Imagine that. . .

I have been accepted to a new marketplace platform, which shall remain nameless for now because I haven't got my shop set up yet. 😉  Plus as a brand new site it's still in a beta testing phase so I want to let them get the kinks and glitches out before widely promoting it and really driving traffic.  

I was excited like this last year when the zibbet people announced the deal with A.C.Moore and I thought it would great but it did not turn out that way. Zibbet never got their shit together and ac moore went out of business so the whole thing just kind of flopped due to lack of advertising and commitment. 😞 What a huge disappointment for me after spending not only $100+ on the year long subscription but really an absolute ton of hours on importing, editing, and setting up listings.  😕  My time runs out there in about 3 months and I plan to remove everything and leave because I have not sold a single thing, heck half the time there isn't even any traffic. 

So while I am ~woo-hoo~ excited about this I am also trying not to get my hopes up too high.  Although, this seems to be off to a better start with people who really want to work at it and make it work which is a good sign.  I was starting to wonder if I would get in because I have been waiting for nearly a month for approval of my application, BUT at least there is an application approval process unlike other places where any one with an internet connection can create a shop.  

One of the love/hate things I've always had with Etsy is that there is no screening of anything really.  There is a certain appeal and fairness to anyone can open a shop but there is also a downside, like anyone can open a shop. 😏 Yes it's super easy for single moms and grandma ladies to open a shop and sell their knitting and soaps but that also means any scammer can open a shop and re-sell imported junk as handmade. Also etsy's lack of screening process means there is tons of counterfeit merchandise and illegally produced infringing items, and general intellectual property theft that etsy cannot and will not do anything about because they don't want to act and give up their immunity and suddenly become legally liable for all the crap they have turned a blind eye to for over a decade. 😐

So the fact that the new place has a screening and application process that includes 20 questions and requires links and proof and photos is great. They are talking of limiting the number of sellers in each category so as to not become overwhelming to buyers like etsy's 65 million+ listings where nothing can be found. Also they are talking of enforcing intellectual property rights so no one can pop up and start selling knock off disney stuff or unlicensed superhero stuff which I find a refreshing notion, ya' know enforcing right. 💪

Now, I have lots of work to do setting up shop and getting things lined up and spiffy lookin' once I have everything listed, squared off and ready I'll start sharing links and let everyone in on the secret.  😇

Damn POD people. . .

I have noticed an odd visitor in my etsy stats recently. . .well first it's odd when etsy gives you an actual traffic source.  I mean I only have 4 for all of last year.  So, when I noticed it a couple weeks ago it stood out and when the same one appeared in my stats multiple days in a row it became suspicious. 😒  I looked up the name and a google search basically says they are thieves and scammers. 😶

It's called dmmspy and basically they steal people's art and images to make t-shirts. It appears they are scraping images all over the web and offering them to others for POD shops. For those unfamiliar with POD people no I'm not talking about aliens I'm talking about people who use "Print On Demand" services to reproduce art that may or may not be theirs to use, AKA dirty rotten IP thieves and for those who don't know IP stands for Intellectual Property. 

The rainbowmaille.blogspot.com is from this Blog

The bit.ly is from the shortened links in my other social media posts

Now I would not care normally who looks at my etsy listings, all traffic is good, normally. 😕  But known images thieves looking at the same painting 5 days in a row is creepy and annoying and makes me think they plan to steal my art.  I wish there was a way I could block them from my listings.  I wish etsy had better security and did not allow right click image theft. 😠

I swear if my art ends up on a t-shirt I see for sale I will sue their pants off. 

Welcome to March. . .

Well, it's March and spring will come soon. . . I hope. 😎  I could really use some daily sunshine.  

I did manage to hit my 250 listing goal for my etsy shop, but just barely. 😉  Of course etsy has announced it's next ridiculous change and made me regret it but that's life on etsy you just never know what moronic over-reaching BS they will come up with next. However, cost vs. benefit when you consider traffic, options, etc., I will just have to put up with their crap I guess. 

I do not really want to go back to a stand alone site, constantly having to adjust, code, maintain crap, especially with payment processing compliance, security certs, privacy policy, liability for credit card fraud, sales tax, etc.,  😞 I will research current options as things have changed rapidly in the last 10 years, 5 years, heck even 2 years.  Everyone seems to like the idea of shopify but I'm not sure about it, honestly everyone seems to love amazon handmade but I do believe that amazon is evil and will be responsible for the destruction of our planet so I flat refuse to go there. 😏  And I felt that way before I read that horrifying article about how amazon sellers attack their competition and hijack other's listings and pay for fake reviews to get other's shops closed.   Prime and Punishment dirty dealing on amazon  😦 

Right now on a rainy Monday all I want to do is curl up in bed with my cats and nap the day away 😊 although I won't because that doesn't get things done and I have many many things to get done. 

Listing more. . .goals are good

I am working hard on adding listings.  I have been behind for a while on listing the art.  I had nearly 2 dozen completed paintings that needed listing. 😏  But unless the lighting is just right my art can be really hard to photograph, so I would get frustrated with the photos not turning out and just not list them. 😕  I recently had a great photo day (at least I think so) and got good enough photos of a dozen paintings. ~Yay~  

However, I did not want to publish them all at once, partly because I don't want them all to renew the same day I like to spread that out, but mainly because daily activity is important to etsy.  Also, I don't want my shop to get completely out of balance and be more art then jewelry. 😐  I am planning to work out some of the jewelry listings and add more rubber stretch-maille and I am thinking of creating a new section for the rubber-maille separate from the regular chainmaille. 😊  

I also have more fridge magnets to add and I really need to make some more wire trees.  I am hopeful that I can hit 250 listings before the end of the month.  😎

Live and learn. . .

