Etsy.com calls itself “your place to buy and sell things handmade” and is a pretty cool website that we personally enjoy. The sellers who use the site, however, are getting all riled up after several stores were shut down without notice due to simple, easily-resolved complaints from buyers.
Reader Elizabeth writes:
Over at Etsy.com, there have recently been a rash of insanely unprofessional events, most importantly, the closing of several stores without notice and for no reason given, but clearly violating Etsy’s own written standards about the very stringent requirements in place before such a drastic thing should happen
She pointed us to a thread where Etsy store closures were being discussed. One seller with 15,000 positive feedback comments was banned after a single complaint:
I just wanted to let everyone know that I am trying to find out why my shop is gone. I have tried to contact Etsy about it and they sent me an abuse report from a customer who says they never received their order. Funny thing is I can’t find any record of the order in my PayPal account. So it appears they may have shut me down over an order that was never paid for. To all of my loyal customers I will continue to get all of your orders out from the invoices in my PayPal account until I can get this resolved. I am in shock that Etsy would shut me down considering I have almost 15,000 positive feedback. It appears there has been a BIG misunderstanding. I have sent several more emails to Etsy and have not received any response. Please be patient…I am still around!
The sellers are eventually able to get their accounts reinstated, but not without possibly being reported to the FBI’s cybercrime’s division:
A seller DID complain about me – a week & a half after the purchase date for not receiving their parcel, & I’m in Australia & he’s in the US! Instead of referring the buyer to me, giving me the benefit of the doubt or explaining on my behalf that assuming non-delivery was premature, Etsy banned me & issued the buyer with an FBI cyber-crime form to complain about me!
Forwarding routine complaints (or threatening to forward them) to the FBI seems to be a theme at Etsy:
This actually happened to me around Christmas time. I had a customer request a Custom Order & then Subsequently change her mind. I refunded her payment & never marked the item as shipped. About 2 months later I got an email from Etsy saying I did not ship an item and the Customer was furnished with the FBI Cyber Crime thing & my account would be suspended if I did not respond. I responded to the email explaining that she changed her mind & the Payment was refunded. About 2 days later I got the same email & responded agian explaining what happened. I even contacted the buyer (nicely – & asked if she was unhappy in any way with the way the transaction had been concluded & to doublecheck that she had received her refund).She said she had received her refund promptly & was very satisfied since it was she who had backed out of the transaction. She said she had not reported the transaction to Etsy in any way. In fact, she had left me Pos. feedback previously.
We can appreciate that Etsy wants to remain vigilant about fraud (obviously), but not every consumer complaint is “fraud.” Telling consumers to forward basic complaints about refunds and slow shipping to the FBI is inappropriate and a waste of the FBI’s time. Billing errors happen. Things get lost in the mail. If every customer service snafu warranted closing down the business, people would be asking “Verizon? What’s that?”
We wish Etsy and its sellers the best of luck sorting this out.
More shop closures – including a Top Seller [Unofficial Etsy News]
Two Seller Accounts Deleted Under Strange Circumstances [Unofficial Etsy News]
Unwarranted Accidental Shop Suspensions [Unofficial Etsy News]
Another Case Of An Erroneous Shop Suspension [Unofficial Etsy News]
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The focus needs to return to Etsy’s unbusinesslike, and in some cases, unethical (and slanderous) communications with members of the site – sellers as well as buyers.
Etsy’s communication language is often offensive, scolding, sarcastic, inflammatory and inappropriate.
Punishments are levied against seller-accounts that can include everything from being refused entry to chat rooms and community boards for various periods of time to actual store closures. And a store closure is announced by displaying a graphic of a Red Brick Wall in its place.
This increasingly unbusinesslike activity on the site has created a level of hostility that has turned any communications between sellers, buyers, the public and the company into a bullying contest.
It does not matter if this involves one percent of the stores on the site or 10% of the stores on the site. The fact that these tactics are in play at all is the issue.
Bad publicity is a result of bad communication, bad customer service, and bad-business practices that undermine the now-fragile ecommerce purpose of the site. If the members of the site have little trust in the site-host company, how does that translate to consumers who go to the site to shop and buy?
This tension between a host company and its members and buyers has been played out numerous times in eBay, and probably results in long-term damage to the “trust factor” so essential for ecommerce to thrive and prosper. And long-term damage may never be repaired.
I’ve been an Etsy buyer, and only a buyer, since the beginning. I’ve only had good experiences — I’ve left only good feedback and received only good feedback. But what I’ve been reading the last few days makes me never want to buy through Etsy again. I am resolving that in the future I will ask sellers through the “Conversations” messaging system if they sell through another site that I might use instead.
