Etsy Alternative #11 - Zibbet

In this continuing series, we bring you a review of alternative selling venues, website hosting services, shopping carts, and basically anything else that you can use to sell your lovely handcrafted goods. Next up - Zibbet.

Tagline: Live Handmade

Company information: Two guys from Australia, beta site launched February 2009 – Zibbet Pty Ltd.

Storefront: Store URL is zibbet.com/username. Customization includes banner, avatar, shop announcement, and favorite items. Looks similar to Etsy. Product picture is the focal point of the listings. They have the same linking policy as Etsy in regards to linking to your other shops elsewhere.

Cost: No listing fee, 7.5% commission on sales price (not including shipping). Or join referral program to pay 5% commission. Billed monthly, listings expire after 90 days. Edit 7/27/09 new policies at Zibbet - Free shops, max 15 items, no listing or sale fee. Premium shops $7 a month, unlimited listings, no listing or sale fee, new and extra perks. Read more at their blog.

Features: Item and shop view stats; list unlimited items in your shop; showroom (their version of the front page Showcase, on-site advertising); wish lists and favorites; shop by search, categories, username, or location. The search works within categories and can break down by cost or color. Flagging system. Promote the site or your shop with premade banners.

More information in their FAQ

Payment: Paypal for under US$5000, Zibbet acts as a third-party mediary via direct bank transfer for larger payments to protect the buyer. Prices are clearly in USD.

Community: Feedback system, their blog, internal messaging system.

Customer service: Onsite help ticket, social messaging systems like Twitter

Items that can be sold: Handmade, Fine art, Vintage, and Craft supplies. Read here for more information on their categories

General impressions: The layout and design is simple, but listings are somewhat busy with the upper right sidebar. The green color is also not beneficial for some shops and the Zibbet ‘brand’ is evident within the shops and listings, the seller’s info is pushed down the page.

Shop’s policy link in the listings is nice, but the lack of in-shop categories and search is evident when attempting to shop, as well as the lack of search when browsing other parts of the site, you have to click ‘buy’ then ‘search’ every time

The site is in beta, but free unless something sells, so there’s nothing but time to lose if trying it out.

Overall, it feels like they are attempting to recreate Etsy without the social aspect, and they admit the concept was developed in 2007 (Etsy has been around since 2005).

Silkfair Discount Code for EB Readers

A representative of Silkfair has passed along a discount code for us to offer you, our readers, to try out their new custom shops. The details are:

Free trial of custom shops for the first two weeks
$9.99 per month for the first six months following the free-trial period
$24.99 per month thereafter
Enter the promo code etsybitch1
*Promotion is valid for one month from date of post - August 15, 2009 (Edit July 17: Silkfair has extended the offer to the end of September)

Any questions about or problems redeeming the code or working with the site can be directed to support@silkfair.com or teams@silkfair.com

We previously reviewed silkfair in our Etsy alternatives series. They have since released the custom shop option. A basic shop on the site is still free, but lacks the customizable features.

A Refresher Course

We’ve noticed that people, specifically other Etsians, are blogging about us. Not everything they say is nice (thank goodness, we’d be doing something wrong if it was!)…they don’t get certain things about why we’re here or why we have certain feelings towards certain admin. So, here’s a little history lesson, stretching back to before we were here, to refresh or enlighten your perspective.

1. What is it you think you’ll accomplish by complaining?

A lot, actually. The real Etsy community, by acting together even before EtsyBitch, has already gotten things to happen by bringing it to the attention of the sensible admin – like getting a repeat offending reseller booted, the page numbers brought back to search, and USD added to listings as is required by law. We act as encouragement for forum surliness to get admin to acknowledge problems. What else do we want to see done? Read our manifesto – it’s all laid out there in plain English.

But we don’t just bitch about Etsy, though that’s the fun part - we also try to help our fellow artisans and crafters , we discuss business, we review alternative venues, and we’re here to listen. We’re a shoulder and a voice for frustrated Etsians, whatever their sales volume or product. How will Etsy ever improve for their customers with the cupcake yes-men running untethered?

