to do my own SEO and advertising to drive traffic, I'm not driving them to a crowded marketplace where they can get lost and frustrated. It's working for me.
The Dorque is just a public forum of Admin's mental masturbations.
I bet none of them ever took a basic business writing class.
Oh I can tell you first hand that my sales have dropped dramatically because of Etsy admin bull. I'm not a "pet"...so even though I'm working like a dog day and night...there my stuff sits. Its incredible to me that they have all this time to write out long declarations on the forums and the storque..and have time to have parties and then post the moronic photos on flickr,,,but have absolutley no time at all to devote to real issues at hand.
Equally appalling was the entire front page all day yesterday looked exactly the same from one switchout to the next....not only does it make etsy look lazy, but in the words of a friend of mine who came to the site to see what it has to offer for the first time told me...'it looks like a bunch of preschoolers run that place'. Nuff said
So, nothing on freaking coupon codes, then? I mean COME ON. How hard could that possibly be to implement.
Oh, and still no email from Etsy to inform me of the changes to the Dos and Don'ts. Guess they were serious about it taking weeks! Has anyone received one?
I just cannot bring myself to read it. Glad you read it for me: I cannot tolerate the tripe they "blog". Perhaps a true student of irony would have fun with it, but I am too busy creating original art. (ibvisible creative art, I may add because it's actually original!!)
Grumpy,
Three accounts here and no email, not even in the one I've had since Etsy was only a few months old. Of course last time they had a mass mail I only received two out of three so who knows how many I will get if any.
you mean they actually send emails? I've never gotten a one...and I've been there for almost 3 years. Oh wait, yes I did get an email once...to tell me to remove the link to my other online shop...funny..they jump right on that beings it might mess with the money they get.....aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
---by the way...there is no such thing as fee avoidance...its a made up term etsy perpetuated so they can keep their minions scared half to death of selling something outside of etsy.
I kinda got off topic...
Instead of listing new items on etsy for this holiday season I decided sell off line to my regulars and to some new customers. I still have a few followers on Etsy that I promised some items to, but this year Etsy isn't getting money from me listing or selling. I feel thats the best way for me to show how I feel about the immature way the site is managed. I will also make money, without having to deal with Etsy,so thats Ok with me to! I already have limited my shopping there because the whole place is just a turn off.
Thank you much, BetsyB, could't have said it better! Good for you!
I want to thank Etsy from the bottom of my EB heart for setting up that entirely egocentric Community Hub Page, because it brings out the worst in Etsy right at the top of the page EVERY DAY!
No more digging in the Dorque, it's served up to all sellers on a platter!
Of course they're not going to introduce coupon codes or mass price editing - they'd be missing out on all those inflated FVFs from sales and deals then! Inconceivable! Still waiting for that email too.
Between the impossibility of being found in the search, the pet featured shops, and the 'hobby sellers' with their slave-labor prices, it's a miracle anyone trying to run a business makes a sale there. I know the only sales I've made have been from external advertising and people I already knew through other online venues.
soooo. . . the dearest bethela has a store and proudly announces it in her profile. How cute. However, amusingly, that doesn't seem to have given her any sales.
2 years? Make that 4....
Someone reads the Dorque??? I've never found anything there that I didn't glaze over and browse away from after the first sentence.
I've given up on Etsy. I just listed some stuff so it'll be there for another 4 months and then I'm done.
I would much rather be associated with Artfire and get no sales there than to continue to have a shop that looks unprofessional and doesn't allow simple things like coupons. Artfire may not have customers yet, but they will. They just seem to have a firmer foundation than Etsy ever had.
And I still keep getting those fraggin "Etsy Success" emails that are nothing more than a few featured shops getting pimped out despite clicking on the unsubscribe button numerous time. Argh!
Sorry, just found this blog and it's nice to get this out.
It is good to see that MANY people see Etsy the same way I have for a few years now, so I'm grateful to EtsyBitch for that. I am in the process of preparing my exit from Etsy. They are not in my corner, they never were. I rarely have a sale. It's because what I design is NOT subtle, simple and organic. It's quite the opposite, so I'll never get a fair shot at Etsy, and they will see to it.
So, I ask you, why would I want to participate in a site run by people who represent everything that disgusts me! The more people that come together and ultimately leave Etsy in droves, they (Etsy)will be finished. They will be left only with dancing cupcakes and felt beards. Ciao faca brutta!
I've stopped selling at Etsy because while I make excellent-quality items that are aesthetically pleasing, and take nice photos, I don't make Etsy-Brand merchandise and sell it at Walmart prices, so I've gotten exactly zero notice from Those On High and never will. It's just the wrong venue for my products. They took enough of my money while giving very little in return.
The problem with Etsy is that it's run basically by fucktard hipsters with no business sense, no knowledge of art or vintage pieces, and no clue at all how exclusive they've become at the expense of the artists they originally purported to want to help.
And I've still never seen one.fucking.person in real life wearing a cowl or arm-warmers. Not one!
Here's an article on about.com where EtsyBitch is referenced:
http://diyfashion.about.com/b/2009/10/26/does-etsy-suck.htm
I found this old blog post I did in July when I was frustrated with the etsy changes. you can go here and see it.
http://violetsnewvintage.typepad.com/feedback/2009/07/follow-the-herd.html
It makes me laugh..I should tweak the idea a little and do cards...I can put a santa hat on the bird.
Sark:
I like your mind.
In my opinion, Etsy appears to have turned the creative community against each other.
The favoritism causes undue stress and discomfort; the sameness of the repeatedly touted items has grown tiresome and homogenized.
there is very little room left on the site for creatives to express their own individuality. People are willing to be led like lambs to the slaughter, in a desperate bid to be able to brag that they have sold a single work of art for ten fucking dollars. whoopee!
All that i ever see on etsy related twitter posts is how someone has to go to the post office for they have sooooo many parcels to send off!
This curious competitive bragging is unsavory to say the least. It strikes me as desperate and unprofessional, seemingly exactly what Etsy wants you to be.
You are their product, you are no longer an individual. Fuck art, screw craft. Join the Etsy cult of shallow.
It is true, Etsy has devalued handmade. I am an ex seller who did very well there, luckily doing better at my own store since leaving - and i still take an interest in the fate of the site, for i do believe that it is affecting the status of arts and crafts all over the internet.
I predict that eventually the site will drive integrity away, leaving only the sheeplike submissives with underpriced-hobby-crafts to squabble over front page notoriety and masturbating the admin via la dorque.
RIP my sweet handmade ethos.
May you be reborn elsewhere, with some integrity and pride.
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