Etsy, as a brand, is more about style than substance. This is demonstrated in the development of fancy Ajax display trickery while the internal messaging system, search engine and message boards are primitive to the point of barely useable. And it’s seen every time they hire a new early-20-something hipster to take on responsibilities that truly require a person with professional experience and maturity.
Etsy could’ve been so fantastic. Such a disappointment.
NotAnotherEtsyChearleader says:
“certain situations that have occurred on Etsy, are being used in a way to scare others into thinking they will be next to be shut down for malicious reasons on the part of Admin.”
YOU dont see the point of this topic either. This was not meant to put fear into the seller/buyer, but rather to inform the users directly and indirectly affected. Since admin has done everything in their power in the forums to stop any thread that may make them look bad, this (amongst other sites) have become the venues to discuss it.
Nor is the point of this whole article make admin look malicious, now you are putting words in peoples mouths, once again making assumtions. This is to point out the blatant, public unprofessionalism that has been taking place on the site from the get go.
unprofessionalism = failure.
and until the head of etsy can figure out to hire professional adults, rather that immature “lets just all get along but shut up anyone who might make us look bad” BRATS, the site will continue to head in a downward spiral. We are not making assumptions here or there, the proof is in the forums.
They have made themselves look bad in not just this situation, but MANY, and those who are affected, or even have an opinion that differs from admin are pretty much banned from talking about it on the actual site, and now many are in fear of getting banned like a person has mentioned above…for good reason. This person above told admin privately what she thought they were doing, and how she felt it was wrong, and in responce, they ban her for a whole month from the forums…Oh yeah, that is REAL proffesional.
Take that blanket off your eyes, and take a look at the big picture. This site needs to be run my professionals, bottom line, end of story.
True, its not about scaring people from those of us who are adamant that things change. We see Etsy failing at the principal source of making Etsy a long term success. Face it, you cannot hire hipsters with little to no CS training and experience to run a department dedicated to such. We’re talking about professionalism here, not scare tactics. There’s such a lack of respect from Admin to the sellers and buyers of the site, that it is damaging their business. Doesn’t matter if its 1% or 10% their error rate needs to be as close to zero as possible and their treatment of others has to be outstanding. You can’t be just human in the CS part of a business, you need to be super human and have the ever famed “world class experience” from your staff.
This isn’t about fear or fear mongering.
This is about a balanced view of a company rather than “evangelical” support no matter what bad behaviors or snafus are demonstrated.
Some people seem to think it is acceptable for Etsy to function outside regular business standards. That somehow the mission transcends their day to day operation and interaction with their customers.
If I am paying for a service I expect certain standard requirements to be met. Professionalism, clear policies, respectful staff, information about things that aren’t working or announcements of new features, notification of changes in the TOU, etc.
As an example, they weren’t billing their clients monthly and that went on for months. Their autobilling didn’t work and when they finally got the autobilling going again some people’s bank and credit card accounts were overdrawn and/or frozen (due to multiple months bills being put through the same day) because they didn’t handle the implementation correctly.
Not to mention the fact that since people thought the autobilling was working and Etsy never sent a broadcast email to all account holders that it wasn’t, sellers were faced with very large bills.
The above situation is just unacceptable for a company of this size…well, any size really.
Don’t mess with people’s money. Don’t change your TOU without notification. Do treat your customers with respect. Do have specific and clear rules, presented simply and abide then by them.
Pretty basic stuff.
Again, this is not about fear, it’s about the reality of using this ecommerce website.
@NotAnotherEtsyCheerleader: I’m not sure where you got that idea. Nowhere in the OP does it even imply that this is malicious. Nor does anyone say that it will happen only that it could.
The reader quoted did use the word “rash” but in reference to “unprofessional events” of which store closings were only some. But then I’m not sure who you mean by “you”. The reader or Consumerist? Either way I don’t see how you expect them to gather statistics.
Did I mention that this is Consumerist?
If you don’t want stories from people posting that something happened to them you are in the wrong place.
NotAnotherEtsyCheerleader said: “I never said anyone made false claims. My point, for the last time, is that certain situations that have occurred on Etsy, are being used in a way to scare others into thinking they will be next to be shut down for malicious reasons on the part of Admin. And you are leading people to believe that it is rampant yet you provide no stats to support that claim. And I don’t mean people posting it happened to them. I mean real stats that give numbers.”
It doesn’t matter if something wrong happens one time, one hundred times or one million times!!!! IT IS STILL WRONG!
smallbizowner said: “If I am paying for a service I expect certain standard requirements to be met. Professionalism, clear policies, respectful staff, information about things that aren’t working or announcements of new features, notification of changes in the TOU, etc.”
