The ODR nightmare. . .

I am not a fan of the new ODR system on etsy.  

I understand that they are looking for ways to make the site and sellers seem more trustworthy and judging customer service and setting standards seems like a good idea.

However, as a low volume/small shop I have to point out the incredible unfairness of the current system and standards and why it's not fair to judge everyone the same way.

Let me start with the basic it's on a rolling 60 day time-frame that is 30 days behind, so it's not exactly a "current" thing, which can be both good and/or bad depending on the situation. 

In the case of my shop, end of September was when etsy screwed up PL converting it to "advertising" and I turned it off, the month of October was completely deadsville.  😞  So currently my ODR is based on a single order, if that 1 person were to complain my ODR would go from zero to 100%.  😵  Think about that. . . .

Now I have had orders since but only like 5, I think, between Black Friday and Christmas, again I am a small/low volume shop.  So even if it were 1 complain out of 5 orders mathematically that's 20% still incredibly high in percentage form.  😨

Now I am currently safe because if you look at the 3 criteria :

For shops otherwise compliant with Etsy’s policies and expectations, warnings will only be sent if a shop meets all of the following criteria:

• The shop’s Order Dissatisfaction Rate that is 1% or higher
• The shop has three or more orders with a case or low review since its first sale
• The shop has two or more orders placed within a 60 day evaluation period that resulted in a case or low review 

I have never had a single case or low review since my shop opened years ago, but I can understand how other shops have not been so lucky. 😕😢  So that middle criteria of as least 3 issues since first sale is currently saving my A$$.  However, one day that may not be that case and at that point of course my ODR will be above 1% because mathematically for my shop it's completely unrealistic, I will never have the volume of sales to offset an issue.  😐

Holiday season wrapping up. . .

As the 2019 year is coming to a close I am trying to think of things to improve for 2020.  However, after doing this year end review and planning for next year multiple years in a row I am running out of new ideas.  I will have to continue to work on re-doing photos, my least favorite thing but I still have older listings that have yet to get their new photos. 😕  I plan to expand the barrette selection, hopefully in sizes and chain patterns.  I want to try a few new designs for hat pins, broaches maybe. 😏  

Since A.C.Moore stores are closing I plan to ditch that marketplace, I am seriously disappointed in their lack of advertising, their social media efforts are pretty lame and I totally suck at it so I know. 😅  I am thinking of keeping zibbet as a channel and as soon as it becomes available get rid of ACM and swap in something else, because I paid a whole year up front.  

Oh the irony. . .

For years I have been reading in the forums as many sellers advised each other to just move out the ship date when cancelling an order to prevent the buyer from leaving negative feedback.  😕  I have seen many many many sellers advise this many many many times over my years on etsy, it is pretty standard advice, sadly.

I, however, have always had a bit of an ethical problem with this advice because regularly the seller asking how to stop the bad reviews is purely focused on maintaining their own perfect 5 star record and not at all concerned with what went wrong, why the buyer is unhappy, why their customer service sucked so bad the buyer asked to cancel.  Not that I think all cancellations are the fault of the seller, many of them are the buyers doing, not reading processing times, not reading descriptions, not providing personalization information needed to complete the order.

I found it really ironic reading the forums today to see a long time seller, that I know has given this advice before, complaining about poor customer service from other shops and not being able to leave feedback during a cancellation because the shop that is failing to ship has pulled this "move the ship date" BS to prevent the review. 😏  Then the ensuing discussion about why cancellations don't factor into the new ODR (order dissatisfaction rate) and how etsy needs better/more accurate reason selections for cancellations. The discussion included some saying "well at least shops like this will be caught out by the new ODR" but in reality they won't because cancellations don't count and moving the shipping date to prevent reviews means no negative reviews to count, and cancellations prevent cases too.  

