Based on user feedback, admin is planning some changes to Alchemy as described in this Storque article. Here’s an excerpt:
Here are a few things that we’re going to do, based on the community’s input:
1. Add a flagging system for Alchemy requests. These flags will allow the community to notify Etsy when they think a request is in violation of Etsy’s rules. Etsy will investigate each case as we currently do with flagged items. (More about this below).
2. Allow editing requests prior to the first bid being placed on the request. Once a bid has been made, the request is locked so that all bidders are bidding on the same request.
3. Link directly to the bidder’s shop in the bid via a text link, so buyers can more easily check out that seller’s other items and overall style.
4. Make searching for items within Alchemy more efficient.
There will also be an open discussion on Alchemy on Friday March 14th (today) at 11am EST in the Virtual Labs Treehouse.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am
GraceUnderFire, that has always irritated me too about the “customer appreciation” picture. I like to leave feedack as soon as I receive the item,but I’ve always wished that I could add a picture later once I’ve had a chance to use the item. If they did it so that the picture didn’t show up until the feedback recipient accepted or approved it, there wouldn’t be any chance of unpleasantness later.
Quite frankly, I’m so uninterested in Alchemy. If I wanted something custom made I would probably still look for a seller who makes similar items and just convo them. That’s how I happened to do an Alchemy back when it was available before. The seller I contacted suggested we do it through Alchemy, so we did. But it wasn’t my first point of contact to get the item I wanted.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:42 am
The problem with posting pics once the item is listed as “sold” is the same problem with “customer appreciation” pics in feedback. People want their feedback ASAP, but sometimes it takes a while to get pics taken and uploaded. This is especially true with supplies, where you have to actually use them first, then take pics, then upload. There have been times when I”ve really wanted to show a supply seller what I’ve done with their materials, but I couldn’t do it in feedback without delaying the feedback for several weeks to months.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Yeah I expect they will say that. :p
But it’s badly designed if that is the case. The Buyer might miss important details of the bid by reading the convo and thinking that is the complete bid. It doesn’t say anywhere in the convo to go to “your alchemy” to read the full details of the bid.
I just found another badly designed thing- as soon as the winning bidder confirms the order, the item jumps into their sold items and they can’t upload the picture. They confirm the order before making the item so obviously they would not have any photo to upload, yet. And now they never can upload a photo because it’s in the sold items! I think the flow is just not ideal right now. There are steps in the wrong order, steps missing, and steps where both people scratch their heads saying “what now?”. I think we should all consider the next few weeks the Beta period even though Etsy isn’t calling it that. It’s not as frustrating if you tell yourself “this is just beta”.
I think they will eventually get it sorted out, though. The changes needed are not monumental.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Oh but that’s not a bug! That’s how it’s designed :p
March 15th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I just finalized an alchemy request, the item is showing in my purchases section but there’s no “Pay Now” link anywhere! I am waiting for a paypal invoice. I think a “Pay now” button would be a very good thing to add.
Another thing am not sure if they fixed is the bug where the bidder’s description is truncated in the convo and email. I reported this bug to support on the day Alchemy was released, since I cannot post in the bugs forum. That’s been 3-4 days now and no response from Support, so I don’t know if they fixed it without replying, or just deleted my email unread like most of the other support emails I’ve sent in the past 6 months. I probably should start emailing them from a different email address or something, I think my emails to support get funneled directly to their trash folder! :-s
March 15th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Like many, I was eagerly awaiting the return of Alchemy, which I had glimpsed briefly in its original incarnation before its disappearance, but never got to see in action. That said, it is soooo disappointing that Etsy doesn’t take the time to beta-test their features before completely integrating them. There are so many tweaks needed to Alchemy that they may very well end up doing a mini re-write. Totally inefficient.
It needs (at a glance):
1) an integrated payment feature, which routes through the shopping cart
2) an on-site flagging feature, that is NOT weighted toward volume of user complaints, but which routes items directly to the flagging admins, who then objectively use the published TOS and D&Ds as the guideline for what is allowed
3) a basic category system
4) a price range field, rather than the awkward - and often unrealistic - Ideal Price
5) ability for participating sellers to upload photos during the bidding process
6) a separate field for the completed item description
7) an icon or other mark to designate closed requests
But, perhaps most disturbing, and potentially damaging, is the Private Alchemy Request Custom Item link that is now in every Etsy shop, regardless of whether the seller offers custom work or not. The feature is not truly opt-in if the seller is forced to display a misleading link. The official argument is that it is there to promote site-wide consistency. But what it will do is confuse and frustrate buyers. It creates an unrealistic expectation that may end up losing the non-participating sellers business. Not good.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Yes, Quirke, sometimes they tell us it was on the backburner, sometimes they act like they’ve been working on it all this time.
One way or the other, it’s not as polished as it should be, and they might as well have waited a while longer and done some realistic design or testing. Of course, that would be completely out of character for Etsy, so nevermind.
I figured out how to best respond to the private alchemy requests, but I do wish they would explain the whole thing a bit better.
One thing I’m not pleased about is how now we have another confusing thing to explain to new customers… as if trying to tell people how to read their convos wasn’t enough, now I have to explain how to use the Alchemy system, also?
March 14th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I posted a request on alchemy and it took so much time to sort through the bids and associated notices that it just was not worth it…for things that are impossible to find it might be, but hell…I’d wait until I have a few hours to kill over the course of three days before ever doing that again!
Because there’s also that lovely little feature where there’s no integrated payment!