2. Why do you tell DanielleXO to go to hell? That’s, like, so mean!

She was once given the privilege of head forum moderator. She ran amuck, muting people for no reason other than she didn’t like them, closed threads she didn’t like, and harassed members via convos. This is reason enough to fire a person, but they simply moved her to another department, and then another one after that – still causing trouble months later. Then, ahile a member of the EtsyLabs, she ran a metalsmithing workshop in which she couldn’t answer someone’s question about gauge – something elementary to working with metal. Can you say i-n-c-o-m-p-e-t-e-n-c-e?

3. Why are you anonymous?

Well, most of us are anonymous – if you haven’t read the recent issue of Fortune Small Business, you should. As for the rest of us - I have two words for you. Etsy Five: Five Etsians were muted indefinitely way back when for criticizing Etsy on a blog that wasn’t Etsy. And muting or banishment for criticism is still happening and happening. Off-Etsy behavior has gotten many a member in trouble, even resulting in shop closures. The President of Etsy (former, rokali) once said that they take off site behavior into account when doling out punishment. We are anonymous in order to not be harrassed by Etsy. How sad is that?

Also, we bitch because any of us or you could be next - they’re not even straight about their own rules for buyer complaints let alone using their discretion when emotions are involved, and there is talk of a blacklist of sellers you will never see on the FP, in the gift guides, or featured by Etsy admin in any way because of their criticism of Etsy, even valid criticism based on their own customer service experience. Etsy’s admins are unprofessional twits who blow off professional business people simply because they’re the customer. The power they hold over others’ incomes is frightening.

4. Why not just leave Etsy?

Some of us have – if you notice, there aren’t 10 people posting all the time anymore. Most of us have moved on to other venues or jobs. So why do we still blog about Etsy? Yeah, I knew you’re thinking it – we’re still their customers, and we made great friends there, still buy there, or have so much invested in Etsy we can’t leave. It’s like your phone company, if it’s the only company your phone will work with and the phone cost you $500, are you going to switch companies and buy a new phone or try to work with what you already paid for?

5. Why are you so hateful and angry?

We’re not hateful, we’re frustrated. There’s no customer service department to complain to or work with, there is no way to sign our name to our complaints without fear of reprisal, and people like you question our right to throw out a curse word every now and then in regards to a company we paid to deliver a service that we feel is subpar. Fuck you for not respecting the rights of others to be frustrated even when you haven't had to deal with it...yet.

6. But….why???

We appreciate handmade and love (some of) the sellers we’ve interacted with in the online art community. Etsy had great potential when it started, and it is still the big name out there. We think there will be others who give them a run for their money, but there shouldn’t be a monopoly on selling handmade. Certain venues will work for certain people. We really do want to see Etsy do better by their customers, even if we’ve moved on to greener pastures. It’s not about revenge or seeing Etsy fail…it’s about making them accountable to the people that matter, their sellers – their customers. Being a half-assed start-up was an excuse 4 years ago, not now.

Etsy's numbers drop

It's official, June was a bad month for Etsy - sales were down 4% site-wide (both number of items sold and the $ amount sold). Page views decreased almost 3%. New members were down 2%.

BUT the number of items listed was about the same (0.1% decrease, about 1,000 item difference).

However, there were still nearly twice as many items listed per month as sold, which is not good for sellers.

Read all the stats in the Dorque article.

Are these lower views due to the SEO fuck up? Are they due to the economy? Nope, according to Sinohe:

Overall, June results were more or less comparable to May’s after factoring in that there are 30 days in June and 31 in May.

Really? 4% of sales occur each day of the month? So a full month is 120%? Has he ever taken a basic arithmetic class? Even if the average (3-3.3%) was an effect of month length - it never mattered before, Etsy was growing every month regardless (6% in May, 5% in April, 16% in March, 2% in February - which has only 28 days!!) and it still leaves a drop of almost 1%, which is a large number of items when three quarters of a million are sold each month.

Etsy - you've hit your plateau. NOW will you care about your customers?

Here is the Article!

The article about Etsy we are featured in is up now at CNN money!

Our little Secret...