So while the new ODR is meant to improve customer service, I suspect that it will only increase some sellers bad behaviors and those sellers who pull this ultimate BS move will have no problems while honest sellers who try to work with buyers will end up being the ones punished.  😔

Since cancellations do not count in the ODR and missing shipping dates and being over-due does not count, really the only thing that does count are cases and reviews, which is in no way a complete picture of a shops customer service. 

I just can't do it. . .

I simply cannot craft every day.  

RainbowMaille, art and making things is only 1 facet of my life.  I have husband, and a house to keep clean.  I have 3 cats begging for attention, play and lap time.  I have to do all the grocery shopping and meal planning, which with my gluten free diet does take considerable time and energy.  

Yesterday, I considered painting because my easel is clear but I had a list of other things to do first, paying bills, balance checkbook, ship order, grocery shopping, etc.  So I did all the other things which included making multiple batches of gluten free noodles to freeze, baking the last of the chocolate chip cookie dough and a bunch of cleaning.  😏  Not a creative day, but a productive day. 

Today I plan to work on a wire tree I have in progress, but I doubt I'll actually get it finished because it's a 7 inch and I can only hold the awkwardness with the wires sticking out all over for a limited time before my hands cramp up.  😕  

Blue and silver and butterflies with a cute little fairy door in the trunk and a bit of a double canopy, I think this one will be really cool when it's finished, in a few days. 😉

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!!

moving house = new shop space

It has been a long process (months) but we bought a house and after all the remodeling of the bathroom and painting all the other rooms and many other projects I am finally getting around to making my new work space.  👍

I have been working by myself all week on clearing the room of excess stuff and started painting the trim and walls.

This weekend the husband helped with painting the ceiling and floor.  I was very grateful for the help as a short person painting the ceiling was looking like a bit of a nightmare. 😏  

 We also took down the ceiling fan before painting the ceiling and plan to replace it with some new better light fixtures, not sure exactly what yet, I need to go shopping and pick something. 😉

 Under that end window there is plumbing stuff in the floor already which is incredibly handy for the utility sink I plan to have for the paint studio end of the room. 😁

This will be the last wall as it is currently holding the stacks and stacks of drawers and bin units. The door goes into the office and storage closet. The closet on the right has all the boxes, paper, packing and shipping supplies. The office of course has a desk and filing cabinets, etc. The stacks of drawers need to be sorted, the black ones are the base of my original workbench, the butcher block tops are leaning by the door. The drawers that are left after the bench building make the base for the multi-drawer bin units to stack on, otherwise known as storage central. 

I am so excited!! I cannot wait to have my creative space, to have my paint easel set up again. 😇

material notes. . .

There are a lot of different types of rings not just sizes (diameter) or gauges (wire thickness) but actually different materials (metals).  

Before you buy chainmaille you might want to consider what kind you want, how often you plan to wear it, what it may be exposed to while being worn, as it may effect the longevity or appearance over time.  Some may tarnish but can be cleaned, some may lose their coating and once its gone its gone. 😕

I have used several different types of rings over the years from different suppliers.  I have favorites and I have some that I consider junk and will not use ever again. I do not like and will not use the rings sold in retail craft shops, as many things as Darice makes their rings, generally speaking, suck I had a friend buy some because she liked a specific color but the not being round and bad ends (junkness) made them a nightmare to work with.  I have tried stainless steel and although there are quality rings available, the harder stiffer metal is very hard for me to work due to some personal health limitations like having had broken wrists.  😏 

I personally prefer anodized aluminum rings from TheRingLord, they are good quality, come in many excellent colors, and are easier for me to work with while still being strong.  Also I mostly use the *saw cut version which is fairly color consistent and I plasti-dip my pliers to prevent/reduce scratching/marring the surface.

Here are some notes from TheRingLord on various metals/materials they offer, prepare for information overload. 😉

Stainless Steel Rings
Stainless steel doesn't rust and is strong and clean.
The shine level of our rings can vary - it can be compared to a stainless kitchen sink. If you need to shine up the rings you will need to research steel shot tumbling techniques.

