Etsy, the Never Ending Elementary School Science Project

Oh sean11, we just don’t know how you come up with these cute little Front Page tweaks!

PERSONALIZING the Front Page Experience!

oooooohhhhhhaaaaaaaaaahhhh, what????? For what? For who? Uh, we don’t get it?!?

sean11, oh hello wake up sean11, you address your Announcement to Sellers but do you know how many Sellers LOOK at the Front Page? 5%? 3%?

sean11, here’s a tip for you. Sellers are busy:
making things
making things the Etsy way
taking lots of really really good stylized clever pix
loading them with DXO-embellished novella-descrips and
spending 18 hours a day marketing themselves off Etsy!!!

They don’t look at the Front Page! They don’t have time!

We think the only reason behind this cute little useless trick is that Etsy wants to look like it’s hip to the “nothing is private while you shop online” bandwagon that shoppers spend more time opting out of then opting in. And then they stop visiting the ecommerce site altogether because it’s too much hassle to opt out.

In fact, I thought about it for 5 seconds and figured out that ALL of the weird, useless, bizarre and non-seller “tools” added to Etsy in the last 2 months have NOTHING MUCH TO DO WITH SELLERS AT ALL.

Are your SHOPPERS as confused and fed up as your SELLERS are yet?

Etsy ignores IE6 users and another Bill bug

There's been some kerfuffle lately among members who use IE6 to log into Etsy and Etsy's back end, namely, no matter where you are when you're directed to log in, even shopping in a particular shop, Etsy pops you back to the front page.

As said in another thread :

This also has to be playing hack with Etsy's website statistics. "hey, why are we suddenly getting a majillion extra hits on the front page? Is it out advertising? a link? that we forced everybody to go to the front page?"Forcing people to the front page just messes up the hit statistics something fierce. It just makes it harder to see where real traffic is coming from and real surfing patterns.

In yet another thread, admin HeyMichelle says they're working on it...with no other updates (which is the same thing she did in other threads on the topic).

And did Etsy feel the need to announce this to all members? aaahahahah as if they ever do! The unauthenticated message scares people from the site, and it also seems to be a bug with billing (yet another). These may be separate issues, but posters aren't seeing the difference, because it's on the heels of yet another change noone was informed about.

It's been a couple days now and there are no answers. No Dorque article, no member email about the changes to IE6 to accommodate users who have not yet switched to IE7, no forum responses (that we could find) beyond 'yep, something changed, all is well, we know about it - ignore your computer's warnings'

Yay, Etsy *clicks heels* you're always so predictable.

Admin McFunley gave this option:

If you bookmark your shop, then use the bookmark, you will be sent to your shop after logging in. If you have an existing bookmark, remove it and make a new one.

But members say it didn't work. There's also a point of forced redirect scripts, that the member quoted above pointed out reduces a page's rank in Google. I'm interested to hear more about this.

If you're an IE6 user you can upgrade to IE7, download another browser (like Firefox or Chrome), or just learn to love the front page. I don't think any of these are acceptable options for the top handmade venue to give their customers.

Renewing isn't worth it anymore

Etsy has shot itself in the foot. According to HeyMichelle:

Because of the volume of new listings, we are uploading new listings in "batches". This means that there will be a delay for appearing on the Front Page and Time Machine 2. Additionally, items *may* not appear on the Front Page "Fresh Items" section.

This revelation about the fruitlessness of renewing for exposure comes amid a flurry of threads in site help asking about a lack of views, lack of exposure, time machine 2 looping, the appearance of new items far back on category pages immediately after listing, and the absence of their items on the front page. (See the sampling at bottom of entry).

Nice. Renewing is now gambling for exposure on the front page and categories.

One thing they've definitely accomplished is eliminating renewals as their bread and butter - a task they previously encouraged. Actually, this was the only good way to gain to exposure AND it was keeping Etsy afloat as a company.

Smart, Etsy.

Samples in the usual Etsy schema:
Renewals not working
Renewing sucks
Renewing is broken
Stop wasting your money

The New Etsy Front Page

Hello EB Faithful!

Have you seen the new front page??

The Gift Guides are prominently displayed along the left hand column!

