Archive for Miscellaneous
July 23, 2008 at 5:17 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous, Site Maintenance · By GreenMamba
Here’s the official Storque announcement:
Dear Etsians,
Etsy will be conducting site maintenance at 2am EDT (e.g. early Friday morning eastern time U.S.), July 25, 2008.
We are not anticipating any issues — in fact, we hope you will not notice the change at all — but we want to give members a heads up. Should you experience issues and are unable to post in the forums, please email support [!at] etsy.com.
Thank you for your patience while we continue to improve the site!
July 18, 2008 at 12:44 pm · Filed under Bugs, Convos, Miscellaneous · By GreenMamba
Although there’s no official announcement in either the Etsy fora or the Storque, members have verified that the e-mail auto-reply system is finally up and running. Now, when members attempt to reply to a convo through the duplicate e-mail, they will get a warning message via immediate auto-reply.
Thanks go out to dottyral for the heads-up and for providing the content of the auto-reply message:
dottyral says:
This is fabulous! Thank you admin!
I like that it explains just how to reply. This is the auto reply I received right away…
__________________________
Oops! You tried to reply to an Etsy conversation via email.
To reply you’ll need to go to Etsy, login and click Conversations (in the upper right).
The message you sent was *not received* by the person you tried to send it to.
Thanks!
Etsy
Quoted from this thread.
July 14, 2008 at 3:42 pm · Filed under Features, Miscellaneous · By GreenMamba
In this Etsy forum thread admin marymary introduces the latest new feature.
marymary says:
We are pleased to announce the addition of an Invite a Friend feature to Etsy. Registered Etsy members can now send an email to a friend or contact, inviting them to check out Etsy. Eventually, this new feature will tie into a referral program. For now, please help us by telling all your friends about Etsy in a quick and easy way and watch the number of referrals that have become registered Etsy members because of you grow straight from Your Etsy!
You may have noticed a few changes to the look of the top right of your Etsy screen! We have added an additional text link between Help and Logout called Invite.
Once you select the Invite text link, you will directed to the main Invite a Friend feature where you can enter in up to 3 unique email address at one time.
You might also notice some changes to the Your Etsy page on the left hand side bar. You now have an addtional heading in Your Etsy called Promote which houses the following shop administrative features: referrals, showcase, and Etsy mini.
When you select the referrals text link, you will be directed to a page that looks like this where you can see how many registered users you’ve helped bring to Etsy since the launch of this new feature.
FAQ:
Q. What if I enter in the Wrong email address?
A. You will receive a confirmation screen alerting you to the exact email addresses you typed in so you can resend the invite if you typed in the wrong address.
Q. Can I invite more than 3 friends?
A. Sure! Invite as many friends as you like; however, you will only be able to enter in 3 unique addresses at one time.
Q. What if I forgot if I sent an invite to an email address and type it in again?
A. No worries, Etsy will remember which email addresses you have already sent invites for and will remind you that an invite has already been sent if you type in a duplicate at any point.
Q. Can I enter in my own message to my friends?
A. Yes! There is a space for you to enter in your own unique message to your friends or to just go with the preset message from Etsy.
Q. Will my referrals be kept track of?
A. Yes! We will be keeping track of all the new registered members that sign up for Etsy from your invites starting from the launch of this feature. You can even watch the number grow from the new referrals section of Your Etsy.
Q. What happened to all of my previous referrals; weren’t you keeping track of those?
A. All referrals will start fresh with the implementation of this new feature. Unfortunately, we were not able to recover and transfer previous referrals into this new system. We appreciate all the help you have sent our way thus far and hope you will continue to refer your friends to Etsy moving forward.
Please see the official announcement about this new feature in the Storque where you can see some screen shots of how it looks: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/tech-updates-invite-a-friend/2178/
We hope you enjoy this new addition and that is makes spreading the word about Etsy a little easier.
Posted at 3:22 pm, July 14 2008 EST
The Storque article referenced above has graphics to demonstrate how this feature works and looks.
UPDATE by GreenMamba 7.14.08
Inputting a personal message is not available at this time. marymary corrects herself here.
marymary says:
Hey guys!