Precisely. Instead of treating their customers (sellers) with respect and professionalism, Admin (and their cheerleaders), when pushed by users to state clear policies and procedures (for example, in the closing of a shop) often point out that the bottom line on the site is that Etsy can shut anyone down for any reason at any time. It’s “their” site and they can do anything they like to us.
As an example of the contempt with which Etsy holds its sellers, Etsy Admin created a Chat Room entitled “whos/next/brick/wall”.
Unbelievable, isn’t it? It’s been up for days. You can still see it (as I post this message) here:
[www.etsy.com]
A fish stinks from the head. This has to have been condoned by the people who run Etsy, and Rob Kalin has to take final responsibility for the mess he’s caused by not hiring professionals.
smallbizowner said: “Not to mention the fact that since people thought the autobilling was working and Etsy never sent a broadcast email to all account holders that it wasn’t, sellers were faced with very large bills.”
So if there is a snafu with any of your bills at home, like electricity/water, etc., and they stop billing you, you just ignore it? Do you not check your bank account or PayPal account to see what is clearing and what is not? If you are a big seller, or any seller for that fact, are you not checking your Etsy account to see where you stand? Yes, they made an error, but don’t act ignorant about the fact that as a business owner, you are JUST AS RESPONSIBLE for keeping your account in good standing regardless if their system is working or not. That’s how it works in the real world. I am a seller too and I always paid my bills with PayPal *before* they were due so even with their error, I was not affected. I don’t rely on others to hold my hand and lead the way. There is more to business than making pretty things.
Time and again you hear complaints about admin being inexperienced, but I think the same applies to many of the sellers on the site who have never run their own business outside of Etsy.
There’s no way to *get* statistics, when coming forward entails real risks of retaliation and negative publicity.
I posted in the fora after some of the earliest brickwall issues, asking dispassionately (I even had someone else check the wording
for anyone who had experienced a shop shut-down to contact the UEN (I think? might have been me), anonymously or otherwise, to get a sense of how many stories might still be out there.
Rob Kalin contacted me personally to tell me to stop whatever it was I was doing.
Many of the people who were FINALLY autobilled by Etsy had money taken out of their accounts twice. This had absolutely NOTHING to do with sellers being irresponsible and not keeping track of their accounts. And……most people know when they are going to be autobilled by a company who provides them a service so that they can prepare accordingly. Many sellers had no idea when the autobilling was going to happen. Some of those sellers owed large amounts of money. I know I do not leave large amounts of money sitting in my checking account for long periods of time. It’s just not a wise thing to do with your money!
It think its funny (not hahaha funny) how people keep putting words into other people’s mouths in the comments.
I’m not ignorant nor am I acting ignorant.
I never said the sellers bore no responsibility.
That wasn’t my point.
My point was that a very large company was not billing their customers monthly, thereby not collecting their fees and that company did not inform their customers that their autobilling system wasn’t working.
That’s it.
I can’t imagine any company not billing for services for months. That’s just irresponsible and inexplicable.
Now, if you would like to discuss inexperienced sellers on Etsy then perhaps you could start a new topic.
For now, this topic is Etsy and it’s business practices…or lack of business practices.
This kind of emotional response to a logical discussion is very evident on the Etsy forums by some members and some staff.
re: the autobilling
Many sellers didn’t go in and pay their bills as they were constantly told by Etsy that autobilling would be up and running soon. Then the next month would come and go and there would be another promise regarding autobilling working ‘soon’.
After so many half truths and misinformation from admin, the non-autobilling became a bit of a joke. It was also around this time that customer service levels plummetted and sellers were left wondering what exactly they were meant to be paying for.
And Etsy is currently considering building its own in-house payment system?
Just imagine …
Also, those “notifications” that mandyF speaks of were made on their Forum which Etsy says only 1% or 2% of their customers use.
No emails were sent to the full customer base until the autobilling was re-established which was after a period of months.
That hardly seems like proper disclosure or useful communication or standard practices around issues of billing and finances for a large company…well, any size company, really.
It is a shame the administration at etsy is continuing to ruin what was once a site with such promise. I haven’t been a buyer or seller on etsy for some months, I truly hoped they would get their act together, but unfortunately things seem to be worse than when I left.
As for the random store closings, yes…they do happen to more people than you think, people who are hesitant to come forward and share their stories publicly. I was the victim of one of these “mistaken” closings, as was someone who was on a street team with me. Neither one of us wanted to come forward, because quite frankly for every person out there who is sympathetic to my story there is someone one else who is ready to drag my business name through the mud, simply because they assume I must have done something wrong for etsy to take such drastic measures. I’m not interested in seeing my name brought up again & again when these things happen on etsy (and they seem to happen fairly often).