Spring Stainless - We also offer our 16 ga and some 14g in a spring temper which is twice as hard as our standard stainless.
Spring stainless is VERY difficult to cut by hand but only slightly more difficult to cut with our machinery. Typical tensile strength of the spring stainless is 220-280KSI. This material makes the strongest armor. Use good pliers with teeth as this stuff fights back !

Titanium
Titanium is strong, corrosion resistant and hypo-allergenic.
The colors are beautiful and show the subtle reflective nature that is specific to titanium. They are less brilliant than niobium and MUCH harder to bend. 
Most of our titanium is Grade 5 alloy TI-AL6-V4. There is only 1 exception in 16g and they are not anodized. This alloy has a hard temper - comparable to spring stainless in strength, it is smooth and the colors are consistent and bright for titanium.

Anodizing titanium creates an oxide layer. The thickness of this layer creates the colors. The color will vary from batch to batch. Don't expect to be able to continue a project when ordering anodized titanium in different batches. The color will also vary and blend shades on individual wires and in batches of rings. For example teal can have blue with hints of green. You can always expect hints of the adjacent colors in titanium spectrum in the batches. This variation occurs in varying amounts from ring to ring and batch to batch. This color variation in titanium should be considered a feature. It makes this material more beautiful. The anodized layer has appropriate properties for jewelry, but it is not indestructible. It can wear off with rubbing against a harder material - care must be taken with pliers as well. The color can be affected by oils from your skin - the color is restored be washing with soap and to remove the oils.

Anodized Niobium
Niobium is strong, corrosion resistant and hypo-allergenic.
The colors are beautifully vibrant. 
Our niobium has the same strength as our sterling silver. They are quite similar in terms of workability and quality and look good together.
Anodizing niobium creates an oxide layer. The thickness of this layer creates the colors. The color will vary from batch to batch. The color will also vary and blend shades on individual wires and in batches of rings. For example peacock blue can have blue with hints of violet. You can always expect hints of the adjacent colors in niobium spectrum in the batches. This variation occurs in varying amounts from ring to ring and batch to batch. This color variation in niobium should be considered a feature. It makes this material more beautiful.
The anodized layer has appropriate properties for jewelry, but it is not indestructible. It can wear off with rubbing against a harder material - care must be taken with pliers as well.

Brass Rings
We use Jewelers Brass (alloy C226). It looks very similar to yellow gold when its not tarnished!
The strength and corrosion properties are similar to yellow brass – jeweler’s brass is about 8% stronger and costs a bit more.
Brass tarnishes but can be cleaned with an ultrasonic cleaner or any commercially available brass cleaner - like Brasso.
Most brass wire you will find is soft, but our brass is 1/2 hard temper which combines strength with workability.

Enamelled Copper
Enamelled Copper is dead soft (aka weak) copper with a colored layer and plastic coat to seal it.
Silvered enamelled copper has a layer of silver plated onto the soft copper before the color and plastic. This creates brighter and lighter colors than regular enameled copper.
Enamelled Copper wire used to be consistent color and quality - it is not any more. This is due to changes made by the manufacturer of the wire - these issues have been felt by everyone buying this wire since 2010 - not just us.
The color can vary from batch to batch and gauge to guage. The plastic coating can vary in quality as well and may peal. The ends of the rings can be green due to copper corrosion. These facts are now considered normal for this product - meaning we do not consider them a defect for returns.
If you need a stronger material with vibrant and more consistent colors we recommend our saw cut anodized aluminum. 