While the recent event was not my busiest or biggest money-maker compared to other events I've done it was a good experience overall.  I was pretty happy with my booth placement and I got permission to use command hooks and turn the wall of glass behind me into a gallery wall. 😎  I did not expect that but because I am crazy and obsessive I had a bunch of extra stuff with me which included a bag of sticky pads and command hooks. 

So I was reasonably pleased with the set up but I think I need to work on rearranging the stuff on the tables and I definitely need some type of sheet metal standing board, sign or something for the fridge magnets. 😏  Actually, I have several ideas of things I want to do including stenciling and painting RainbowMaille on all the art crates, of course, in rainbow colors.  I also need some more and maybe different table risers, specifically I want one that will let the book of trees lay at an angle to make it easier to handle the pages and also prop it up at an angle so that people can see it better from a distance. 😉

I will say that the pre-loading the bracelet bars and rubber-banding everything in place was a brilliant time saver and worked much better than I thought it would. 😁  I will likely never do it for the silver and gold plated stuff because air exposure and oxidation is a problem but with the aluminum, rubber, leather heck yeah. My next thing needs to be something better for the earrings as I do not like the earring stands I have, at outdoor events they tend to blow over and they don't really hold all the earrings. 😕

But that's life you live and learn, every time I do one of these things I find new ways to improve on the set up, display, packing. 😇

Less than a week. . .

OMG!!? that event is in less than a week!!

And as it gets closer I get more freaked out over the details. 😧  I have my table covers and they are pretty nice, they were wrinkled all to hell when I pulled them out of the packages but I expected that, I mean they were all folded up. 😏  

I had considered washing them but decided against it as I feared that washing and dyer time would actually make more wrinkles, so I ironed them instead. . . there went 3 hours of my life I'll never get back.  😄

However, they look so much better, I am glad I ironed them, even though it took so long and my back was aching afterwards. 😐  I pulled all my jewelry display stands and was trying to figure out what goes where and just how I am going to display all this stuff. I knew there was no way it was all going to fit so I went shopping and found a few new things. 😊  This tray fits the barrettes almost perfectly and I can put price stickers in the bottom.

 Now I am working on the rest of the "too much" stuff and I want it to be organized in a fashion and I need to be able to mark prices without having to tag every single bracelet. 😕  So I think I'm going by patterns and grouping them on the bars so I can price fixtures instead of individual pieces. 😉

 Then I started thinking about the limited set-up time I'll have on the day of, so I'm now working on a way to pre-load some of the displays and rubber-band stuff in place for transport. 😀  Hopefully it will work and I can just pull them out and pop them on the tables but even if they aren't perfect a bit of straightening and spacing adjusting is still better than un-bagging and arranging hundreds of pieces that morning.  

I am decided on 2 tables and hoping to bring the wire wall rack, but even then I have too much art to display and I still have nowhere to put the fridge magnets. 😕  I am starting to think I should have booked a double booth space, then I could have got those cool screen dividers and used those as walls to display so much more art.  Live and learn I guess, maybe there will be a next time.

and so it continues. . .

I have previously written about the pattern of new shops opening and then massive drops twice a month. 😶 Many people were reluctant to believe it or discuss it, like they didn't want to know it was happening and they didn't want to discuss or propose the causes or reasons behind it.  I have been curious about the yo-yoing of the # of shops the whole time I have been on etsy. 😏

I found it shady and questionable when etsy suddenly decided to change the definition of "active shop" and what was shown. I have found it hard to believe that 1,000 - 2,000 shops open nearly every day, I mean damn where do all these people come from? 😵

Then it became a clear pattern of build build build plummet. After some discussion I have come to lean towards a few theories. First that etsy marks and collects a list of accounts and closes them all at once, this makes some sense as it condenses certain work functions to just a couple of days a month. Second is that many of these are based on unpaid bills, due to the regular monthly nature and the day(s) of the month of the clearing out this is a real possibility. Finally, it is caused by regular infringement sweeps, like the disney department files all it's take-downs on the same 1 day each month which doesn't seem as likely when you phrase it like that. 😄

Whatever the reason, the fact is twice a month there are huge drops in the number of shops shown on site. 

2,995,671 shops found for  1/01/2020
2,997,061 shops found for  1/02/2020
2,999,082 shops found for  1/03/2020
3,001,046 shops found for  1/04/2020
3,003,213 shops found for  1/05/2020
3,005,961 shops found for  1/06/2020       -21,648
2,984,313 shops found for  1/07/2020
2,985,204 shops found for  1/08/2020  *same 2 days in a row
2,985,204 shops found for  1/09/2020    so rare
2,992,406 shops found for  1/10/2020
2,994,585 shops found for  1/11/2020
2,997,054 shops found for  1/12/2020
2,999,695 shops found for  1/13/2020
3,002,374 shops found for  1/14/2020
3,008,821 shops found for  1/17/2020
3,010,880 shops found for  1/18/2020
3,013,094 shops found for  1/19/2020
3,015,878 shops found for  1/20/2020
3,018,515 shops found for  1/21/2020     -7,581
3,010,934 shops found for  1/22/2020

The last time I posted about this I was accused of "fear-mongering" however it is not my purpose, I simply noticed an oddity and wanted to come up with theories to explain it.