When this happened to me I relied on the income etsy provided and couldn’t afford to leave. My store was reopened (without a single apology from etsy) but for the next few months I lived in fear of that brick wall and the sudden loss of income it would bring.
Then the auto-billing fiasco happened. Auto-billing was down for months, people were confused…some assumed they had been billed only to discover they owed money, some people had in fact paid manually and were being told they still owed money by etsy’s billing system. Many of these people were posting in the forum, trying to figure out what was going on. I paid close attention to this whole ordeal, because etsy had my credit card number and that made me VERY nervous. I was shocked to see some etsy admin actually post private details about seller’s billing history in the forums, announcing to the whole of etsy that XX member who started the thread hadn’t paid their bill in 3 or 4 months. This was months ago (I’m sure someone posting here remembers) but I believe this happened in a few different threads and no apologies were made for this? I was so disgusted when I was this that honestly it was worth the loss of income to just close my shop…that is exactly what I did and I think that was the best business decision I have ever made.
Etsy is a sinking ship, and if they don’t fix something soon they are going to reach a point where they simply can’t recover. Etsy needs to clean house but unfortunately the pattern of poor decision making, awful customer service and incompetence goes right to the top, all the way back to Rob Kalin…and rather than admitting mistakes and working to change them, I can see Rob hanging on until the bitter end, regardless of etsy’s fate.
It would seem easier for Etsy to shut down the forums to hide their users discontent from the public and investor eye. However they continue to waste countless man hours on “locking” threads that show anything but love for Etsy. The reason they don’t just shut down the forums is simple, they rely on other users to help other users figure out the clunky site and how to use it. It’s laughable how on the consumerist commenters will post about lack of communication with other big companies but with Etsy there is no phone number, only email, and you will be lucky to receive a response within three weeks.
Etsy should stop wasting money and man hours on hip/indie/noncorporate how to videos, blogs, making shirts with logos and focus on the real issue at hand, their product. While they continue to focus on the wrong stuff people can continue to “buy” stuff with zero checks and balances, removing stuff from sellers stores. Currently there is zero safeguard from someone creating a fake account and “buying” thousands of items without the intent to pay, removing those items from stores and from the eyes of other buyers.
I continue to be boggled wondering if the investors even know this? Especially when Etsy touts their “page views” are up when in reality it’s merely the sellers refreshing the forums or spending hours flagging sweat shop produced goods. Thankfully they aren’t trying to sell adspace, yet.
We cannot give hard stats on how often this erroneous shop closure happens. No one but Etsy really knows how often these mistakes have happened. There are at least 20 cases that are publicly known, but it’s a reasonable assumption that many sellers do not come forward when this happens to them, since they are afraid of further retaliation by Etsy and afraid of having their names dragged through the mud by speculation. I know of several additional cases that aren’t public. In every case that did come forward to tell their story, there has been public speculation that they must be lying, or that they must have done something really bad for Etsy to close their store. They are guilty until proven innocent, and even treated as guilty after they are proven innocent. Even Etsy staff have said that mistakenly closed sellers are “deadbeats”. In the world of e-commerce, your good reputation is vital to your survival so it’s likely that the cases we know about are just the tip of the iceberg, and that there are many more victims of Etsy incompetence who are frightened into silence.
So who is fearmongering, really?
re:billing.
For 7 months, bills were not autocharged. Every month for that 7 months, sellers did still receive the automated email bill saying their bill WOULD be autocharged. When the autocharging did not happen, the sellers did not receive another email telling them that, but Etsy did make announcements on their forums which very few sellers read. No one was ever emailed and told they should be paying their bill manually, they were repeatedly told that autobilling would be working again by ‘next’ month. (and the next, and the next) Every email bill said that you could just do nothing, and your bill would be autocharged. If you chose to pay manually that was your choice but it was never told to sellers that they SHOULD be doing this. These sellers believed what Etsy told them and did what Etsy told them. Then suddenly 7 months of bills were charged in one night, triggering many banks to call Etsy sellers with fraud alarms and resulting in double charges for some sellers. Even if these sellers did have the correct amount of money set aside to pay their bill, who on earth keeps a cushion DOUBLE the size of your expected bills?
Shifting the blame for that billing fiasco to the users is absurd.
And to return to the subject of the lack of good business practices (which takes many forms – from account billing problems to the existence of forums that are used for everything but discussion between sellers)…………..I am grateful for the post here that points out that there sure is a lot of non-ecommerce activity on the site that takes a lot of manual labor to create and maintain.
