Best Thread Title: “Is this a Bug or a New Change?”

Hats off to all the sellers who diligently report daily BUGS in the ever-changing, weirdly morphing, almost unshoppable site - Etsy!

Etsy is so unstable, sellers don’t know whether it’s a bug or a new Etsy feature dropped on sellers like an iron anvil right smack in the middle of the holiday selling weeks!

Etsy pays little attention, but when they do, like lisajune finally did to the pesky shopping cart time-outs, they tell sellers AND customers to send MORE DETAILS in emails that, admittedly, MIGHT NOT even make it through the silly, old support@ system!!!

Etsy, the site that makes it impossible for most sellers to sell!

For Shame: Updated

Storque article

CCCOE Team Thread

To buy raffle tickets (Drawing is tomorrow Aug 9th)

Matt posted the following in the comments section for the Dorque article (yes I know it's called Storque - but Dorque just feels so much more accurate).

In recognition of a worthy cause, Etsy today donated $250 directly to the New Directions charity (http://www.ndvets.com). The SoCal Bench Project Etsy Team is holding an event this weekend to support veterans through this organization.

Etsy previously announced that the SoCal Bench Project Etsy team would receive a $200 grant to help offset the printing costs associated with this event. The Grant was not ultimately funded because deadlines were missed. We apologize for the poor timing of these announcements.

Etsy Grants is a new program designed to help Etsy Teams hold events and promote their shops and Etsy. It’s important that Etsy diligently adhere to the rules and deadlines associated with the Grants Program so that we can be responsible stewards of our funds and so that we can offer monies in a timely way.

We understand that our communication around this specific Grant could have been better. And, while we remain committed to enforcing the rules and deadlines associated with the Grants Program, we don’t want the New Directions charity to miss out on this opportunity to positively interact with Etsy sellers and Etsy.

To avoid this type of confusion in the future, Team Grant winners will now be announced after the Grant funds have been submitted to the Team.

Thank you.

Word is donations and raffle tickets are flying in after the news of this debauchle broke, and many of the 'Bitches' have made personal donations as have many of our readers as well other Etsy folk to the point they are "overwhelmed" by the response and processing. That is fantastic!

Being that EB Never misses a chance to make Etsy look as bad as they truly are we've also donated (as a group) the amount of $50.00 to the team itself to try to help cover the intital costs they originally applied for. Use it in good health folks - from us to you.

For Shame!

We here at EB are in absolute shock.

We knew Etsy could stoop low, but they have hit a new level of shame. One of last month's team grant winners, who was relying on the money to cover costs of a charitable event in California for one of the largest street teams, is not receiving the money. Why? We can't figure it out.

One of the organizers posted about it on her blog:

We applied for an Etsy grant and were awarded a team grant in July by Etsy Teams. We had to write up a grant proposal and submit it by July 15th. After being awarded the grant we were told that therewere two deadlines, one on July 24th for a printers proof and the other on July 31st where we were to submit receipts. Both of these tasks were completed in a timely manner.

Yesterday, just three days before The SoCal Bench Project Artisan Fair I received an email from Etsy Teams saying that they had emailed us last week saying that they were not going to give us a grant; claiming that we had not sent our proofs in on time and that they were a few days late. Silly, we had our event postcards printed a month before we even applied for the grant; it took me all of two seconds to forward them a jpg of our postcards. I was speechless for a few minutes before the anger sunk in.

First of all, everything was sent in when it was supposed to be. Secondly, we never heard any confirmation from Etsy that they received our information. No communication from them at all. Etsy's regular modus operandi. Etsy Teams said, "... Because we give out several grants each month and need to have them wrapped up before the following month's grants are awarded, we must stick strictly to the scheduled deadlines." When has Etsy EVER followed even their own guidelines. They do whatever they want so that it fits their needs. Hell, they don't even adhere to their own rules and guidelines.

Street teams have been the heart of Etsy's marketing. They are the grassroots underbelly that keeps that beast moving. And they do this bullshit to them?! I thought it was bad when they said street teams couldn't use the Etsy name, the well crafted Etsy banners were not being allowed to be used, and that they started the team grant program rather than supporting the teams as they had previously by helping with fairs, shows, fliers, etc., but this takes the frickin' cupcake.

La La La I can't hear you

I'm beginning to think that some admin are illiterate.

MR: Your inattention to this issue is as other people have said shameful and unprofessional. You have hundreds of dissatisfied, paying customers. What are you going to do to address this issue besides some arrogant reply directing me to the other topic that I've already obviously read?