How's them apples? Those sellers who are not fortunate to be featured in said gift guides get the short end of the stick!

Sometimes it takes up the entire left hand column, and others, its just the corner, but LOOK! The GG selections are where the treasury curated page is supposed to be!

Assholes, the whole lot of them.

Have an interesting photo?

Like, say a screencap of yet another front page treasury or gift guide with an item from an Etsy Admin shop or a reseller? Join our group on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/etsybitch/ and upload it.

Busted

Dear Marymary, this was not the first or even the second occurence. This time it was Anda's turn to get her shop prominently featured.

Admin chimed in on this thread 5 times before shutting down the thread. Etsy, did your customers catch you with your panties down? Below are some of the defensive responses from Etsy Admin:

Thanks so much for expressing your concerns with admins that have shops and the possibility of them being featured on the site. To be perfectly honest, we have an internal rule that items from admin shops are not to be featured on the homepage or in the gift guides.

This rule has been in effect for close to a year now and if for any reason you see an item featured on Etsy that might be from an admin shop, you are welcome to send us an email to community [!at] etsy.com and we will have it removed.

A treasury with an item from an admin shop would not be denied a highlight on the front page. The item from the admin shop would simply be excluded from the list of item ID's that are loaded on the front page.

Admins must disclose all of their shops on Etsy in their profiles, yes.

If a treasury is selected and loaded on the front page, the admin item would simply be excluded and in it's place the first alternate would appear.

You can find a list of all admins right here: www.etsy.com/about.php

If the admin has a shop/s, it will be listed in their profile. While I can see how a public list of admin shops might be helpful to some, it also might be viewed as further promotions to admins or unfair in some way...so I don't see this becoming a feature any time soon, I apologize.

The items featured in that article were chosen by a guest writer from Domino magazine. We have since removed the item in question; it should not have been included, and we apologize for the error.

Etsy, Etsy...... tsk. You make it sound like this was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. How stupid do you think your customers are? Tens of thousands of shops on Etsy. Yet the same people are highlighted in the Gift Guides, Etsy Finds, on the front page Etsy Admin curated treasuries. That, Etsy, is pathetic.

Screenshot credit goes to Eclipse, sorry I forgot to post that last night.

Showcasing Etsy's Diversity

Admin Matt has started a thread in the forums asking for opinions on displaying Etsy's diversity, primarily in regards to the front page. Is it a coincidence that they ask this after a discussion about the marketing campaign?

Add your voice...

J'accuse...!

We all know that they do it, but I never expected an admin to publicly admit to doctoring the front page.

They constantly tell us that there is no favoritism on the front page, because it's user curated. But how many times in the past has admin simply decided that they can do better than the proles who pay their salaries and make their own front page?

As an amusing bonus, art doll sellers send Stella scurrying off after pointing out that except for two items, none of the other items were intended to be toys.

If they were taking votes for a toy-centric FP, I would have chosen this shop's stuff. Warning: Not safe for work. C'mon, Etsy! Let see some love for the mature item sellers.

Etsy's bad press gets colorful

For those of us familiar with the Etsy site, we know we can buy several ways – categories, search, seller list, time machine, colors – but for those who are new to the site, there are just a bunch of graphics they have to sort through and decide where to click.

One such person ended up putting Etsy at #2 on their list of websites that suck! Why? Because of the flash abhorration that is the color picker.

Currently at the top of ‘Ways to shop’ on the front page of Etsy, this tool invites new visitors and buyers to click and find something in a color of their choice. The only problem is that is doesn’t work. What you end up with is a hodge podge of items that may have that color, or a similar color, somewhere in the photo of that item. Supposedly the tool picks from somewhere near the border of the photo upon listing. But who the hell knows!? It doesn’t work! And outside sources agree.

What’s particularly troubling is that this is what greets new shoppers. And it isn’t the only pain in the ass feature on the site. Just the one highlighted by a programmer’s annual list of sites he finds annoying. Which isn’t good press, especially since he has a point.

When the list of sellers is at the bottom of the ‘Buy’ page, having the color picker at the top of ways to shop is just insulting.

Sure, it gives people something fun to do…for 5 minutes. And man hours were spent developing it. Which makes me wonder again what the hell they’re thinking.