Still Not Paying Attention

Today's Etsy Finds email has three items from the same seller (with an item in the Etsymini at the end of the article, so they actually appear 4 times in the same Etsy Finds article/email). And they live in NYC. hmm

TeenAngster is just getting lazy. She's not even trying anymore. What the hell are the Storque writers getting paid for? Shopping from their favorites?

And again, not all of the featured items are appropriately tagged. Imagine that.

Edit: They've changed the items in the blog post.

Same ol’, Same ol’

Oh crap, marymary has decided instead of actually taking the long list of terrific seller suggestions for NEW PROMOTIONS on the site to replace those much hated WEEKEND DEALS, she’s going to let us SUGGEST Etsy Finds for the month of November! Wow!

Digging deep into Etsy’s own, old, tired, repetitive and overdone promotions, here’s a list of November Find topics (ho-hum) for sellers to "review" and "suggest" or, in Etsy Lingo — give us that rubber stamp sellers, we’re gonna do our own thing anyway!

• Suggest fresh, new, and emerging shops (isn't that Finds already?)



• Suggest Team Events and Happenings (shoppers care about this?)



• Suggest unique gift ideas under $50 USD (the promotion every retail site is using this year!)



• Black Friday through Cyber Monday Free Worldwide Shipping***

***Oh goody, another wacky promotion that takes more out of sellers’ pockets with free shipping! Hey, that’s kinda like Weekend Deals = sellers pay (and pay dearly) in the end!

The Announcement ends with the usual bull: "Thanks in advance for your suggestions and participation, Mary" oh right, sellers’ suggestions ----- right, Etsy, like you’re suddenly listening to sellers! Suprising? No. Insulting? Yes.

So predictable

Well, Etsy seemed to get the note about mentioning gifting holidays in advance. Today's Etsy Finds email was about deals on gifts for Dad as Father's Day is in 3 weeks. But they have such a fixation on certain items, and nothing says "I'll love you in 6 months" like a cowl for a June holiday.

Here's the Finds in the Dorque, it's the same as what was emailed. Scroll down to the last item lol
Come on Etsy, you have us debating whether admin need a therapist for a new disease: EAOF, Etsy Admin Object Fixation. Otherwise known as "Oof", as in "Oof that's a bad choice again"

You're just so damn predictable. Maybe Etsy Finds Bingo should be our next game.

(Yes, it is Winter down under, but Australia and New Zealand celebrate Father's Day in September, just before Spring - when cowls wouldn't make sense either)

The Promotion Game

WE REALLY LIKE PUZZLES, BUT WHY DO YOU MAKE YOUR BUYERS WORK SO HARD TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU’RE PROMOTING, ETSY?

Oh yeah, we admit it - We like puzzles, word games, crosswords, sudoku, and even "Where's Waldo" – but we’re starting to wonder what’s up with all those weird titles all over the site, Etsy?

Do you like confusing visitors and potential buyers coming to the site to find something they want to buy?

By the time visitors FIGURE OUT what Etsy's promoting, their time is up, dinner’s on the table, the dryer just dinged, and there are bills to pay.

They get so confused trying to figure out what the heck "Digging In The Dirt" and "Equestrian Prep" really means that they forget to go shopping!

Is this kind of wacky creativity reaching customers? Or are you just poking fun at your sellers again, Etsy? Heaven knows you like to jerk your sellers around, but the wacky is getting wackier and the titles change so often, we think oh goody, you left BRANDING in the round filing cabinet and re-directed your energies to constantly confusing the shopping public!

'Digging In the Dirt', 'Meet Unique', 'All Natural Grooming', 'I Would, Wouldn’t You?', and so many others we can’t possibly list them all.

Tell us what YOUR FAVORITE idea for a wacky Etsy-ish title is!!

Go ahead, make them up. We know you’re much better than Etsy is at this! (Don't worry, they'd never actually use them - this might actually deter them from using the ones we post here! So let it all hang out!)

Give it a go, because they need all the help they can get.

An International Gripe

We received some interesting figures in an email from a seller who's a bit peeved at Etsy's ungraceful lip service to sellers who ship internationally.

So today’s Etsy Finds recognized that in the UK Mothering Sunday comes in March. March 22nd to be precise. and today’s date? March 12th, which is a Thursday ie. 10 days from Mothering Sunday in the UK (Ireland and Nigeria) aka 6 business days.

Assuming shipping from one of the major seller groups on etsy, to guarantee arrival in time will cost (<250g packet)
from US = 27.95 USD for expedited mail international (3-5 business days)
from Canada = 50.87 CAD for Xpresspost (4 business days)
within UK = approx 2GBP if package is letter-type (1-3 business days) or 4.20GBP standard parcel (3 business days) or 12.99 GBP for a guaranteed parcelforce delivery at 48 hours

Etsy - where the internet ends at the border?

Mary seems to know what’s up in her Weekend Deals Finds email Friday

“Don't forget to plan ahead for Mother's Day this year”

and pushes shop local in the March 12 finds, which might help, but a week (6 business days to be exact) for local shipping isn’t enough time sometimes – and what about custom items? Etsy's response has always been that expedited shipping is available - 50 CAD though? come on - that is far from a reasonable suggestion, especially when the average sale price on Etsy is $15! And they keep pushing "bargains" and "weekend deals".