Anodized Aluminum
We use 2 types of anodizing to make our rings.
The saw cut rings marked with an * are made using a bright anodizing process. The result is a very consistent and dud free color batch that is shiny. The ends of these rings are not anodized as they are cut after anodizing. The anodizing processed used to make these rings is FDA approved for cookware.
The machine cut rings and some of the saw cut (no *) are bulk anodized after the rings are made. The ends are anodized. These rings will have touchmarks and some duds as this process is not as consistent. This is normal.
Anodized aluminum coating is fairly hard but can be scratched with steel. Use pliers without teeth.We use a hard temper aluminum which is stronger than colored copper. Note that aluminum is 3.4 times lighter than copper.
Colors may vary from what is pictured and from batch to batch. We minimize this as much as possible, but it still happens. If you are making a project where the color must not change slightly, order the full amount of rings for the colored area in one batch.

I knew it !!

I have finally discovered a way to prove that etsy is lying it's lying A$$ off about the number of shops on the site.  I had been daily tracking the number of shops out of curiosity for a while when I noticed one day it nearly doubled over night back in July. 
1,448,089 shops found for 7/09/2019

2,845,072 shops found for 7/10/2019
Now, I knew immediately that something was very fishy with this but I wasn't sure what exactly they were trying to pull.  

One has(had) always been able to type a blank space in the etsy search bar and then select find shops containing " " and that is/was supposed to pull up all "Active" shops which previously had been defined as shops with at least 1 listing for sale, you know actively selling.  

I knew that it was not actually possible for over a Million shops to magically open overnight.  😐 I suspect that etsy has done this to appear more popular/occupied/active/valuable than it truly is, I highly suspect that they are pumping the numbers to dazzle the board and shareholders.  However, I have for months now thought that it was incredibly suspect but I had no way to prove it so speculate as I might all I had was a theory.

I have been busy moving house, remodeling a house, vending at events, you know living my life, but in the back of my mind I have continued to think about and be bothered by what I consider to be fraudulent representation by etsy of the number of shops active on site.

This morning after doing my regular number check I used the "sort by" option and after changing from relevancy to recent to alphabetical I had the Ah-HA moment and proof.  Right there on my screen when I switched to alphabetical it shows empty shops, as in shops with nothing for sale, a lot of them.  On the first page alone of the 10 shops shown 6 of them are empty and after clicking in and looking at them they are looonnnggg empty like last review 7 years ago, or only ever 3 sales years ago.  😕

I still have no exact reason for etsy's pumping up the numbers but I do at least now have proof that they are falsifying the number shops on site and I know I'm not crazy they are lying.  On the second page out of 10 shops listed only 3 actually have items for sale. 😐

Your desperation is showing. . .

Sometimes I really want to shout at other etsy sellers, "your desperation is showing".  I know it sounds rude or mean but it's actually quite true and a big factor in what is wrong with etsy's search results.  😐

I have dug in and did some research in the form of several searches and checking things within the search results and what I have found is really disappointing.  😕

There are many many sellers who are mis-tagging and mis-using attributes which contributes to the bad search results because it is purposeful mis-information.  

For example in my "chainmaille barrette" search recall the bracelets, well click into the listing and check the tags and that seller has tagged the bracelet with the terms barrette, necklace, and key chain.  So the listings appears in many more searches than it should because the seller has purposely mis-tagged the item as things it is not. 

The same is true for the mis-use/abuse of the attributes, etsy has stated that the holiday attributes should be used for when an item would be used or themed.  So christmas trees and christmas themed items should be attributed to the holiday christmas but things that simply could be christmas gifts should not be because virtually anything could be a christmas gift but not be at all christmas related.  For example when "valentine's day" option was removed from certain jewelry sub-catagories and styles many sellers had a forum freak out the admins tried over and over to explain the distinction and many refused to accept it or follow the edict.

These things have led me to the conclusion the bad search results are only partially etsy's fault and largely due to poor seller behavior, specifically seller desperation to be seen even in searches that do not fit their items, basically shoving things down people's throats even though they know perfectly that they are misrepresenting their things, clogging the system with bad results, driving shoppers away from the site and it's "broken search". 😒

It is the very definition of "cutting of your nose to spite your face" or "shooting yourself in the foot" if you prefer. 

