Etsy is not Amazon. . .

I have given up on the Etsy forums, they just make me want to scream most of the time anyway.  You can't fix stupid.  😖

When I see posts by shoppers complaining they haven't gotten their order yet and all the sellers answers are just telling them to call their credit card and do a charge-back, I want to slap people.  

Seriously, I would not advise buyers to just go around randomly filing charge-backs, mainly because it's incredibly bad business and should be a LAST resort not the go to thing.  😒  Charge-backs are bad for merchants/sellers on any platform, they come with penalties and if you have too many you can loose your merchant standing, have your ability to process payments taken away, in the case of etsy shops that means having your shop closed.   

Personally, I would always ask for more information, as a statement "I haven't got my order" does not tell one anything about the situation, for instance when was the order placed?  what was the processing time on the item? is it being custom made? is it being shipped internationally?  That's not just being nosy, to me that is being responsible and getting all the facts before you go spewing out bad advice.  😐  

I know many buyers are trained in the "amazon mindset" where everything is mass produced, stocked in a warehouse, and delivered the next day.  😣  However, when ordering from Etsy shops where things are handcrafted, personalized, or custom ordered the concept of next day delivery is laughably ridiculous.  Complaining about waiting on your order even though the item's "processing time" was listed and your email receipt has an estimated ship date two weeks away is dumb, just wait the two weeks you agreed to when you made the purchase.  If you don't want to wait for it to be made perhaps you should not have ordered it, but trying to cancel may or may not work if you ordered a custom made item and the shop owner has already started making it they may not accept cancellations.  Seriously, why should the crafter be out time, supplies, and money because you didn't bother to read the freakin' details before you click buy?  If the shop does personalized stuff they can easily get behind in their processing.

My shop has a lot of "ready made" "in stock" items that do ship the next but most of the chainmaille has a 1-2 day processing time listed in case a buyer asks for a length adjustment. Custom orders for me usually take days of back and forth communication just to get the specs and details set, then I have to actually make the thing, then USPS takes days to deliver the thing.  

Etsy Plus . . .

I have been impatiently waiting for the new "Etsy Plus" subscription to be available in my shop and it popped up today. 👀 

I had already decided last week I was going to try it when it finally became available to me.  It's only $10 a month right now and it comes with $8 of listing and PL credits so really it's only $2 why not give it a go? 😉 

I don't care what anyone says I like the slide show, carousel, scrolling banners.  I like my banners, I make (what I think) are cool collages that show off the variety of my products nicely.  😊   

Previously there was a size choice but it was limited to small or large pick 1 but now there are multiple options including a "carousel" option which allows for up to 4 banner sized images that scroll on their own while also having side arrows and center buttons/dots so that shoppers can scroll through them instead of just waiting for the slide show to move on it's own.  There is also an option to link the banner to a listing or shop section, so I have linked each banner to a different item shown on the collage. 😇  ~sweet~ 

I also knew I wanted the new "featured listings" layout option with 5 instead of 4.  They tested it not long ago and I did really love how it looked and I was disappointed when it went away so fast.  I actually filled out the testing feedback form and a survey praising the option and basically begging to get it back.  Honestly, this I think is worth the $2 a month to try out because the 5th listing feature that makes one of them extra large does awesome things for my art, in my opinion.  This has more options like setting sections instead of individual listings, rearranging at will, marking as many featured as you want so that if something sells there is another listing to fill the spot automatically and you don't loose your layout. 💖  Check out the new look !!

There are other things available too, discounts on packaging, and printed promo materials, discounted domains, I'm not really interested in any of those.  However, the new "restock request" option for "When an item sells out, shoppers can sign up to be automatically alerted when it’s back in stock." Now that could be handy, I have turned it on for some listings and in the listing manager view there is a notation for the # of restock requests on each listing.  So I'm guessing if a shopper clicks on the thing to sign up for an alert when the item is restocked I will also get a notice of the request to restock the item.  This in addition to the request custom order option gives buyers more opportunity to get what they really want and since I really want happy buyers this works for me. 😍  

I am going to trial it through the end of the year when the price goes up in 2019 I'll have months of data to decide if it's worth the price increase, in the meantime I'd love some feedback on what you think of the new banners and feature layout. 👍👎

July, what's new?

Well it's a new month, etsy is raising fees and I'm still re-making things.  😇  I've got the rainbow re-makes finished and now I need to do the Hogwarts Crest trees.  I have a few ideas for some new chainmaille stuff, I don't want to give too much away but maybe a new pattern, more earrings, a whole line of hat/lapel pins.  😉  

No promises on the release or schedule of any new stuff as "Life" has a way of regularly derailing my plans, so I think it's better to keep it loose.  😄  

what a mess. . .

