Ok, so I'm doing it all wrong. . .

I'll start with a confession. . .  I am a social media flop.  😏  

The most likely cause of this is I am actually anti-social by nature and have social anxiety mental issues, but at least I know it.  😉

Unfortunately for me business these days is all about marketing and marketing these days is all about social media so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, but at least I know it.  😌

Etsy used to promote the idea that our about sections and descriptions should help buyers get to know the artist. So when I made my instagram I decided to show multiple facets. According to some my approach is misguided, while great for making friends and finding other interesting artists apparently my lack of "focus" seems to be a detriment to the business promotion aspect.  

I see others with thousands of followers on facebook and instagram and wonder how they did it, but in spite of reading, researching and asking directly I can't seem to make progress.  😓

Perhaps my inability to understand and follow the advice I've found is that most of it seems to contradict itself. One place says only post product related, only post really great photos, focus and be prefect. ~sigh~ Well first that's not me, second if I tried that then I have the inability to post consistently.  Others suggest the rounded approach post anything as long as you are consistently posting.  Well that's what I've been trying but it's not really working because there are times I just cannot get a great photo (my hands shake) or I get semi-depressed and just don't post for periods.  

I don't use the "Stories" thing mostly because I don't like my face and shooting video of myself seems weird to me.  I've tried but in spite of having hundreds of followers my stories are only seen by a handful of people.  😕

I post gluten free food stuff because my diet is a part of my life and has had a pretty big impact on my overall health which greatly impacts my ability to craft things. However, I can see where without a lengthy explanation no one is likely to understand the connection. 😐

So I am going through the archive process again and cutting back on the food posts and the pet posts and some of the general randomness.  I will try to focus and get better photos but I am disheartened and somewhat frustrated because I do not think I will ever be able to do what some others do. 

And now I've over-thought and made myself depressed and migraine headache-y.  😔

Black Friday Sales. . .

Yes, I am having a Black Friday sale and while the 25% off that I am offering may not seem like much of a discount next to the 60% 75% off offered by the big box stores perhaps a little small business perspective for y'all.

The handmade one of kind things I sell are not mass produced like DVDs. 😏  

My prices are based on a time + materials formula so when I offer discounts it is my time I am discounting, as the materials were already paid for at a set price. 😐  

As a small business my supplies are purchased in small amounts not exactly wholesale pricing. 

I have always tried to keep my prices reasonable, normally a 10% or 15% discount is all I offer, so actually a 25% discount is pretty substantial for my shop.  😇

Happy Holidays y'all

etsy backhand . . .

Just over a year ago I wrote a post about my shiny Super Seller trophy I knew it was just another etsy experiment/test but I really did like, unfortunately it only lasted about a week, thankfully I got screenshots before it disappeared.  😁

Well it's been a year so it was just time for etsy to try something else, I guess.  This time around instead of shiny trophies for "super" sellers they have gone the other direction and introduced a new metric they are calling ODR (order defect rate).  This is definitely the stick approach obviously the carrot (trophies) didn't impact how shops handle their buyers/customer service.  

So while we have all known for years that low reviews and repeated "cases" will get your shop in trouble. We now have a whole new level of detail, they have been revising the Handbook and wow. https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360036720093-Why-Did-My-Shop-Receive-a-Customer-Service-Warning-?segment=selling  

I doubt I will ever be in trouble but of course there is a lot of buzz in the forums right, many people are bothered by the wording, the vagueness, the standards themselves. 😏  Not at all surprising, I'm sure that there are a lot of shops in trouble, as a matter of fact last month there were several forum posts about warning emails from etsy apparently lots of shops got the email but didn't understand it or understand why they got it and the consensus became just "ignore it" "it must have been a error/glitch".  

Well guess what those warning emails were not a glitch or an error they were genuine warnings.  I read the Handbook stuff about the new stuff and one of the things that bugged me most was that sellers were to have no access to the "customer service performance" dashboard until they were in trouble, literally we weren't supposed to see/know our ODR until we were failing and in a position to be "under review" and up for closure. 😯

Unfortunately for etsy we (collective sellers) are smarter than etsy, so once 1 seller had access to the dashboard, someone else altered the link they posted and removed part of the url and now BAM! everyone has access to their Customer Service Performance dashboard.  You have to have a shop and you have to be logged in for this to work, notice the "your" and "me". 

https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/me/customer-service-performance

So you can see with no cases and no low reviews and no problems with my last 10 orders my ODR is 0.00% my shop is literally perfect. However I read someone else in the forums admit that her ODR was 3.70% so even though the dashboard says the threshold is 1% that is apparently a lie because Mrs. 3.7% is still open. 😕

I miss my trophy, at least that was public and shoppers could see it, this new hidden metric is useless for buyers.  

Facebook fail. . .

Upon logging into things this morning I found a notification on Facebook about a message for RainbowMaille.

I thought "hey, cool" I don't get messages on the Facebook page very often, but when I do I always try to answer in a timely fashion because Facebook tracks that and posts in right on your page. 😏 However, when I clicked the notice to go to my inbox and respond all I got was an error page. 😕

I went to RainbowMaille's actual page and clicked on the inbox but there was nothing there, I have tried every way I know and cannot find this phantom message.  😟  Perhaps the sender deleted it?  I don't know but when I checked my email there was an email from Facebook about the message for RainbowMaille but when I click the link to respond. . . same error page.

Now I'm concerned that somehow my failure to respond will negatively effect the rating and placement of RainbowMaille's page but, I can't respond to something that does not exist, that I have no way to access or respond to.  😞

Holiday sales season. . .