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for writing that one could enter in their own message, when in fact this is not currently an option. I jumped the gun in posting that possibility and for that I am sorry (maybe it’s cause I really want that feature, haha).
At this time, you cannot enter in your own message, but if this is something you are interested in, let me know here and I will add it to the list of user requested ideas.
Thanks again for helping me catch that mistake and I sincerely apologize. I have since edited the Storque article to reflect the correct answer to the FAQ.
Mary
Posted at 3:39 pm, July 14 2008 EST
June 10, 2008 at 1:12 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous · By GreenMamba
This afternoon, Etsy admin RevolvingDork announced (in this thread) a significant Etsy milestone:
RevolvingDork says:
Today, at 10:27am EDT, Etsy had its 1,000,000th user complete their registration. Etsy is now a community more than a million strong!
It’s just a big round number, but it feels like a pretty huge milestone to us. Thanks to everyone in the community for helping us grow so quickly!
Here’s to the next million! ;D
Posted at 12:34 pm, June 10 2008 EST
WooHoo!
Edit by quirke 06-14-08:
In this Storque article, admin clarifies that the “one million” members actually refers to accounts, rather than individual people.
*(That number includes multiple accounts from one member as well as accounts that may have been closed. In other words, members have gone completely through the registration process 1 million times.)
June 6, 2008 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous · By GreenMamba
In order to keep all you readers up to speed on what’s going on at Etsy, I’ve compiled a very short list of recent smaller changes or little-known facts.
- The Storque is now referred, and linked to, as ‘Blog’ instead of ‘News’ in the grey top navigation bar that appears on each Etsy page.
- You can find minutes for many Virtual Lab Meetings at this URL: http://team.etsy.com/chatt.html
- Links to Etsy Teams or other Etsy shops are now live, clickable links in your shop announcement. Tip: it must be a complete URL, beginning with http://. UPDATE 6.09.08 by GM - On-site Etsy links are ‘live’ in all public areas/pages of your shop, provided they are complete URLs and are both preceded and followed by a space.
- You can sign up for a variety of Etsy mailings here. Choices include News, Finds, Teams, Success, and Labs. UPDATE 6.09.08 by GM - There is a new ‘Sign up for Etsy Emails’ link at the top of the main forum page, below ‘View topics you’ve posted in’ and ‘Visit The Storque for Etsy News’.
- Looking for more exposure for your listings? Try GoogleBase. Not an Etsy feature, but a way to put your Etsy shop RSS feed to work for you. Dingo, Etsy member extraordinaire, covers the basics - complete with tutorial - in this thread.
Know of anything you think should be added to this list? Send us a tip!
edit by JB:
Another small but useful change is that in the chat lobby, where the various chatrooms are listed, the avatars of who is in each room no longer overlap the room title. The avatars used to completely obscure the title when a room is full, but now the avatars are on a separate line.
May 16, 2008 at 12:18 am · Filed under Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use, policy change · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article by admins bethela, Community, emilybidwell, matt, SarahSays, stellaloella, TechUpdates, Etsy details changes to two core site documents, the D&Ds and the TOU. Here is the article in its entirety.
Dear Etsians,
It’s spring! Time to refresh and renew. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing here at Etsy — a bit of spring cleaning. We brought out the site policies and noticed they were looking a little dusty, rusty and rough around the edges. So we’ve polished up the DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use and are pleased to present some shiny, new and improved updates!
Last week we posted a sneak peek preview of the proposed updates to get feedback from the community. After a very positive reception and a few minor tweaks, we’re ready to put these into effect today.
For the most part, the policies are still the same. We’ve reorganized and clarified the existing policies to address some concerns expressed by members over the past year. We have made a few changes and additions. This update is in response to questions and issues raised by our community; our aim was to make the policies easier to understand and to address some of the preceived “gray areas.” For your convenience, we’ll outline the basic changes below, but we expect every member to read through the updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use in their entirety.