So, while all that effort is being spent on mostly non-revenue producing activities like newsletters with a large list of brand new daily articles, craft classes, and other brand new sections to divert attention away from selling and buying———-there go the rules, the etiquette, the courtesy, the focus and time spent on excellent customer service, stellar customer feedback, helping sellers sell sell sell sell sell sell.
And making sellers so happy they are willing to spend time on their stores, fill them with excellent products, and extend stellar customer service to all those buyers ———well, who has the time?
You can’t profess to be an ecommerce site, and then spend 2 years being a Chat Room, Crafts Discussion Board, and Crafts Daily Newspaper. Other sites already do that, and do it well.
Either pay attention to the ecommerce, which is the core of “Buy and Sell All Things Handmade” and drop all the other sections that are not about selling and buying.
What the heck? Etsy could have easily excelled at the ecommerce mission, but they dropped it a long time ago, lost interest, and now they appear to think the whole seller base is not worth supporting. What, attention span problems? Lost interest? Turned out to be way too much actual work? Throw away this incredible seller-base baby with the extracurricular bathwater? I would walk 5,000 miles to have a customer base like Etsy has. All those people interested in handmade!!!!!! What a concept!
can’t wait for an etsy admin. clean up.
I’m sorry, but I am still so stunned to see that a company that just brought on a 27 million dollar investment group has the mind-blowing juvenile stance of posting here about “grumpy” people and making a permanent chat room ridiculing who’s next to be shut down.
[www.etsy.com]
I have taken a screen shot of this and I will be sending it to their investors. They need to rein these people in before they get sued.
I am a seller on etsy. I have to say that I have seen all of this first hand and it has been so scary that I am actively making plans to move myself away from the etsy site.
I heard this guy speak on the radio today about his book (Simply Success Business Book by Jack Miller) and listening to him stress over and over how customer service is the one key to business success and how peopel are demanding better service more now than ever and if you blow it you will will find yourselves with an exdous. That it’s the cheapest investment you can make that reaps the most rewards.
(He was Founder and CEO of Quill Corporation, that he sold to staples for BIG billions)
I think we need to send his book to Etsy. Sounds like they could use the words of a man who built from the bottom up and knows “how it’s done”.
SmokeyJoe says;
And Etsy is currently considering building its own in-house payment system?
With the inexperience of the admin running Etsy at this time it’s a scary thought that they have my credit card details on record!
I would feel much safer if I was able to use PayPal to pay my account.
The day Etsy mandates all payments for my merchandise go through them as a middleman, is the day I leave Etsy as a buyer or seller. They are not a consignment operation or a retailer.
“Just a venue” means hands off my money.
by outtolunch at 03:55 PM on 02/28/08
Either pay attention to the ecommerce, which is the core of “Buy and Sell All Things Handmade” and drop all the other sections that are not about selling and buying.
What the heck? Etsy could have easily excelled at the ecommerce mission, but they dropped it a long time ago, lost interest, and now they appear to think the whole seller base is not worth supporting. What, attention span problems? Lost interest? Turned out to be way too much actual work? Throw away this incredible seller-base baby with the extracurricular bathwater? I would walk 5,000 miles to have a customer base like Etsy has. All those people interested in handmade!!!!!! What a concept!
………………
Excellent points. I see so many man hours used for “how to decorate your bedroom” and “making a plushie”. I was shocked the other day they had a chat room with video stream about “what is rss”. I wonder if the employees or management for that matter know how to run a real business?
If they dumped all the extracurricular activities they could improve the site beyond my imagination. Have you ever tried their search engine? That’s when you really see how trying to be indie and hip fails.
For those who believe that “mistakes were made, but Etsy will do something about them”, I’d like to refer you to a revived thread currently on the Forums — it was originally from April 2007 and is all sellers being worried about the procedures for shop closures.
[www.etsy.com]
In that thread Admin members say that procedures are being worked on and that everything will be better after April 22 when those procedures come out, and that no one will be closed down for a single complaint.
If anyone needs any proof that Etsy is fundamentally broken in this area, you need look no further. They’ve done nothing to change this problem in TEN MONTHS.
Is it looking to anyone else like @NotAnotherEtsyCheerleader is somewhat of a troll? The story changes just conveniently enough every post, and every time a factual mislead is identified, readers are somehow “missing the point.” I was terrible at the college logic classes, but @elizabeth_m called it pretty well.
The point of the original post:
1. Etsy staff has been acting unprofessionally.
Have they? Even “closed” threads keep admin posts alive and well. We can find them and look for proof of whether or not public interaction is unprofessional. It would help if the kind hosts at Consumerist would let us post longer URLs, but I suppose we could use the tool of [www.tinyurl.com] to post here and sort the facts of the matter from a public view.
