Etsy is not all it promises. . .

I know it's been around a long time now and there are some who are rather loyal to it, but the forums are filled with users who do nothing but complain, about everything, about every change, all the time.  😐  I have been using Etsy for years and the forums have always been a pit of negativity and since etsy outsourced them they are now ugly and not user friendly on top of being full of negative people and bugs.  I still read them but I do not participate, occasionally I see someone that I think I can help/talk to and I will message them but for the most part I just read, sigh, and roll my eyes. 😏

I am not a fan of the current crap etsy has splashed on my dashboard. I do not like the new "activity feed" without the listing photos for favs.  The continuous shove to pay for google ads and have "free" shipping.  The newest re-do of stats which messed it up and gives even less info than before. 😕  Yeah that's not really an improvement. ~sigh~  I am not saying that some of the complaining on etsy's forums is not valid, Etsy often does dumb things, has tons of bugs, and has forced some shitty changes on sellers in the last few years. 

All of which was a factor in my willingness to finally expand to another venue.  The final straw, for me, was something that will take some explaining, etsy lies epic-ly.  I have for years suspected that they do some major number fudging, in their how many shops, how many buyers, overall stats for braggery.  Numbers get thrown around all the time and I have always questioned where they get them. 

You find blurbs like this : "As of 2018, more than 2.1 million sellers sold goods through the Etsy platform, up from 1.9 million active sellers in the previous year. By comparison, there were over 39.4 million active Etsy buyers worldwide."

Now I guess part of it depends on what you define as "active sellers" it used to be the shop had to be open and have at least one active listing for sale, but I'm not sure about that anymore.  See there is this little trick whereby you click into the search box hit the spacebar and click the "find shop names containing" that will show every supposedly active shop, at least it used. I have been doing that at least once a day for nearly a year, tracking the number of supposedly active shops but recently there was a huge overnight change.

The number shops is in constant flux, new shops open, others quit or go into vacation mode, some shops are seasonal, tons get shut for infringement, etc., I understand flux, however, things do not magically double overnight. 😐  I find that highly suspicious. 
Seriously, highly suspicious
1,445,671 shops found for 7/08/2019  pm
1,447,305 shops found for 7/09/2019  am
1,448,089 shops found for 7/09/2019  pm
2,845,072 shops found for 7/10/2019  am
2,846,158 shops found for 7/11/2019  am
2,848,795 shops found for 7/13/2019  pm

Add that to the new forums info which shows 7.3 million sellers. . .?  Do they mean users? is that buyers and sellers? the forums where always for all etsy "members" not just shop owners/sellers. Are they counting every shop that ever existed?

Again I say things don't magically double overnight, so how did it go from 1.4 mil to 2.8 mil overnight? Are they counting every shop that ever existed instead of just active shops?  I have tried going to the last page to see who's listed last out of curiosity and the page errors, I have tried changing the page number and cannot get anything past page 1000 to show anything, and it says there are 1250 pages, so. . . I think the "active" definition may have changed or the way they count has changed or they are just inflating the numbers for some reason.

Any way I look at it or think about it what is published does not match what I see on the site and even if it is a labeling error on the forums and it should say 7.3 mil "Users" instead of sellers then that under cuts the 39+million shoppers/buyers they claim. 😕  Nothing adds up or matches, there is some super shady math somewhere.

So I have taken the odd step for me to be an 'early adopter' by setting up on the A.C. Moore marketplace before it even goes live. I got the preview available yesterday and while it's not perfect I currently own several categories of search. 😀 When setting up I was thrilled with the fact that their category selections actually included "chainmaille" even spelled correctly and under bracelets >chainmaille all the listings are mine. 😛  I am apparently they only chainmailler over there at the moment. ~yay~  Also of the 116 paintings listed 54 of them are mine!! ~woo-hoo~  I also have 33 of the 58 "wall hanging" listings.  Any traffic should have no problem finding me as I am whole pages in search results, instead of being buried under 12,000+ other listings for chainmaille bracelet, 559,000+ listings for wall hanging, 2+ million listings for painting.

I'm not wild about the paypal connection but part of me is happy it is separate from my bank that my etsy is tied to, bookkeeping and knowing what comes from where $ will be easy. I am not setting up stripe as I already have Square and like them better but the A.C.Moore set up is currently the way Etsy used to be and allows paypal only and has paypal and stripe as separated options.