The real problem lies in there is no real solution either etsy has to hire teams of people to comb through a gazillion listings and delete/remove the inappropriate tags and attributes or sellers have to grow up stop trying to game the system and take responsibility and fix their sh*t.  I do not see either of those things happening. 😞

RainbowMaille on Sale. . .

RainbowMaille on ACMoore Marketplace

My A.C.Moore marketplace shop is having a 20% off sale on everything, no minimum purchase, no qualifiers or requirements, just 20% off everything. 

Oh etsy. . .

Ok, so I have complained about etsy's search being not so intelligent for AI and I have complained about etsy's "help" not being very helpful so here's what happens when those to issues collided recently.  😕

I opened a "help ticket" with etsy to report the following :

Etsy search regularly returns really bad results. The forums are full of threads about search being broken but I'm not talking about the "Clumping".

I am talking about search returning results that are not what was searched for.

I searched for "chainmaille barrette" and the top of the first page only actually has 1 correct result, the rest are not chainmaille or not barrettes. Seriously, the houston astros bracelets is infringement, the loop deloop hair clip is wire wrap not chainmaille, the toni chain maile tutorial is a tutorial for a necklace (it's not a finished good, it's not a barrette) the rest are scale flowers not chainmaille.

I even provided a screen shot to prove/illustrate the randomness of their bad search results.  Not surprisingly I was disappointed with the response I received in return, also not surprisingly it took 3 damned days to get a response.  

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear that the search is not returning results consistent to your search. I know you have been with us for 6 years so you know how to search for the items you are looking for.

I'm noting your feedback and will be sharing it with the team to consider for a future update. Please know we take comments from the community to heart, and we make many changes to the site based on what we hear.

For legal reasons, I have to point out that any ideas members share with us are non-proprietary to them. You can read more in our Terms of Use. 

Don't hesitate to reach back out to me if I can help with anything else. 

Best wishes,
xxxxxx(name removed)
Etsy Support

So ya' know the typical awe thanks for pointing that out but we don't plan to do anything about it, non-answer reply. Although, this is the first one that has come with this particular "legal" notation.  I, of course, responded and pointed out this is not just an issue from the buyer perspective but from a seller perspective as well. 

It's not just the buyer perspective of not finding what I'm looking for, it is also a problem as a shop owner as I have "search terms" in my stats and clicks for phrases that I do not have a single word of in my listings. :-/

I noticed in the last few weeks I have seen "search terms" in my shop stats such as :
"in a world full of grandmas be a nana"
"beating on a dime"
"mail order hat pattern 3454"
"metal wall art made in israel"

Honestly, the only one of those that makes any kind of sense is the "metal wall art made in israel" as I do sell metal wall art, HOWEVER I am located in the USA not Israel and I do not ship internationally. I turned off etsy ads because of it.

The following day I received the following response :

Hi there, 

Thanks for your response, with more detailed search terms from your shop stats. My name is XXXXX and I'm a Support Specialist here at Etsy. 

First, I'll certainly be passing your email along as feedback for our team that works on Search. This is something we're always working to improve, so it's helpful to see examples like the ones you've provided. 

I do want to note that it's possible that your items were appearing in a buyers "Recently viewed" or "Similar to recently viewed" which appears at the bottom of a search page. If they clicked on your listing in either of these sections, the original term they entered into search would still appear in your shop stats, even if your listing did not appear in the results for these search terms. For example, I've just done a search for "in a world full of grandmas be a nana", and I only saw one page of search results and none of your items were in those results. However, I do still see all of my recently viewed items at the bottom of the page, which have nothing to do with this search term. 

I do realize this isn't ideal, so I'll be noting this in my feedback as well. 

Please do let me know if you have any other questions. I'm glad to help. 

Best,

xxxxxx(name removed)

So apparently, it is possible to not even be in the search results and yet end up with clicks tied to the search term, it makes no sense to me but there you have it, an "etsy explanation" as usual it explains nothing. 

Etsy transparent as Mud.