2. Etsy staff has closed shops without explanation to those involved.
I’m willing to accept for a fact that this has happened. I also have the OPINION that Etsy staff is fully capable of disclosing an explanation for what happened without violating anyone’s privacy, and of the opinion real damage control starts with private apologies.
3. Etsy is going to go down in flames because of rampant staff behavioral problems.
Maybe – I haven’t yet formed an opinion on this. Etsy has some great staff, and they have a couple of real stinkers that may not be in the best positions for their personalities – even if they think they want those positions. I do have the opinion that Rob is throwing hires at problems instead of solving them, which is not a great way to allocate resources; I believe slowing growth to preserve or maintain quality is always a good idea.
What I’ve seen isn’t too confidence instilling, but I’m doing a modest business and I always have a backup plan because it’s just good business to have one.
We really don’t have the whole picture, and that’s where Etsy is at fault. For the kind of business Rob says he aspires to, transparency is key – if you explain to people what your side of things is, they might still be angry, but they don’t start imagining things.
who dished out the 27 mil.?? what company??
The investors are Union Square Ventures, Hubert Burda Media, and Jim Breyer at Accel Partners.
The details are in this Storque post (assuming tinyurl works):
[tinyurl.com]
…and it doesn’t work. You’ll need to search under Etsy, News, and for the story titled “Etsy’s First Five Years.”
thanks fat chic
Just wanted to say that it’s pretty much a standard proceedure to inform unhappy internet customers that ONE of their options is to contact the FBI’s cybercrime’s division. The fact that everyone is focusing on this particular fact, makes me wonder about all the other ‘facts’. Of course, it does make a more interesting story if the facts are bloated just a bit.
Etsy watcher here who was waiting for the big IPO.
Sure there are three sides to every story but you learn a lot about a company and how it operates when you see how they handle their customers and themselves in public. Someone needs to send Mr Kalin some handmade common sense and maturity.
Had hoped this company would be bought out and run with some dignity, instead it’s been a train wreck that just won’t end.
The downfall began with the flea market crap and imported supplies dominating the site. The forum is a black eye, you quickly learn who not to buy from. The hawking of wares is embarrassing. The FDA needs a closer look here as well. It’s scary what some are selling in the food and cosmetic aisles…miracle cures and bacteria from unlicensed facilities. Oh, but it’s homemade!
Etsy/Rob, you should have stuck to your original plan. Your competition is learning from your mistakes.
Etsy may be Indie, hip and on Martha but it is already old news, it’s time to flush swimmy down the bowl.
RIP
PS, on second thought, since it could be a brilliant site, perhaps Rob should hook up with Martha. She knows how to run her empire. It would be a “good thing” for Etsy.
Ask Emeril.
There has been a very long silence from the powers-that-be, but Etsy has finally responded to some of the issues raised in this article by calling (at the last minute) a “treehouse” meeting in a chat room at Etsy to discuss policies and procedures.
It remains to be seen whether this will result in any real change.
Ah, I see there has already been a comment from “treehousedweller”
I am an Etsy seller of over two years.
In my experience, though the mission is fantastic, they’re so
focused on building the handmade revolution, that they don’t think they
need to learn how to run a business. There are some wheels that I don’t
feel should be re-invented.
One of my personal favorite Etsy-splosions was when the entire
billing system exploded and hundreds to thousands of sellers got
double-billed all at once…or got billed for multiple months of fees
at once that Etsy had promised would be auto-billed months previous.
Bounced bank accounts right and left…this is a situation where I’m
sure the admins were a little stressed…but that doesn’t mean you
should blame your sellers for your mistake. It happened to me…it
happened to others. Yes, I still use the site, but it is a cautious
relationship
In my experience, depending on who you are dealing with in Etsy
administration, the response you get may be friendly, angry, insulting,
uninformed, pleasantly ignorant, or non-existent. The throughline is
inconsistency.
On top of that, they may tell you one thing…then turn around and
insist that they didn’t tell you what they told you…and change their
mind.
There doesn’t seem to be a core customer service vision…there also
doesn’t seem to be an awareness that the sellers ARE the customers.
Even the ones that the admins don’t think are “cool” enough for
them…I hate to say it…but it does feel like there’s an in crowd and
an out crowd. I just avoid it all by focusing on my business now, and
avoiding the Etsy drama.
Etsy has provided the Forum for me to start my own business, and
grow it at my own pace, which has been fantastic, and I am grateful. My
hope for them has always been that they will quit reinventing the
“running a business” wheel and hire some staffers with better customer
service and system building skills. I wish they would take proven
business systems and principles and tweak them according to their indie
vision, instead of accidentally assaulting sellers with inconsistency…
I certainly don’t feel that people need to be “afraid” of Etsy or
their admins. But those who sign up to sell need to be aware that they
may experience an uncomfortable amount of inconsistency with site
systems, and admin reactions to issues that can come up in the normal
course of business.
