Archive for Features
May 22, 2008 at 3:08 pm · Filed under Categories · By JB
On Thursday, May 29 at 4PMish Eastern U.S. time, Etsy will be adding Collectibles as a top-level category.
The Collectibles category is for handmade items, and is intended to include dolls and doll accoutrements, figurines, miniatures, plush animals, and other “toys” for adult collectors. As well, some items of non-functional home decoration, such as ornaments, or a tole-painted teakettle that is for decoration only, will fit into this category.
source: this Storque article
Discuss the new category in this forum thread.
UPDATE:
The Collectibles category has been withdrawn for reconsideration.
May 5, 2008 at 6:03 pm · Filed under Chat, Etsy Communications, Events, The Future · By JB
As reported in this Storque article, Etsy is holding a chat to gather community input on the issue of Etsy sellers having employees. This issue has come up a few times recently in the Etsy forums.
The meeting is Friday May 9
6 pm Central European time zone
5 pm UK time time zone
12 noon eastern USA time zone
11 am central USA time zone
10 am mountain USA time zone
9 am pacific USA time zone
Join us for a discussion and feedback session about employees and your Etsy shop. Rob, aka Rokali, co-founder and CEO of Etsy, will be leading the workshop.
When: Friday, May 9, 12 noon (Eastern US time) times on the Virtual Labs schedule are displayed in your local time
Where: Treehouse Room, Virtual Labs
…
Agenda:
For those selling handmade goods: Are employees necessary for a seller to “make a living making things”? Are the items still “handmade”?
What sort of hired help is needed for handmade sellers? Is *what* potential employees do for the shop relevant?
Does the number of employees that a business has impact whether the shop belongs on Etsy? If so, how many is too many?
Are different rules necessary for sellers of commercial supplies and vintage goods? Are employees acceptable for these types of shops?
What sort of information do you need (for example, links to information about employment law) to grow a business that includes employees?
Should sellers who are outsourcing, involved in collectives, and employing people be approved by Etsy? What sort of approval process would you be interested in?
UPDATE Monday May 12 by JB:
The minutes to the meeting are here
May 5, 2008 at 4:43 pm · Filed under Categories, Features, Search · By GreenMamba
This Storque article briefly outlines the changes.
Today, we launched some exciting changes to Etsy’s search engine. These changes were requested by the community and we think they help improve the shopping experience on Etsy.
We’ve separated item search into three new searches: Handmade, Vintage, and Supplies. The default is Handmade, with Vintage and Supplies available in the drop-down. You can also select “All items” to search Handmade, Supplies, and Vintage all at once.
Consequently, it is critical that sellers categorize and tag their items correctly in order to place them within the proper search. Last week, we posted some information that will help you with that process. You can read the initial heads up here — Tech Updates: Upcoming Changes to Search and Categories — and its companion, follow-up article here — Upcoming Changes to Search: Your Questions Answered.
Just to clarify, category bleed is addressed when searching via specific top-level categories, rather than via the search bar at the top of each page. The drop-down menu does default to handmade, and includes the other search options, both new and old, but searches the entire database, not within specific categories.
HeyMichelle says here:
I mean- the “no bleed” is for categories. By categories, I mean the category browser. Search does not search just within that category…
If you would like to search *just* the art category, type in your additional search terms from the Art category, a subcategory, or subsubcategory from the Categories pages.
There are numerous threads following this change, in several forum sections. There is also some speculation that the change has affected the ability to list new items in at least some categories. See this thread in Bugs.
update by JB:
The bug linked above appears to be resolved and was not a true bug, but a problem on one user’s computer.
May 5, 2008 at 2:37 pm · Filed under Views / Counters · By quirke
In this thread, Marymary asks sellers to vote on whether they would prefer view counts to remain public, or to become private.
marymary says:
Hey guys!
We have seen several community requests for view counts to be made private for shop owner’s eyes only and would like to research this request a little further.
In the thread below, please state YES or NO, followed by your reason (if you have one) for making views private to shop owner’s eyes only!
Something to think about (but you don’t need to post about):
* How do you use your own views?
* Have you ever looked at the views of other’s shops and for what reasons?
Thanks so much for all of your feedback,
Mary
April 29, 2008 at 8:39 pm · Filed under Categories, Search · By quirke
This Storque article answers some of the most frequently asked questions regarding the upcoming changes to search and categories.
The discussion is still continuing in the related forum thread here.
April 28, 2008 at 12:09 pm · Filed under Categories, Search · By quirke
In this Storque article, Marymary describes the long-anticipated separation of vintage and supplies from handmade items in the Etsy search function, as well as other important changes to categories and search. An excerpt from the article:
Hello Etsians!
On Monday, May 5, 2008, some important and exciting changes are happening with searching and categories. These changes are in response to feedback from all around the Etsy community, and were first introduced back in February with Rob’s Focus on Handmade Storque article. Here’s a rundown of what is to come:
We’ll be separating item search into three new searches: Handmade, Vintage, and Supplies.
Handmade Items – This is the default search. This searches all items on Etsy that are not tagged with “commercial” and do not have “vintage” as the first tag. Handmade supplies will still appear in this search. You can search tags and titles or tags, titles, and descriptions.
Supplies – This will search all of the supplies on Etsy, both handmade and commercial. Any item tagged “supplies” will show up in the results.
Vintage – This special vintage search returns only items within the Vintage category. This means items with vintage as their first tag (selected from the dropdown menu in the listing process).
The existing search will also remain available. Just select “All items” from the search bar to search handmade, supplies, and vintage all at once.
