Moar Etsy

[valis2]

I'm totally fascinated by the wank, of course. I have now discovered that Etsy has long promised several upgrades to the site that other sites generally have (stats, easy listing of hearts & views, vacation settings), and that now they're thinking of doing stats--and having the sellers pay for them. Yes, it seems that Etsy, like eBay, has its own problems.

Over the past year I've seen eBay push their homegrown sellers away in favor of the buyers. It appears that Etsy is doing the same. Etsy, however, was unprepared for their giant growth, and hence the system is a little buggy because it isn't meant to have such heavy use. They have issues with searches not working, which is no laughing manner, as it's how people find products.

As a company, they seem to be having difficulties with transparency. The forums are rather entertaining; I would say "outrageously" entertaining, except they often freeze threads where someone is being critical of Etsy, so the real LOLs are found outside of Etsy. The lingo of the highest-ups at Etsy is hilariously full of what some people call "business jargon lists," and they also accuse Etsy of being reluctant to solve the buy/sell problem. Another issue is that Etsy will solicit opinions from the sellers, resulting in huge threads where the main theme is "Stats NOW," "Vacation Settings NOW," etc., and then they'll roll out a crazy referral program that costs them very little but ends up making their sellers work harder.

In fact, that seems to be the biggest gripe. Etsy has long leaned on its users. And I mean leaned. They want users to put together co-op advertising and put fliers on cars and do the work for them. Okay, that's great when it's 2005 and you're the little fish, but now you're a $27 mil business, so you should invest in real marketing. They have yet to put together anything like it. Even thirty-second spots on websites with crafting videos would be nice. Anything, really. No customer I've ever met has ever known what Etsy is, and that's a major problem. They all know what eBay is, because eBay advertises itself with some general merchandise so people know to come to them. I feel certain that there is a large segment of the population who would frequent Etsy if they knew about it--but they don't.

alchemia pointed me to Etsy Bitch, which is a hilarious and spot-on blog that points out that Etsy is wearing no clothes. It reminds me so much of f_w. They even have their own lingo. "Hammock" is a reference to a crafting video famously hosted on the site where one of the Etsy admins (I think) showed you how to create a spectacularly rickety hammock out of clothesline. I have not sussed out what "Cupcake" is all about, but I'm on the job.

And lastly, Etsy has its own troubles with oversaturation, as could be expected. Five or six years ago, when I was much more involved in craft shows and art fairs, I used to watch in disbelief as people would buy Stuff on Sticks over and over again. I was next to a metal cutout artist who made lawn/garden stakes with great metal art at the top, and she couldn't sell fast enough. I used to joke with other vendors that we should just attach our wares to sticks for the garden, regardless of what it was (soap on a stick! shirt on a stick!).

Well, Scrabble tiles are apparently the same thing on Etsy--or were, at some point. There are now threads entitled, "Do you think scrabble tiles make good firewood?" and "Let's Ban things made from Scrabble tiles!" and "are there really 5000 scrabble tile pendants on etsy??"

The areas I'm in are oversaturated--we could use new buyers, honestly. But then again--more awareness also means more sellers. Hmm.

ETA: I think I've found the beginning of the cupcake controversy--it involved a seller being unhappy because they felt someone else was copying their cupcake design (that they had painted). I'm only on page 4 of 24 so I don't have the full story, but I'm already laughing at one of the comments:

there's only one person in the whole world who can paint a picture of a cupcake?

ETAETA: bwahaha! There are two people in the thread fighting, and one just told the other, "Why are you replying? Go sell something." The ultimate Etsy putdown.

Comments

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Definitely call me and I'll give you the longwinded version! I have been pondering a lot about this over the last week (and driving G nutty, lol).