A few months ago we were approached by a writer working up a story about Etsy. They had been looking at the Etsy and somethings weren't adding up. They looked around some more and found us - and didn't find us so far off the mark. We agreed on many many things!

That writer was with Fortune Small Business Magazine. And that article is now out on newsstands (sorry, not online right now, should be in a week or so over on CNN Money as FSB runs it's content there online). We were holding off saying anything till it was actually out online, but the first review came in (in form of a comment on the last post) and we are busting out to share!

Just found out about this blog from the very funny IMHO article about Etsy in the latest issue of Fortune Small Business. The article is called "Can an anti-corporate website survive commercial success?" -- I'm sure y'all know about it... anyway the people who run Etsy appear to me to be, in a word, priggish, and exactly the type of folk who deserve and anti-website. Keep it up.

That's a GREAT review! Run out and get your copies! We are! If you get a copy please tell us what you think!

Facebook connect - now spam your family!

We're sure by now you have all (or at least most of you) heard about or seen the Facebook connect for your Etsy shop. Etsy has been working diligently since May to turn out this wonderful promotional tool for its sellers.

aaaahahahahah sorry, I couldn't keep that up.

The truth is, from what we can gather in statements posted on and off Etsy is that Facebook developed the app and eBay added it so Etsy did too (even though they try to take credit for it - you slimy bastards). But it doesn't seem to work on Etsy and it can only add links to your personal profile, not your fan page (this is a Facebook thing). It might work in IE, but other browser users are reporting errors and/or sluggishness.

Etsy, for all things spam! If they can integrate the code properly, that is.

If you click on the icon on the top menu of your screen after logging in, you can choose to not have it show again if you'd rather forget it exists.


goatmountainarts said:

*sob* This is like getting underwear for Christmas. *runs off waving arms in the air and crying*

uknowuneedanother said:

Etsy, y'all seriously need to regroup, put down the crack pipe, and focus on some reality.

If you were quoted, congratulations and thanks! You can find your celebratory "I've been Quoted" (and other EB avatars) by clicking here.

Etsybitch.com works again!

We had some issues when we had it transferred so it wasn't redirecting here. The registrar found the problem and now it seems to be working just fine again. Sorry it took so long to fix.

It's a deal of finding the time and tweaking and waiting 24-72 hours for it to resolve to see if that did it. This time it's seemed to have finally worked.

Thanks for you patience everyone - keep bitching!

Etsy talks about “Product” and “Priorities” but what about what sellers want?

If you are just getting the latest "Etsy News" in your inboxes gushing about a long list of Etsy-generated changes to the site that are so old and insignificant, the sellers must be wondering where the hell Etsy’s been for the first 6 months of 2009. Out of town (again) on a PR junket? Etsy is out of town so much these days that it’s weekend light duty at Gold Street 24/7!

We’d like to point a finger at the meager, brief, and trite gobbledegook:

"Help improving customer support is top of mind for us at Etsy. We will be updating our internal systems and processes in the coming months to provide better support to our members. This includes updating our Help pages to make it easier for members to find information more quickly."

What did you say? Top of mind? Huh? Does sentence #1 read a lot like sentence #2? Did we just develop a bad case of double vision? Sudden lack of comprehension?

IF you mean Customer Service, as in PROVIDING CONCRETE AND COMPREHENSIVE CUSTOMER SUPPORT for sellers on Etsy, sellers have been thinking (for 4 whole years) that this means:
1. Email support 24/7 with an online Request for Help function with a finite turnaround of 24-48 hours.
2. 1-800 Customer Support during regular business hours.

You know, like every other huge online retail site provides - a formal Customer Service Department that acts like customer service! You know, that little button at the bottom of the front page that says "Contact Customer Service"...like that.

Who the hell are you kidding, Etsy You’ve been ignoring the need for Customer Service for your sellers for years - you throw out a wishy-washy 3 sentences that are as vague and noncommittal as your fixation on the non-colors BEIGE and WHITE - and we’re supposed to pat you on the back?

What did you say? Right, another bunch of nothing.

You finally hire a customer service director and this is all we get.