October Pink Sale

It's breast cancer awareness month so I'm having a "Pink Sale" as in things that are pink or have pink in them are on sale, 15% off thru the end of the month.  

I give up. . .

I have never had the best search placement on etsy, no matter how I re-work my SEO, regardless of keywords, location, shop policies, about section, 5 star rating be damned.  😐  Nothing I have ever done or tried has had any real impact on my placement except promoted listings which etsy has now ruined.  They billed me $1.28 for a single click the last day even though I had a $1 daily budget, I had to turn them off.  😠

I have seen a lot of threads in the etsy forums about search being broken.  Honestly, etsy's search is broken in many ways, they killed the "fairness" guideline, they turned loose AI which was not ready, and now they are shoving ads everywhere. First, the fairness guidelines were there to limit the number of times a shop could be on the same page, now there is no limit on the number of times the same shop can be on a single page so you get "clumping" whole pages of the same shop over and over and over and over. . . Second, the AI sounds like a good idea except it doesn't work it still needs to "learn" to be "intelligent" it's totally artificial but not smart as it provides really bad results some times.  Finally, since the new "advertising" crap-ness they are shoving ads everywhere they can, more rows of ads than there used to be and ads for things unrelated in searches with less results. 😕

So I searched for "chainmaille barrette" and this is what came up 

I feel the need to point out that there is only 1 actual "chainmaille barrette" at the top of this search result, see that row of "ads" at the top not a single one, scale flowers on clips are not chain and not barrettes.  See that houston astros bracelet that is infringement and hello a bracelet is not a barrette.  Also as pretty as the loop de loop thing is, it's wire wrap not chainmaille of any kind.  😕  Plus what the ? is with the tutorial for a necklace, it's not a finished good, it's not a barrette, it is not really related to the search "chainmaille barrette" at all except by 1 word.  

You may be wondering why I care, well this is the type of thing that keeps my listings buried.   In the small search "chainmaille barrette" there are only 78 results, I have 11 listings for chainmaille barrettes so you'd think I could get more than 1 on the first page, but nope.  Plus to add insult to injury the one single listing of mine on the first page of that search is in the very bottom row, it is quite literally the very last thing on the page.  However the infringing shop has 3 f*cking bracelets on the first page of the barrette search.

The truly crappy part is it's purely an etsy thing, I know my keywords/SEO are on target because if you do a Google search for chainmaille barrette and select images I am right there in the first row and the third row and the fourth row and even my instagram post is in the top half of the page.  So etsy hates me and buries my listings on purpose.  If you try a larger search like chainmaille earrings which has 6,500 results my first appearance is 1 listing on page 4 and 1 on page 5 and 1 on page 8, in spite of the fact that I have 20 earring listings and set them for free shipping which was supposed to get priority placement.  😕

In light of all that it is probably no surprise that I have become rather disillusioned with etsy in the past couple of years, unfortunately the new A.C.Moore marketplace seems to be really slow taking off so I'm stuck with etsy but I have cut promotions and the etsy plus subscription.

P.S.  I have no changed the barrette listings over to free shipping and miraculously 10 out of 11 are now on the first page.  😏

what's up with that?!?!

Since the start of the new etsy "advertising" crap-ness I have been getting some really weird search terms. . .like really weird.

"in a world full of grandmas be a nana"
"beating on a dime"
"metal wall art made in israel"
"mail order hat pattern 3454"

The only one that makes any kind of sense is the 'metal wall art' but when you add the made in Israel and I'm located in the USA. . .well you can see how it doesn't apply, as for the rest of them they are nonsensical the only words that are even in my listings are articles like in/on, a, be.  

It's total BS that my items would even be shown in such searches that obviously do not apply, the AI (artificial intelligence) is not living up to what the I stands for as this is the opposite of intelligence.  😠  It makes no sense to serve shoppers such obviously wrong search result because it will not lead to purchases, furthermore, the more an item is shown without being clicked, favorite'd or purchased it degrades the listing quality score. 😕  

I think etsy is purposely degrading our listing's quality scores so that they can increase the per click charges across the board, yes I am accusing them of manipulating things to maximize their profits as a platform at the cost of individual shops, site functionality, and buyer service. 

