In this Storque article Etsy admin bethela announces a change in listing times for all items renewed, from today (April 21, 2008) onward.
Excerpt:
Currently, when you renew an item, 4 months are added to the end of your existing listing.
Example: An item listed on February 9, 2008 will expire on June 9, 2008. If you renew today, April 18, 2008, your listing would expire October 9, 2008. Renew again, another four months are added and the item will expire February 9, 2009, and so on.
As part of our ongoing initiative to upgrade the site’s ease of use and improve everyone’s experience, we want to avoid this problem and have made the following change: if you renew an item, four months will be added to the item listing from the date of renewal.
Example: An item listed on February 9, 2008 will expire on June 9, 2008. If you renew today, April 18, 2008, the listing will expire on August 18, 2008.
Current listings with expiration dates beyond four months from today will not be affected. This will only impact listings renewed from today forward. You can read more about this and other upcoming changes in Rob’s summary of our recent Town Hall meeting.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Mo, I was never in favor of re-listing and it never made any biz sense to me. When inventory gets stale, or does not sell, there used to be a good reason. And I dislike stale merchandise. (Things are a bit different today when sales are nil, nada, zippo.)
But, would really like to know the mystery behind the re-list or die a slow death myth, as well as that so many bought into this really anti-retail idea. Even the large online retailers change their inventory constantly. What does not sell either goes to Overstock or is yanked and replaced by fresh products (and constantly).
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:45 am
“Or is it because sellers haven’t spent enough money lately on renewing and relisting?”
Maybe it’s that one - I am boycotting renewals. I’m selling the same amount by just pushing elsewhere. My bill is half what it was when I spent a month renewing items.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Yes, I agree that the “change” is no big deal. My expired listings have actually never expired, so it never worked in its old formation.
Is there another agenda here? Is the renewal date issue related to Etsy’s projections about what they expect to take in as revenue from having created a site based on re-listing and renewing listings? Is the expiration date tied to their revenue-projections? Is it an admission that Etsy is relying on the fact that the site just about requires stores to re-list and renew? Because they do not provide any other marketing and promotion tools to help sellers get some attention? Because they have “trained” everyone to just look at “new” listings and nothing else? (Guaranteeing that the Showcases are a total waste of money? since who looks there anyway?)
Or is it because it was easier to “fix” this expiration date than to actually do some real work on site improvements that sellers have wanted for a long time? Or is it because sellers haven’t spent enough money lately on renewing and relisting?
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:09 am
yeah, I agree. Doesn’t bother me much, I have some items paid up until 2013.
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:16 am
this change doesn’t bother me in the slightest and actually makes good sense. I am irritated by the fact that things don’t expire in the opposite order they’re in my store.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
Uh, yeah. Once again Etsy does not communicate.
The change is fine, and makes sense. Surprising people with new red text is very uncool.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:01 am
The new red notice isn’t noticeable AT ALL. It looks identical to the previous renewal screen and I bet a fortune that many people don’t realize the change. they need to mass email sellers…period
April 21st, 2008 at 11:12 pm
And now the site is down? I can’t seem to get in, anyone else having trouble?