RD: Please see here: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5588705

My guess is that either a) He was pissed that his Guitar Hero game was interrupted or b) He has no idea how to fix it and is on autopilot. If the engineers are too busy to respond to Bugs threads in a customer service-friendly way, they need to hire someone who does that for them. Oh and the engineers need to fix shit, too.

The fingers in the ears approach just doesn't cut it when someone pays you to do something.

Logs and BS - a coincidental mix?

Supposedly, Etsy has logs to know what we’ve deleted, but they can’t retain our views, shop policies, images, featured items, or bring back lost listings. Sellers who have gone to the forums for help or as a last resort have found that there’s usually no solution to their problems. Just see how helpful tech support was in these forum threads.

“That's what it looks like happened, according to the database logs.” -RD

Disappearing favorites – mostly due to sleep-Etsying

My photos have disappeared – must be a cache issue.

Disappearing photos - Redux

Featured item bug – Don’t worry about not being able to easily arrange them, it doesn’t stick anyway!

13 items disappeared – It takes a seller screaming in the forum to get any attention? Tell me it isn’t so?!

My featured item disappeared – disappearing items? Never! We pay for listings, why would Etsy not have them secure?

And the most recent in a long line of shop policy threads - a reminder to save them elsewhere and check them often...or just don't fill them out!

Nice job with technical priorities, Etsy! It's as good as your customer service! At least you get an A...err B...for consistency.

*Note: This was written under the assumption that there really are logs they can view to see what was deleted when and by whom rather than assuming that RD is full of it. I prefer to give them a little credit, but maybe I'm just gullible that way. Besides, it's more of a snafu if they have a database and nothing they can use it for but to gawk at our every move.

Etsy, I wish I could quit you.

A non-bitch friend of mine (who has been wanting to get into selling on Etsy after seeing my success there), was reading over this site and asked me a very large question today:

"I just read some of the shit you guys post and i'm thinking 'Why TF would I ever want to sell there? Ever?' "

The answer is: Etsy itself is fine. It's amazingly successful and a great many people have found at least a modicum of success on Etsy. People are making livelihoods there due to its being the biggest venue of its kind. It leaves Dawanda, Pinkdoodle, Lovli, bigcartel, icraft, and the others in the dust as far as size and exposure go.

It's the moment you have ANYTHING to do with the Etsy staff that it all goes to bollocks.

When you dare to ask a question about why thus or such happens, make a suggestion for an improvement, or god forbid criticise the way things are done, even merely request help, you'll finally find the chink in the armour. You will quickly be told by those in the forums and even Etsy staff, that: "it's not us, it's you". It's your problem if you aren't happy, it's your fault the site's not working, it's something you did to get you in the spot you're in, you ungrateful bastard. And sellers who ask for entirely reasonable things are viewed as insolent children who bite the hands that feed them. Cue the choir of cheerleaders who can cripple a wildebeast at 20 paces with chants of "if you don't like it, leave!".

Amazingly, the staff somehow doesn't make the correlation that it's the sellers that bring buyers in, and sellers who pay the bills, and sellers in reality do the real customer service to the buying public. They should be bending over backwards to not only serve them, but cater to them to keep them happy and earning the money that pays their salaries. Making the seller's life easier should take precedence over some inane flash plaything whose overspecialisation is so specific it is virtually useless to everyone.

In a business with a shopkeeper model it should be obvious to not piss off your sellers, to not call them demeaning things in public forums, to not talk down to them like children, to not call them ungrateful bastards or "grumpy haters", to not shut them down for sometimes fabricated events by jealous competitors or mistaken or unscrupulous buyers. You'd think that would be obvious. It seems to be so to everyone but Etsy. Such a business environment should offer them a wide berth and provide them the support and tools to make you more money. But Etsy does these horrid things to its money generating customers, and yet they really don't do anything at all to bring in new ones. They do no advertising, at least not in magazines that anyone actually reads.

They adamantly resist proven methods of the traditional old advertising geezers, even advocating its unhippness with their young city bohemian conceived ideals of current web technology and its need to be 'indie' - whatever the fuck that means. They instead go with an all word of mouth plan with hordes of prostrating housefraus preaching the gospel of Etsy to strangers at the street fair as if they were a new branch of the Mormons. I'm personally waiting for Mary Kay-style Etsy Parties with the level of fanaticism at play with the street teams. (Hey, that's my idea, I get a cut, damn it.)

And that's the damned shame of all this. Etsy would prefer to spend money on the office half pipe or paying staff to play Rockband than serve its fee paying customers. It's hard NOT to be disenchanted by that.

At times it seems as if the sellers care more than the staff about the site and its success, because for the most part it's entirely left on our shoulders. It's our job to not only make and sell our own goods, but to promote and market ourselves and Etsy.

Is it any wonder we're unhappy?