Raven Feathers

[spiralngphoenix]

I've been thinking again and further investigating a few things regarding Etsy. Several years ago, when I had the studio, I had actually ceased using Etsy as a sales venue due to some issues with them regarding such things as, oh, not correcting HUGE technical issues for sellers, blatantly ignoring seller complaints (to the point of deleting forum posts that they didn't like), and other just general poor business practices.

As I'm working more and more towards trying to actually sell things, I've been researching back into these things to see if they've improved any. Turns out, they apparently haven't. In addition, they've recently added a few more issues to the mix, including increasing delays in correcting serious technical issues (changes made to sales functions shutting down ability to actually sell and taking several days to fix the issue), further customer service issues, and serious privacy violations. They have also decided that they are now going to start turning themselves into a social networking site, instead of the retail site that they are. Apparently about a month or so ago they also had a "glitch" that posted everyone's full names in very public locations, which is unacceptable as it violated part of the disclosure agreement in the contract. Their response to this was to fix it (after they got lambasted by their sellers for it) and then issue a statement that, instead of being an apology, informed sellers that they should really list their personal names on their sites because it gave them more credibility. Um, what? The list goes on...

Needless to say, I don't particularly care for the idea of working with these folks anymore. I'm looking into alternate online sales options. Most likely it's going to be through Webs.com, as they are free, not only allow stores but are designed to be just that, I don't have to deal with listing and consignment fees, and they are much more professional than Etsy. Just as I currently do with Etsy, I'll have a link to the sales site, only it will be more secure for both myself and customers. It will also be Google searchable, which Etsy is not. As I've had a grand total of one sale through Etsy in the 3 1/2 years I've been on the site, I'm not in the least concerned that it'll affect my sales any.

This is my plan for this week. Get a new online store set up and everything off Etsy ported over to it.

I have no idea what to call it yet, though, as the current store name is no longer appropriate and actually belongs to a failed attempt, and I'm superstitious. (It's like naming another boat "Titanic"... it's bad luck.)