More intriguing Etsy stuff

[valis2]

Apparently no one monitors Etsy during the weekends, and that's when buy/sell people set up shops. They list two hundred items in a matter of minutes, "shill" (sell to themselves to increase feedback) and are gone by Monday morning, when Etsy minions come back online.

Comments

[kaiz.livejournal.com]

Dude, that's. Wow.

i'm closing in on being able to open! just need to take a bunch of photos :-)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Isn't it amazing? People will sneak in wherever they can. And apparently the buyers are none the wiser--they'll spend a hundred dollars on a bag and not even question how new the shop is, how strange the feedback looks, and how you can barely even read the shop information because the English usage is so bad.

And congrats!!! That rocks! I'm adding things tonight--this is my week off, and I've promised myself that I'm going to put a bunch of new things into the shop. :)

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

That's just really sad and stupid of the administration there. Especially if they are aware of the problem and haven't moved to correct it.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Well, it sounds like they have a lot of issues. I mean, they will not provide stats for the sellers, which is just crazy. I know they use Google Analytics for the site--it shows up on my NoScript box. To not allow us to access it or use it ourselves is really strange. In fact, they're very coy about stats in general, and they've admitted that their "views" system is erroneous sometimes. They have clear advantages over eBay, but they still have their own flaws...

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

Weird! Are these handcrafted items, or what?

I'm really surprised by etsy's lack of moderation on the weekends. As if nothing happens then. They are doing fine with casual etsy sellers like me, but if you do this for a living and need real stats and info... that's messed up. BOO to etsy!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Naw, they're things like mass-produced purses that you buy off the streets of New York.

I so totally agree with you. Etsy is great for the casual Etsy seller, but their core group of Etsians is at least a little unhappy.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised people buy those off etsy. That's more of an ebay thing... I thought etsy buyers were looking for handcrafted goods.

Then again, if the sellers are selling to themselves it doesn't matter what buyers are doing. Then again, how are they making money if they're buying it from themselves?

Wha-what? I'm sure there's some point to it all, I just don't get it.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

The "shill" sales aren't real sales--they're fake-selling to themselves so that buyers think they have lots of feedback. So buyers blissfully buy the buy/sell stuff in the store, apparently assuming that it's handmade. :( It's really sad. Some of the Etsians are "calling out" buy/sell people on the forums, which is supposed to be a no-no, so it just shows you how angry people are getting about this.