Both documents have been reorganized to provide a more logical arrangement of information. The Terms of Use has been tightened up as strictly the legal agreement for using the site. The DOs & DON’Ts contain all our site-wide polices that pertain to specific features and functions of Etsy. The DOs & DON’Ts have also been reformatted out of the constraints of the “Do/Don’t” list structure.
Below is the Cliff’s Notes version of the updates. (This will look familiar to those who participated in the preview last week.) Please follow the links to see the specific section where these policies are defined.
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list is no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Transaction disputes: Buyers and sellers are encouraged to communicate and resolve matters on their own. Transactions may only be reported in three situations: non-payment, fraud and non-delivery. Issues should only be reported after there has been an effort to resolve the issue between the buyer and seller.
Shop Policies: Sellers now have a dedicated page in their shops to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. You can read more about the Shop Policies feature in this article: Hello Policy.
Non-payment time frame: We have removed the “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service. We encourage all sellers to post their payment terms on their Shop Policies page.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations in which Etsy will consider removing feedback for members. You have up to 30 days from the date feedback was left to contest feedback. Additionally, we’ve expanded Kiss and Make-Up to allow members to resolve neutral (as well as negative) feedback issues on their own. Another feedback change we’ll be making soon: the ability to leave feedback will expire 90 days after the transaction date. That change will go into effect on July 1, 2008, so get your backlog of waiting feedbacks cleaned up before then.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in the community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
Terms of Use: The alterations to the Terms of Use have been mostly cosmetic, so we won’t get in to the nitty-gritty here. We cleaned up the language to make it easier to understand and reorganized some information to more appropriate sections. We added a new section on Meetings and removed the section on Feedback (as this info is more appropriate for the DOs & DON’Ts). In general, the Terms of Use and DOs & DON’Ts complement one another.
The updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use are effective as of today, May 15, 2008. However, there are some changes that will impact existing sellers and shops, and we want to give everyone a fair amount of time to adjust and edit. As such, we are allowing everyone a grace period of seven weeks. The deadline for full compliance is June 30, 2008 (by the end of the day at midnight EDT, for those of you who are sticklers or procrastinators). The grace period only applies to compliance with the changed policies as mentioned in this article.
Be sure the email address in your Account Info is up-to-date; we use this address to send vital messages about your account. An email will be sent to all members about this policy update, as well as the recent Search and Category changes. We are revising the Help section (FAQs and Help Guides) to be consistent. If you’re interested in getting other important news sent directly to your inbox, subscribe to our Etsy News Alert emails.
If you’d like to comment, ask questions or discuss these updates to our policies, please join us in this Forum thread. Etsy Admin Beth (aka bethela) and Lauren (aka stellaloella) will also be hosting office hours in the Virtual Labs on Friday, May 16 at 3pm EDT to chat about the site policies.
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 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 3, 2008 at 2:46 am · Filed under Miscellaneous, Payments, Profit · By quirke
We just discovered this free handy-dandy Etsy Fee Calculator!
It uses your item price, quantity, shipping charges, cost of postage, PayPal fees (percent and flat sale fee), Etsy fees (percent and listing fee) to calculate your item profit. Of course, don’t forget to subtract your materials costs and overhead to get your true profit.
The Etsy Fee Calculator also has a reverse-calculator that allows you to enter a desired profit to calculate how much you should charge to receive that profit.
The Etsy Fee Calculator is brought to you by Doug Boudreau.
April 1, 2008 at 4:02 pm · Filed under Features, Miscellaneous · By GreenMamba
More info is a good thing. In this Storque article admin Etsy announces some useful changes to the main Virtual Labs page.
Today you might notice a brand new look and a few new features when entering the Virtual Labs lobby!
- We have condensed down Virtual Labs from 18 rooms to 9 essential rooms.
- We also added a brand spanking new events schedule!
- You can now find out about all upcoming events by taking a quick peek at the events schedule which will let you know the date, time, room location, title of the event, and give a brief description of what the upcoming event’s topic will be.
- You might also notice the link at the bottom of the Virtual Labs which directly leads to more information and help with using the Virtual Labs!
We hope you enjoy the new changes and will see you in the Virtual Labs!
You may also follow admin MaryMary’s forum thread here.
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