Joan Speaks Out

Hello!

We have another recently banned seller from CoralGate to tell her tale.

My name is JoanHunterHandmade, and I have been permanently banned from Etsy.

I opened my shop on Etsy in late March of this year at the age of twenty-six. Like many, I had stars in my eyes, and was hoping to sell my handmade crafts. I made 134 sales in the six months my shop was active there, and I had 100% positive feedback from 197 people. My success on the site was not due to anything Etsy Corp did to help my individual business, it was due to my own considerable efforts, my excellent customer service, my well-made products, and the other members of the community who helped me learn the ropes. In fact, it was rather DESPITE several obstacles Etsy presented to my business that I achieved what I had, (perhaps not much compared to some, but not too shabby compared to many). I really enjoyed chatting with other craft and micro-business enthusiasts on Etsy, shopping for unique items in handmade and vintage, and promoting the cause of buying handmade.

It was just after the six month marker that I started to become even vaguely aware of the truly disturbing side of Etsy Corp. I always found their renewal system to be highly questionable. It often felt like playing a slot machine. Sometimes renewing (just to be seen for heaven’s sake) would bring in sales, sometimes it would not, but it always added up to hefty fees. Most of my items fell into the jewelry category, which had millions of items listed, and sellers were renewing constantly to stay in the searches. (Now with Etsy’s recent changes to pagination, this will be even harder). But before I knew much about Etsy alternatives, I had already printed my business cards with my Etsy web address, and I was afraid to start investing my time, energy, and money in another location after dumping so much into my Etsy shop. I did create free accounts on two other venues, but only listed a few things and didn't pay much attention to them, so naturally didn't get a lot of attention back. I used this "evidence" to further reenforce my rationalizations for staying on Etsy. All of that changed one day in October when I learned about a piece published in Etsy's own blog, the Storque.

When I saw this article, I had spent every waking hour for the better part of my year doing everything within my power to sell my handmade jewelry and accessories on Etsy. For the sellers reading this, you know what that entails. We do all of our own promotion, many, like me, do their own product photography, shop design, descriptions, pricing, policies, packaging, shipping, advertising, treasuries, networking, blogging, tweeting, facebook-ing, and so much more, not to mention actually MAKING our products. We wear so many hats in our line of work! It’s not as easy as crocheting a pot holder and then slapping some photos up on a website for 20 cents and a small commission fee. A LOT of work goes into it, and a lot of money, too, and without the benefit of the many useful tools other sites offer their sellers. The least Etsy can do, as our selling venue, to whom we collectively pay BIG money, is stay out of our way in our quest to make our businesses succeed. And in one, glorious move, they did an astonishing job of sabotaging the very businesses that have been behind their success all along. All on the behalf of a woman whose jewelry is made in factories and sold at Target! A big brand-name whose cynical attempt at “green-washing” her company’s image to people she, or her PR agent, probably perceived as “all those unwashed hippies” who actually hand-make their items and sell them on Etsy, cast a pall of “irresponsibility” on sellers of all kinds of coral varieties. Etsy took our money to sell those coral items, and then torpedoed the chances of us getting a return on that investment. The lack of consideration on that point alone should have been grounds enough to leave. But it is hard to hoist anchor when your business, your baby, is just starting to pick up steam, as mine was. However, at that point, I realized that the boat was sinking. I wrote the following to “support” after efforts in the forums proved as productive as banging my head against a brick wall.

“Dear Etsy Support Team,
I am writing in protest of the decision to keep Temple St. Clair Carr's advertisement on the Storque. TSC is NOT a handmade, vintage or supply seller. She is a big, brand-name jewelry manufacturer who has maligned 99% of the Etsy jewelry community through her post on coral, which, by the way, contains no distinctions between types of coral when calling on shoppers to sign a pledge NOT TO BUY items using coral. Not only was this "article" not vetted, it apparently was not fact-checked either, as she casts erroneous disparagement upon the ethics of using coral as a material in jewelry making.

Coral used in jewelry CAN and IS farmed. That is a fact. The article clearly makes a false statement in that regard, as well as several other misrepresentative facts. Small-time jewelry making is not a major cause of coral depletion on this planet. If this were a newspaper, or any respectable journalistic publication, the responsible thing to do would be to write a retraction or correction of the misstated information presented. I realize Ms. St. Clair is a guest writer, but it is Etsy's blog, and Etsy is responsible for the content within it. In this case, content that sabotages Etsy businesses, while simultaneously linking to a competing off-etsy business venture.

I find this article to be not only inaccurate, but financially destructive to my business with the Etsy Corp, and I formally request that it be immediately removed from the website. I also find Etsy Corp's willingness to throw its loyal sellers and clients to the proverbial dogs, and its refusal to appropriately address our concernsto be nothing short of reprehensible conduct on behalf of the company and its representatives.
Thank you.”

After several DAYS I got this response:
“Hey there,
Thanks so much for emailing, we appreciate your opinion and consideration. I'm going to refer to Juliet's (our editorial director)
thoughts and response to this issue: {insert a copy-paste of Juliet’s announcement here}”

In other words “LA LA LA WE STILL DON’T HEAR YOU!” This was also the response of forum admin who again and again closed all threads in the
forums discussing the issue. At this point I was outraged, but wrote a fairly restrained reply. “Eva, thanks very much for your response.