We’ll also be making changes to the category browser. Currently a top-level category such as Jewelry shows only items within the Jewelry category. The subcategories and sub-subcategories contain any items that have the tag “jewelry,” but are not necessarily in the Jewelry category. We call this “category bleed.”
The changes on May 5 will eliminate category bleed. All subcategories will only show items from within that category. Meaning the subcategories of “jewelry” will no longer pull up jewelry supplies.
The Patterns category is also gearing up for change, although this will not be part of the May 5 update. In order to help keep things organized, Patterns will be moving into the supplies category. A new drop-down will appear in the listing process for Patterns, prompting you to select handmade (if it’s your own pattern) or commercial (if it’s someone else’s pattern)
There is an accompanying forum thread here.
April 11, 2008 at 4:58 pm · Filed under Etsy Communications, Events, Features, Miscellaneous, The Future · By quirke
Today’s Town Hall meeting in the Treehouse of the Virtual Labs was attended by over 130 people. While a transcript will be available later in the Storque, here are a few notes in advance:
General notes:
-Etsy currently has 73,478 shops with at least one item
-There are currently 60 Etsy employees
-Engineering comprises ½ of the company
Rob said that they are developing 2 major changes for the near future and 6 other developments for further down the road.
The 6 future developments are:
-currency conversion
-shop stats for sellers
-dynamic Team sections
-“stuff with video”
-“real-time multi-user stuff” (like the virtual labs)
-an in-house payment system
The 2 upcoming changes are:
Changes to Listing Periods for Renewals – This change will mean that when you renew an item, instead of adding 4 months from the previous expiration date, the additional 4 months will start from the date of renewal.
Changes to Search/Categories – Top level categories will be clarified, and “filters” will be added, such as “who is it for?” and “what is it made of?”.
Other items of interest:
-revamping the forums is being looked at from a database perspective right now and remains under development
-the “first draft” of the separation of supplies/vintage from search is completed
-supplies/vintage will hopefully get their own place by the end of the year
-when shop stats are provided there will be different levels of stats available starting with free, and then more detailed stats costing “a few bucks”
A great many other smaller issues were discussed – we will link to the transcript once it appears in the Storque.
UPDATE April 15 by JB
The transcript of the town hall meeting is posted here
The Storque article summarizing the meeting is here
April 9, 2008 at 9:33 pm · Filed under Etsy Communications, Events, The Future · By JB
The Storque has announced the next Town Hall meeting with Etsy founder Rokali, at 4:00pm EST on Friday, April 11th in the Treehouse room of the Virtual Labs.
A couple caveats:
The room will fill up quickly. We’re working on a Balcony feature, which will increase the capacity greatly. Till then, it’s first come, first served.
Since there’s no single time that everyone in our global community can attend, so each meeting will be recorded and posted in the Storque for your re-viewing pleasure.
editorial- the article says EST (eastern standard time) but I am guessing they actually mean EDT, since New York does observe Daylight Savings time and it is in effect right now. This is important when figuring the time differential from GMT.
Time conversion:
4 PM, EDT Eastern USA
3 PM, CDT Central USA
2 PM, MDT Mountain USA
1 PM, PDT Pacific USA
8 PM GMT/UTC
9 PM United Kingdom (UK is now on Summer / Daylight Saving Time (NOT GMT))
10 PM Central Europe time zone, (+2 GMT), in countries which are currently observing Summer / Daylight Saving Time (which I think is most of them). This covers France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, etc.
April 9, 2008 at 3:36 pm · Filed under Features, Miscellaneous, The Future · By GreenMamba
In this thread admin emilybidwell announces Etsy’s plan to add a dedicated policy page to seller shops.
emilybidwell says:
The community has suggested a Seller Policy Page for better shop organization. We think that sounds like a great idea! If we created a seller policy page, what would you want it to look like?
Here’s what we have been brainstorming so far, but it’s all on the drawing board, so anything can change:
-The link would exist on your Shop Home Page under “Profile” in blue AND at the bottom of each listing.
-The page might look similar to the profile page
-Adding a policy would be optional
-If you don’t add a policy, the page would be blank (like an empty profile page).
-There would be sections for different aspects of policy: payment, shipping, refund/exchange, general
-If you don’t fill out a suggested section, the section will not appear in public in any way
-There will not be a text limit
Posted at 2:16 pm, April 9 2008 EST
Be sure to add your own ideas and suggestions to the Policy Page Wish List.
(At this time, there is no firm ETA.)
April 7, 2008 at 4:48 pm · Filed under Alchemy, Features · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article, admin kfarrell details some new Alchemy features:
Alchemy is almost a month old now, and after gathering feedback from a variety of places we have a round of updates that should make your Alchemy experience even better.
Changes include:
- RSS feeds for Alchemy searches
- A new “Batch Decline” option at the bottom of the bid list, allowing you to decline all undecided bids once you’ve selected your seller
- A new text field to send an optional message when you accept or decline a bid
- Updated text throughout Alchemy to make things easier to understand
- Hotlinking of URLs in bids
- The ability to email an Alchemy request to a friend
- A flagging form to fill out if you come across Alchemy listings that break the DOs and DON’Ts
- General bug fixes
We’re also changing Alchemy a little so a buyer may back out up until the point where the seller confirms the bid. This change has been in response to many requests from buyers who accepted a bid and did not hear back from their seller, finding themselves stuck in a stalemate.
Join the forum discussion going on here.
UPDATE - 9 April 2008 by GreenMamba
Accept/decline bid issue - Status: Resolved
Following the introduction of the new Alchemy features, there were a number of reports from members who were unable to either accept or decline their Alchemy requests. In this thread, RD announced (page 5) that the issue had been duplicated and a fix was being implemented. It has since been resolved.
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