I just had to laugh. When this article first hit, you saw the comment by “brepettis” on the first page, saying that Etsy is so great and this article is only based on a “grumpy” person.
Hilarious today that Etsy announces that they just hired Brepettis. Just hired? [www.etsy.com]
Really makes me laugh that someone just hired by Etsy has the attitude of users just being big “grumpy” meanies. You have got to be kidding me?
I just hope someone submits a follow up if and when the issues get resolved. I’m following a couple of threads in their forum but it doesn’t look like this is going to get fixed quickly.
I don’t understand the users at Etsy getting upset with Consumerist but then the ones who are upset hadn’t read Consumerist before. They don’t know that this is one of the nicer (if not the nicest) “Company does something wrong” articles up here. This is not a write up for a company that is disliked. Try searching the site for “debt collector”.
“We wish Etsy and its sellers the best of luck sorting this out.”
Unfortunately unless this is settled on the terms stated by UEN editors regarding all policies, procedures pertaining to sellers and admin this will never be resolved. Any constructive criticism offered is presented by UEN editors in such a polarizing way that it is lost on most sellers who either ignore the frequent “my way or the highway” forum threads or feel their businesses are threatened by the constant, increasingly publicized negativity.
I have been selling on etsy since ’05 and selling fulltime online since ’98 having grown my business on 3 separate start up venues. There will always be mistakes, missteps, unhappy customers and reworking of policy to improve. In etsy’s case the virulance of the core group of extremely dissatisfied etsy sellers, with a few added and subtracted as time goes on, in aggressively and continuously voicing their demands along with predictions of etsy’s demise should those demands not be followed stands alone.
In the latest episode Etsy has apologized for the erroneous store closures and is reworking the policy which led to the mistakes. If the result is not up to par for those on UEN, editors and self proclaimed “permanently jaded” past users, we will get continuous criticism in the etsy forum, UEN and whatever blogs they can convince their claims are justified.
This is done supposedly for the good of all sellers on etsy but I really have to question how beneficial it is to all of those who rely on income from etsy to live and pay bills to see what are expected normal growing pains/mistakes fairly common in any new business venture blown up into a form of extreme seller abuse and advertised as such on blogs like this.
There are many things I would like to see improved on etsy and many things have improved since I joined and in all honesty I feel my business is more of a victim due to a small number of vocal unhappy sellers and their crusade in the name of all etsy sellers then I do of etsy’s missteps.
I really do hope etsy works out, not just for me but for all of us who have illusion in this great idea, Rob K make your staff professional and things will fall into place. Best of luck to all of us who want it.
“In the latest episode Etsy has apologized for the erroneous store closures”
Have they? Have they made public retractions of the “deadbeats” accusation, and have they stated the sellers did nothing wrong? So far all I’ve heard is that they PLAN to make apologies, (which is encouraging, don’t get me wrong), but not that it’s actually happened yet.
I think I will wait to hear from the mistakenly suspended sellers themselves before I believe any true apology has taken place.
A first step has been taken, it’s very encouraging. But there’s a long way to go still.
They are aware mistakes were made, they have asked the community for input into policy changes. Any apology to the couple of store owners who had their shops closed by mistake is private and none of my business.
The public statement that mistakes were made and are being addressed is the extent of what is owed me. I am very satisfied with etsy as it stands today warts and all, it has provided me a platform for a full time living although I choose to also sell on other venues. None of the venues are perfect, all of them have made mistakes. Etsy alone has been the most responsive to the community.
As in the past if etsy doesn’t change in the way editors of UEN demands they do we will never hear the end of it. We are in a recession here in the states with most forcasting a severe recession in the near future. Good luck to them if they decide articles like this is the way to deal with their overblown grievances.
Etsy provides a service for many people who need that extra income and many others who sell fulltime. Agendas threatening the downfall of etsy should a certain list of demands not be met won’t be welcome.
I think that since their shop closures were publicly viewable (any customer looking for their store saw a brick wall) , and admins made public statements they were deadbeats, then the apology/retraction should also be public.
You can’t libel someone in public and then retract it in private.
Wherever you choose to draw your line in the sand if etsy does not act as you and UEN expects we will certainly hear about it ad nauseum. The majority of etsy sellers on the forums, a very small % of total sellers, have moved on from this.
If Etsy dealt with communication issues properly and in a useful manner there would be absolutely no need for an off-site information clearing house such as UEN.
Saying that only a small number of sellers had their stores shut down mistakenly so everything is fine is ridiculous.