I set up and sold some stuff at a recent outdoor event and now I have the fun-funs of reconciling inventory and making a list of things to re-make. 

I got my square reader through my etsy for the discount equipment and promises of fee refunds, which I gotta say is working out mostly.  I got my readers before the event, yes that's plural I got a package with a little mag-stripe reader and the bigger way cool chip, dip, wave version that works off blue-tooth. I used the little mag-stripe reader, it took some adjusting to trying to keep the cards perfectly square while swiping, but it worked. The monies were deposited quickly and in full as in I got all the $$$ the fees show on my square dashboard but were not taken out of my deposits. ~woo-hoo~  

Now for the things I didn't understand or realize about this use. First, I never did "sync" my etsy listings because there were things I was selling that were never listed on etsy. Also I had read about some issues others were having syncing their listings. So I was actually a bit surprised to discover that every square payment I processed counted as a "sale" in my etsy shop display info even though they were simply entered as "custom amounts" and not tied to an actual listing or item. 😕  Also etsy charged me .20 cents for each payment as they were for items not listed, I knew this was coming from what I had read and it's not a big deal or a large amount. 

I am now wondering about syncing my listings and if I should but, honestly, I don't sell "in person" very often so I'm debating on if it's worth it. I didn't do it before because I had read other's complaining that photos didn't show up which would be super problematic for me trying to tell which tree is which without photos. I also saw some complaining that the square set up did not prevent "over-selling" that it would allow you to sell things but not always correct the inventory or show things as "sold-out" big problem for me with one of a kind things when I sell it it's gone. 

So I have some more reading and double checking before I decide what to do about it all.  In the meantime I have a tangle of leather jewelry chokers and bracelets that need to be untangled and checked against the list so I can zero out the right things in the listings.

EU privacy, disclaimers, etc.,

This blog is public I write stuff I publish and ignore. I do not ask for or collect any information identifying or otherwise on anyone who visits or reads this blog or comments on it although no one ever has commented on it.  ~LOL~

"Blogger" the google owned platform/template provider may use tracking cookies and have knowledge of location or browsers used to view this but I do not collect/catalog/store or use any data at all.

I ramble and write, I bitch and I brag, I post and go on with my life.

So there you have it, I do not have any of your info nor do I want any of your info.  😇  

I do not sell to EU countries and never have and likely never will. 

Work, work, work. . .

I'm working on multiple things at once these days. 😄  I've got a painting drying on the easel and a nearly completed tree on the desk, although I spent several hours yesterday working on the fancy new banners.  😇  This blog along with the etsy shop and facebook page all got a face lift, sadly the facebook doesn't fit quite right but I spend hours try different layouts, different photos, made almost a dozen then had to re-size and re-size.  Handcrafts is much more my thing than photography or computer graphics. ~LOL~

Yeah as you can see I got a bit lost and distracted trying different things, there are so many options for layouts, wording, fonts, font color, photos. 😵  Just a dizzying array of choices, I think I did ok, I managed to make a few of them that I think look pretty good. 😊

Mental...

As in I think I'm going mental. ~LOL~

Just a little bit though, it is finally decent weather here and I am enjoying some sunshine, I even got out my bow and got in some archery practice. 😃  I have sold a second painting which is awesome.  I have painted and listed more art.  I have managed to get over 180 listings even though I've sold some stuff.  😇  

I feel like I've been making progress with the shop but I super disappointed in etsy itself and their decision to remove the "sell in person" feature of the app.  😨  They have partnered with Square and we have no option, if you want in person sales to auto-adjust shop inventory and be reflected as sales in your shop you have to sign up with square and sync your stuff. 😟 However, I don't know square, I don't have a square account, I don't really want another third party provider in my business transactions, and I have been reading a lot in the forums of others having issues with things not syncing properly, inventory management issues like square allows you to over-sell as in sell more than you have. 😲  And just yesterday day I saw a thread where the seller was talking about in person sales posting to her shop overnight that were not done by her. ~yikes~ 

So I'm really not sure about the whole square thing but I've been looking at my banks for alternatives and while PNC and 5/3 have merchant services options they are also through other third party providers and I've never even heard of "Clover" at least I had heard of square. 😐  I am not sure what I'm going to do and I actually have my 1 in person market event of the year in less than a month. 

The Mother's Day Sale is almost over there's only 7 days left.  I am working on new wire trees because I've been distracted with painting so much lately and the trees have been selling so I'm running low.😃  I have discovered I enjoy painting ocean waves.