They probably forgot to mark the UK holidays on their calendar and Mary woke up Thursday with an “oh shit” moment. This too little too late promotion isn’t going over the heads of international sellers. They would’ve done better to just forget it, or admit that they’re only keeping up with U.S. holidays for simplicity and leave it at that. We recognize that there are so many holidays to take into consideration, but with a finds email every day they have room to push these things in advance. The finds email isn’t the same as making a design for the front page or making room for it on the site. There’s no extra energy involved other than checking a calendar before putting together the email items.

According to the International Seller Survey (which is nowhere near scientific, but it’s what we have to work with), most of the overseas shops are in the UK and Europe, followed by Canada and then Australia (together making up a huge chunk of the pie and about 30-40% of all sellers on Etsy based on older figures). These holidays should be on Etsy’s radar…period. And they can’t eliminate shipping from Canada (or the U.S.) by mentioning a holiday a week beforehand.

The International Development admin really needs to sit down the old hat admins and remind them why she was hired: the rest of the staff are morons about what’s outside NYC

Hooray for romanticizing criminals!

In the Storque, TeenAngster runs a feature on looking like Bonnie Parker, from the infamous Bonnie and Clyde duo. In it, they summarize the sordid tale as sexy and romantic.

Bonnie and Clyde are rather infamous characters in U.S. history, and for good reason: honestly, what's sexier than a nefarious duo driving cross country on a crime spree of such massive and public proportion? Their exploits were legendary, their inevitable ends simultaneously tragic and oh-so-romantic.

There's nothing more romantic than having your hand blown to bits by gunfire, while the other is clutching a pack of cigarettes, and then end up on display like this:

Yeah, yeah, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty made it a Hollywood hit, but in reality, Bonnie Parker was nothing more than a common criminal who supported her insane boyfriend's murdering spree. She's not worthy of having a trend of fashion for her, and even further perpetuating the falsehood that Hollywood began is just plain ignorant.

Besides, Faye's look wasn't even remotely Bonnie's look. Just look at the pictures of the real Bonnie Parker. It would be more apropos to call the article "Get the vintage Faye Dunaway look" instead of glamorizing a criminal. Its not sexy or romantic to end up like a dead corpse in a morgue.

From the Bitches Auxiliary: Etsy Finds

I am so sick of Etsy Finds being a mish mash of mass produced & mis-tagged items.

Todays vintage finds are ALL mistagged except for 1!!

Per Etsy, anything vintage must have first tag VINTAGE, second tag COMMERCIAL ........ and only 1 of the featured items has COMMERCIAL as the second tag.

If you're going to make arbitrary rules, at least enforce them, so those of us who do follow them don't feel like such saps. And if you're not going to enforce them, then at least don't FEATURE them.

Perhaps doing a post on this every day hypocrisy, might open their eyes, that admin should read the D&D's too.

So on top of things

Etsy has made a few changes around the site, including clickable links to other Etsy shops and street team addresses in the shop announcements. Nice. A little picky, but ok.

There is also now a link to Etsy newsletters at the top right of the main forums page. Nice…now the 1% who read the forums and get the news there first will have it a week later in their inbox.

Now I’d like to know what the other 59 Etsy employees have been doing. Oh wait, I know. Promoting their favorite shops.

From today’s Etsy Finds:

“These sweet little creations are the next big thing. Seen around Etsy a bunch last week, I predict an upcoming explosion of interest in” x's shop.

Well duh! Of course they’re going to “explode”. They’re being promoted all “around Etsy a bunch”. Aren’t the Finds supposed to highlight the 'unseen but now found' items on Etsy?

Ok…now I’d really like to know what the other 58 Etsy employees are doing. It’s obviously not fixing view counts, fully integrating Paypal, integrating Google checkout and Google Base, taking customer service classes, investigating flagging reports, or promoting their site and brand.

*claps* Another day another dollar! Way to get things done! I can’t wait to see what awesome things this week brings! Free goldfish crackers for the most kiss-assiest Etsian? Maybe another article on moustaches? Even better, maybe, just maybe, more pictures of a certain admin’s kid delivered to my inbox because for some reason they are so totally complementary to highlighting items. Hell, let’s just ditch the façade and start calling them 'An Excuse To Go Through Pics Of Her Kid At Work'. That would even be a whole Storque article! Sellers are always asking to know about changes, right? It counts as news! Why not? Wow! Sounds like Etsy has a rough and busy week ahead.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on them. Afterall, it’s not like I pay them to get things done. Oh…wait…I do! If it wasn’t for all the time, energy, and money I’ve put into Etsy while they sit on their asses collecting, I wouldn’t be so bitchy.

Klassy - with a K!

So Anda posts one of the fourty daily Storque articles that make is easy for some suck up cheerleader to suck up even more... all they need to know is etsy's address is because they already have a list of what to send Anda for her birthday.

Way to go Etsy. Going past favoritism, and went straight for self-serving. After all no one likes you more than you do!

Personally, I find the two-faced kitty necklace creepy and ironic.