F*ck you Etsy. . .

Of all the ignorant bullshit that etsy has done in the years I've been there. . .I think I've finally had enough.  😒

I found this gem on my stats page 

This one is on my listing manager page

So basically even though I've worked my ass off for years creating unique items and continuously editing, updating and working on my listings and products it doesn't matter one bit because I refuse to make the whole shop free shipping so etsy will bury my listings and hide my shop from shoppers.  😒

I am now going to start promoting the new A.C.Moore marketplace.  I have already changed the "shop now" button on my facebook to direct there, I have also changed my instagram and pinterest.  😉  So everyone check out the newest place to buy  https://marketplace.acmoore.com/rainbowmaille

Etsy in it's infinity stupidity. . .

Etsy regularly. . .often makes what I think are really bad decisions, they change things for basically no reason and constantly re-format stuff just for fun. . .well fun for the techs who are obviously bored and just screwing around but never fun for sellers who have to deal with the bullshit.  😒 

As you can tell I'm a bit pissed this morning, I have been forcibly switched to the new "etsy ads" which I did NOT want. They in their infinite stupidity have decided to combine promoted listings with google ads so they can overcharge us all.  I never liked the "google ads" I did try them, twice as a matter of fact, and never got a single sale out of all the money spent and boy oh boy they spent some damn money, as there is no control of the cost per click and they bid themselves silly because you cannot set any limits other than the "daily budget" it's a bit like handing a ten year old money and asking them to spend it wisely.  😐 You know you're never getting any thing of value and you'll never see any change back.  

My first clue to this switch over was on my dashboard when I logged in and found a note in the shop advisor section :

Etsy Ads Credits for your Etsy Plus Subscription

You will still receive your $5 monthly advertising credit with Etsy Plus. Any remaining credits will post to your Payment account by Oct 1.

Well it's nice to know that the $5 credit for promoted listings that was a major selling feature for the etsy plus subscription will remain intact, but what good is a $5 credit when google ads wastes whole dollars on single clicks?!? 😕

I tried looking at stats and of course it says "advertising" now instead of promoted listings and which still does not include stats info for the freaking app so is in no way accurate. If you go through marketing and try to look at the advertising stats it gets worse, with limited time frames and no way to see daily clicks and charges. Totally bogus, unhelpful, super shitty, ugly format and I told them so via the survey. 


This sucks, the format is ugly AF and the limited info is annoying and frustrating.  I track my stats vs. PL clicks as "yesterday" time frame every day and now I can't do that.  If you think I'm going to leave this shit on so that you can spend up my budget and charge me a bunch of money for ads on google which I never liked, wanted or had any luck/revenue with you are sorely mistaken.  And furthermore since this change to my advertising choices with it's severally sucky limitations coupled with the screwing up of my featured items section, I will also be discontinuing my etsy plus subscription as it's a waste of money since I can no longer set the format I want in my features and have no need for the advertising credits since I will be turning off all ads.  Congratulations etsy you have fucked up my shop and screwed yourself out of my "seller services upgrades".

I had seen forum complaints about featured items sections not holding format and I'm really unhappy that I pay an extra $10 a month for etsy plus so that I could have the format I want in my featured items section and now they have fucked it all up and I cannot change it, I have tried and what I have set is not what is shown.  😡  I am paying extra for a feature that I no longer have control over!?!?!  WTF?!?!!?  

So congratulations to the etsy execs and techs who have managed to screw up multiple things at once, the results of which are I will be turning off my etsy plus subscription and all advertising since I have no control over these things any more.  I sincerely hope that many sellers turn off both that it costs etsy a bundle in their bottom line because that seems to be the only thing they understand.  😐