Sure it doesn’t bother people who haven’t had it happen. However, if it is your store that is shut down of course you would have an interest in specific policies, terms and if there is any way to have your case reviewed.
As it stands no seller has any recourse and no rules are in place and no standard practices are in place to prevent it from happening again. That is completely unacceptable.
Anyone who wishes to excuse Etsy over this is naive. Unless sellers come together and require useful policies and procedures then it’s all just a crapshoot.
Since Etsy doesn’t do any mainstream advertising, sellers are left to bring in buyers that makes the Etsy/Seller relationship far more intertwined.
The number of humans that are willing to put their heads in the sand because this is Etsy is astonishing to me.
Wake up. Business is business.
And are we so devoid of empathy that we can’t put ourselves in the shoes of another to see the larger issues and deal with them appropriately.
Why must we vilify people who have been wronged because they speak up?
“If Etsy dealt with communication issues properly and in a useful manner there would be absolutely no need for an off-site information clearing house such as UEN.”
A clearinghouse? On UEN I see etsy news followed by a bunch of negative posts about EVERTHING etsy by UEN editors, banned etsy members and disgruntled sellers. Any constructive criticism is buried in anger, resentment, making fun of those who don’t see the problems as they do, insulting admins including namecalling and just general bashing. This article was quite a coup for UEN.
I choose to get my news through etsy and have no problem doing so.
“Saying that only a small number of sellers had their stores shut down mistakenly so everything is fine is ridiculous.”
First I didn’t say everything was fine. I said mistakes were made, acknowledged and the community was included in the decision making regarding policy changes to prevent further mistakes. What I did say was what is reported in this article as some gross version of seller abuse is actually something that has happened on every venue I’ve sold on.
“As it stands no seller has any recourse and no rules are in place and no standard practices are in place to prevent it from happening again. That is completely unacceptable.”
Pure drama. In the years I’ve been selling online every venue has made mistakes including shop closing errors, has had to revisit policies to prevent further mistakes and no matter how tight policies are if humans are involved mistakes will happen. If my store gets closed in error I’ll be mad but as long as steps are taken to improve I’ll deal with it. It’s a tiny risk on all online venues.
Will I post in the forums in a panic- no, I understand from experience mistakes happen and immediate contact with whoever is in charge is not always possible.
“Anyone who wishes to excuse Etsy over this is naive. Unless sellers come together and require useful policies and procedures then it’s all just a crapshoot.”
Experience and perspective have taught me to look at what is the worst that can happen, prepare for it and move on. Etsy to it’s credit is one of the most open to the community venues with traffic online. It may be a crapshot for you but I’ve been doing this for too long not to understand the risks and benefits of selling on any venue online. The odds are most definately in my favor especially on etsy.
“Why must we vilify people who have been wronged because they speak up?”
I didn’t vilify any seller that was wronged. Those directly involved should expect an apology. The problem for some is that I haven’t vilified etsy either.
“Wherever you choose to draw your line in the sand”
Love these ridiculous militaristic metaphors.
I just want common decency. I guess that is unreasonable to some people.
Luckily, Etsy does seem to care about such things, or at least is starting to lean toward it.
“I choose to get my news through etsy and have no problem doing so.”
Do you also think Walmart’s corporate PR statements are a good and impartial place to get news about Walmart? Do you think Pres. Bush is a good source of information about the Iraq war? Companies have an agenda, Etsy employees have an agenda, customers have an agenda, innocent users who have been defamed and lost income have an agenda. You should use critical thinking to evaluate all sources of information, not just blogs.
“Love these ridiculous militaristic metaphors.”
Actually in the english language it generally means
“If you draw a line in the sand, you establish a limit beyond which things will be unacceptable.”
[www.usingenglish.com]
Although it does have it’s originas in the military specifically the alamo and the roman empire, common usage does not suggest a militaristic stance by the user.
Using the origin to imply my opinion is somehow militaristic or morally lacking is a weak argument at best, a cheap shot at worst. Regardless it has nothing to do with my comment.
“Do you also think Walmart’s corporate PR statements are a good and impartial place to get news about Walmart?”
That was in response to UEN being a clearinghouse for etsy news.
I know exactly how to evaluate news from different sources and how to apply it to my business and my life.
I do expect to get updates, policy changes, etc. on etsy and have no problem doing so.
I find the linked sources of info and hopefully facts are most important in judging the legitimacy of “news” on blogs. Exactly why all 4 linked sources for this article are extremely questionable for me. When verifiable fact is seriously outweighed by a particular agenda, I take everthing with a large grain of salt.
Critical thinking is a lost art and the bane of apologists.
…and narcissists.