Yes, I have read Juliet's input on the situation several times now. I realize that a decision has been made to change the Storque's editorial policies and standards, and while I appreciate that as a very basic step to "correct" the problem, I do not feel it goes far enough. Not only is the article, and the link to the pledge still active on Etsy's blog, but no retraction nor correction has been placed within that article, an article which misrepresents the facts to an extreme degree. If you don't want to take my word for it, I suggest reading and passing on this article by Newsweek, a highly espected professional publication. The article can be found here: http://www.newsweek.com...

Furthermore, I have picked up on the fact that Etsy's decision to address its clients who are still concerned with this matter stops at reiterating the inadequate announcement made by Julietgo. And while I sympathize with her situation, and hope that the buck is not being passed to rest on her shoulders alone, I respectfully request more of a dialogue from the company with its sellers in regard to this issue. For me, the damage has been done, as I have closed down my shop, as several other slighted sellers are doing, and whether I do business with Etsy ever again hinges on whether my fellow sellers and I receive an appropriately proportionate response from the company about our questions and concerns. thanks again”

I never received a response to that email. Now, how would it go over with one of my customers, if I sent them a C.O.D. after I had agreed to pay for shipping, and when they contacted me about it, I said “I wont do it next time!” but did not refund her the money? And then what if I just copied and pasted my initial reply over and over again when she followed up with me? What would my feedback look like then?

By this time sellers who wanted to talk about the coral issue on the forums had been shunted into a single thread in the “ideas” section-quarantined, sequestered, shunned, and mostly forgotten. When anyone tried to start a new thread, admin just closed it down and copy-pasted the same response or some variation thereof, referring us to Juliet’s announcement, an announcement none of the sellers could reply to, or ask questions about, or criticize, or have a dialogue with Admin about. This was simply unacceptable to me. I felt like Etsy’s actions and words bespoke an attitude that sellers were just beneath contempt. Just a bunch of whiners or crazy people ranting on a street corner, rather than the root of their company’s success, customers with legitimate questions and concerns, people whose livelihoods were at stake, and up until a recent surge of venture capital, the sole source of Etsy’s revenue. By now, realizing how little Etsy thought of me, my business, and my fellow sellers, I moved my shop. I posted the following announcement: “In solidarity with my fellow jewelry makers I will be moving my business off Etsy in response to the Storque article promoting mass-produced, brand-name jewelry to be sold at Target stores, and slanderous misinformation being spread by An off-Etsy company which maligns the business practices of Ethical Etsy artisans. Fight for handmade!!”

Of course, Etsy wasted no time in removing that announcement and sending me an email about it, though they STILL have not responded to my questions, nor provided me with even a basic level of decent customer service. It seems they only respond to sellers when it is time to point the finger, spank, reprimand, or put them in a time-out I perceived immediately the need for a safe place for sellers to gather outside of Etsy, a place for the traumatized, disenchanted, stomped on, and used. I called it The Etsy Refugee Society (http://etsyrefugeesociety.blogspot.com/).

I had discovered suddenly, and much to my horror, that underneath their touchy-feely “hey there” exterior, Etsy is run like a third-world dictatorship, where pronouncements are handed down from on high without the input or responses from sellers, where people are silenced, or just disappear, where courtiers receive favor from the powers-that-be often at the expense of the “peasants”, where there is a pervasive cultural demand for cult-like adherence to Etsy and all of its decisions- right or wrong. Once you close your shop there, and voice disgust, and stop spouting the party line, you become an outsider who is told to shut up and go away by adherents to the holy shrine of mustaches, foxes, cowls and owls. Many recklessly label pissed-off ex-sellers as simply bitter failures who have no one but themselves to blame. That certainly wasn’t the case for me, and my shop. It is a mind-blowing experience to go from being an Etsy cheer-leader to being treated like a malignant tumor after you have a problem with the company.

Weeks ago, I made the decision to seek refuge elsewhere, so my affairs were more or less in order when they finally swung the axe. My favorite part of their email, informing me that my account had been deactivated and I had been permanently banned, was this: “...our business relationship must now come to a close.” Well, since our “business relationship” consisted of me paying THEM money to stomp on my business, my dignity, my friends, and provide me with the shittiest customer service I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime. So yes, it must now come to a close, by all means.

Later that day they closed down the only thread on the forums in which people were “allowed” to voice their displeasure about all aspects of the coral article. Just like with so many of Etsy’s mismanaged and disgraceful business escapades, this one has been officially swept under the rug. Meanwhile, I am happy and enjoying my first sales in my new home on Artfire along with many of my favorite current and former Etsy sellers. Their camaraderie, dedication, sense of humor, kindness, empathy, brains, and strength of character are the most precious and valuable aspect of my time on Etsy, and I long for a day when we can ALL be free from Etsy’s iron-fisted douche-baggery and corporate fuckery.

So that’s my tale. I thank Etsy Bitch for giving me the opportunity to share it, and for demanding justice for all in Etsyland- the not-so-happy kingdom.

Signed,
JoanHunterHandmade