Time to re-work the re-work again. . .

I know online retail is in a constant state of flux but ~good grief~ and yes that's my Charlie Brown impression. 😖

The saga of the "Holiday guide" that just won't go away continues and as it updates and highlights new things I find myself more annoyed all the time.  😒  

I had read one of the early articles and it was all about improving search placement and changes to SEO and it was confusing and a bit dense. I tried to read it but my brain just wouldn't process it. Then I saw a thread in the forums about EtsyRank sudden changes to listing grades and decided to check it out.  I've had and used EtsyRank nearly the whole 3 years I've had my shop and it's been an ok service (I only use the free version) I have worked quite a bit on getting A grades on my listings. I knew Etsy was talking about changing search a lot implementing new AI and photo recognition softwares, updating categories, etc,.  What I didn't fully understand was the impact that would have.  

Imagine my surprise when I logged into "etsyrank" to find a new erank logo and announcement that they have changed their entire grading system to be based on etsy's latest guidelines. 😮  Ok, so maybe that's not a bad thing, they have basically codified the annoying article into a usable system that would tell me what etsy meant with all that marketing speak and talking in circles.  I thought "wow thanks erank", but then I clicked to see my listing grades and found that many, like more than half of my listings that previously had been A grades were suddenly NOT.  😩

Previously of my 180-ish listings the overwhelming majority of them were A's there were maybe a dozen B's and 3 C's. I lived with the 3 C's because they were gift wrap and camp ash vials and they are really not meant to be found on their own anyway. I gave up on the B's mainly because I had reworked and reworded them repeatedly and they just seemed stuck. ~shrug~  This week I found tons of B's a truckload of C's and then a bunch of D's and a handful of E's.  😲  Since when does the system include E's ?!?! omg

I have spent the week trying to "improve" things and I have made some progress, I have managed to convert the C's and D's to at least B's but the E's are still E's those used to be C's but oh well.  I have about 40 B's but I'm not sure I can get all of them back the A's, it will take a lot of work including a round of new additional photos which I find highly annoying because it was in the "holiday guide" tips list and I was going to ignore it because rounds of photos are time consuming, digging out the pieces, setting and staging the shoot, lighting, shooting, editing, uploading. ~sigh~  

Really Etsy?!?!?

Etsy has done a lot of annoying and questionable things over the years but this year's "Holiday Guide" on the seller dashboard is like. . .wow.  😖  It's huge, it's lame, it's pretty much repeat info that is mostly common sense and there was no way to get rid of it for over a week.  The forums exploded and then the admins moved the "bugs" thread over to discussions refusing to do anything about it, basically insisting that it's permanent nature was intentional.  😕  

It has "updated" from it's initial bullet points to include a notice to add your shipping carriers to your shipping profiles. Just more busy work as I already had in my store policies that nearly everything ships Priority USPS but I have started working through editing each listing anyway. I'm just using it as a chance to double check other things. 

This morning has a new update with 2 new nags to "add up to 10 photos" it says this is a 15 minute task.  Seriously, I'm just floored at the notion that anyone with more than 3 brain cells can even think that adding more photos is a 15 minute task. I mean setting up a photo shoot takes longer than that, shooting additional photos for my 175+ listings would take hours, not to mention the editing and uploading.  So I have no idea who came up with this 15 minute BS. The secondary nag is for clear return policies which it says is a 5 minute task, that I can believe, editing/updating policies is a quick hit thing but I have my own written and rather detailed policies already.  But at least it now has a minimize button, if you can't remove it at least now it shrinks instead of blocking the WHOLE dashboard.  😒  So I guess they did hear all the complaints they just didn't really listen. 

still moving. . .

Ok so we are out of the old place and on the road visiting family.  We have a new place picked out and are just waiting on application approval and a move in date hopefully before the end of the month. 😇

I am proud of myself for keeping it together "on the road" I have had orders and managed to ship them on time I only had to move 1 ship date and that was more because of the Labor Day holiday than being on the road. 😏

Things change. . .

I have been working on some changes in the shop, nothing new there, updating listings and shifting keywords is a constant.  😄  

I considered discontinuing the "gift wrapping" option because we are moving soon and I thought it would be easier to take less stuff and not worry about it, but the amount of listings I would need to edit to remove the sample photos and description link, text, instructions, 😱  changing the shop settings, and deleting a few old updates about it would be easy but all that editing.  ~sigh~  So I think the gift wrap will stay available, I managed to get most all the supplies packed down to one small box.  

Sad fact of life upheavals getting in the way is I have not made much lately.  😢😡  I have been sorting, packing, and organizing for the move and only crafting a little here and there as relaxation trying to stay sane.  I had to pack my easel and all my painting stuff already and I really miss painting.  😭  

My shop will remain open and shipping throughout the moving process but boy oh boy I cannot wait to be all settled somewhere new and have all my stuff set up again so I can get back to playing in my paints and making things.

Making things makes me happy, moving not so much. 😏

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.  😄