Well it is officially the holiday sales season.  I have a plan and a schedule in mind for my assorted upcoming Sales events including a "Pre-Thanksgiving Sale" of course a "Black Friday" event that will actually last all weekend thru to Cyber Monday which has a set sale and an optional free shipping coupon. Plus Christmas! 😁

• Pre-Thanksgiving Sale  -  20% off orders over $20  November 21st -28th
• Black Friday event   -   25% off orders over $10  November 29th  - December 3rd
• Free shipping coupon  -  FREESHIPBF2019  valid  November 29th  - December 3rd
• Pre-Christmas Sale   -   15% off all orders  December 4th - Christmas 

I will attempt to keep my pricing similar across platforms but I'm not sure that the A.C.Moore marketplace or Zibbet will allow a coupon on top of a sale the way etsy will. Both Zibbet and A.C.Moore have Paypal based payment systems, while Etsy has more payment options. 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RainbowMaille
https://marketplace.acmoore.com/rainbowmaille
https://marketplace.zibbet.com/rainbowmaille

facebook is a manipulative. . .

I know tons of people love social media and trust and believe in facebook and other sites.  BUT facebook is a manipulative bag of dicks, like a control-freak-abusive boyfriend. 😕

I hate to tell y'all that facebook is entirely about the $$$$ and what you are shown has little to do with what you want to see and more to do with what will fill zuckerberg's pockets.  😒 

Aside from allowing horrible and illegal things to be posted and not responding when certain things are reported, in spite of the written community rules, they do not always remove reported/inappropriate content.  There is a rule about not promoting illegal activities well poaching is illegal and yet there are entire groups dedicated to the celebration of/and poaching of deer.   😣  I found such a group and after recovering from the horrible photographic evidence of the illegal use of automatic weapons at night on an entire herd I reported it and after multiple reports and arguing with a rep nothing was done and the group remains, continuing the posting and promoting of illegal activities.  This is just 1 example of my bad facebook experiences.

The number of ridiculous and entirely false political memes is just insane. Zuckerberg has admitted he basically doesn't care if anything is true or not, he claims it's about freedom but it's not it's all about $$$$$.  Because for those that missed it he was talking about ads and sponsored content, which mean as long as you pay they will show your stuff to anyone and everyone regardless of actual content, truth, or basic decency. 

You may be wondering why I'm bad-mouthing facebook on my business blog, well because as a "business" page I have been exposed to the truth of facebook operations management and manipulations.   

I have been trying for 4 years to use facebook and other social media to promote my small business, because the whole world says that's the thing to do.  However, I have been thoroughly frustrated and disappointed by what a battle it has been to make any progress without paying $$$.  😟  The only way to be seen is to pay and the more you pay the better the results, so next time you see some business page with thousands and thousands of likes/followers you can bet that they paid $$$$ to have that appearance of success.  

I have "boosted" posts, promoted my page, done all the things they suggest but my budgets have been small $20-30 most of the time because I'm not made of $$$ like zuckerberg and cannot spend hundreds of dollars per campaign.  😐  So I get minimal results from ads and very slow growth organically.  

The most annoying part to me personally is that in spite of all the work I have done over the last 4 years to build my page audience, facebook does not show my posts to hardly anyone.  Seriously, I have accrued over 180 likes and followers for the RainbowMaille page but my posts are only shown to a handful of people regularly, if I'm lucky and the first few people "engage" and like or comment then it gets shown to a few more people but never to the full audience, I know this for a Fact because as a business page I have stats and numbers to prove it.

My most recent post 2 days ago, I included a plea for all who saw it to please engage to ensure seeing future posts, and in likes, comments, shares, clicks through to the blog most 23/28 did something.  First, Thanks to all those that participated.  Second, check out the screen shot which clearly shows only 28 people "reached".  That means they only showed the post to 28 of the 188 people who have clicked voluntarily to "follow" the page.  People click follow showing interest and desire to see the page's content but facebook doesn't actually show them when I post. Oh no, instead they show it to only a few people and then nag at me to pay for promotions 😒  controlling, manipulative, and greedy.  

So as you scroll through your feed, try to notice the "suggested for you" and "sponsored" crap that they shove down your throat and contemplate what things you have liked and/or followed and wanted to see that never appear, like RainbowMaille.  😞  

Jonathan Peacock . . .NO

In a facebook group post the guy running zibbet made some comments about future "upgrades" and they remind me of etsy upgrades in that not all of them will be helpful to sellers, at least not in the way they think they will be.  😕

He announced "We're also soon to launch the ability to make any product changes directly on Etsy and have it sync over to your Zibbet Admin. For example, you could update the price of your product, directly on your Etsy admin. Zibbet will recognize this change and automatically update the price across all channels connected to this product. Currently, any changes made directly on Etsy, will cause your products to become "out of sync", but we know it's important for some of you to make changes in Etsy still, due to some of the bulk edit features they have."

I'll admit this is a horrifying notion to me. 
I do NOT want things to "auto-sync".

I spent several hours of my life editing my listings when I imported them to the A.C.Moore Marketplace because I thought it would look really unprofessional to have a bunch of etsy links in my descriptions.  All my etsy listings have back-links back to the section, cross-links to matching or coordinating pieces, links to my gift wrap listing, etc.  Also I do not offer the gift wrapping in my ACCM shop so I had to remove the gift wrap sample photos that were in most of my listings.

I have slightly different pricing on some items.  I am testing "free shipping" in certain sections and specific items in my etsy shop but not the ACMM shop.

I am fully aware my listings are "out of sync" but that is fully intentional.  If they go through with this "auto-sync" BS I will have to disconnect my etsy shop altogether. Currently, on my zibbet admin next to the listings is a little "out of sync" notice that is actually a button to "push to etsy" the changes.  However, what Jonathan has said now is that it will go the other way changes made on etsy will automatically push to zibbet and all sales channels connected, which basically will undo every thing I worked so hard to differentiate.  😡

Jonathan. . .NO!!