The Martha Stewart Show - Etsy
Originally uploaded by thekateblack.
Rob Kalin from Etsy was one of the guests on Martha Stewart’s Leap Year show today!
The focus was on artwork made by members, including CubistLiterature & DesiraPesta — the shirt Rob’s wearing, The Black Apple — doll & painting, The Sweetest Pea — stuffed monster on the left, and ToyBreaker — screenprinted ties.
Please welcome MagicJelly, the latest addition to our editorial team. She hails from the Land Down Under but is known worldwide for wonderful prints, coasters, paper goods, pocket mirrors, and more. She is coming up on her two year “Etsyversary” in March.
We’re very grateful for MagicJelly’s willingness to volunteer her time to UEN. Thank you and welcome!
Seller Peldyn was muted for 24 hours for a comment left in this now-closed thread regarding shop closures. Upon receiving the notification email, she sent a return email:
I posted what I did because I could not let your continued ignorance slide. You did not go to business school, yet you profess to know what business standards are, you did not go to law school yet you profess to know how laws are applied in a courtroom during a trial. You only make yourself and Etsy look stupid. Think before pressing the post button and you will make people a lot more happier.
Oh and it was not an attack, but a statement of fact.
[Please note that this email is the seller’s property and is reprinted with her permission. The contents are her own opinion and publication here does not imply endorsement or agreement by UEN.]
In response to that email, the admin increased her muting to a month for “personal attacks”. She was also told that if she continued, “further measures” would be taken. Please note UEN cannot reprint the email from admin due to their non-disclosure policy regarding admin communications.
In response, Peldyn sent this email:
So you forum mute me for an additional 29 days for an
e-mail? I could see that if this was in the forum, but this
is not the forum. This is a personal communication between
you and me, you did not even use the convo system. I rarely
post in the forums anyways and the reason I posted in the
first place was because of the misinformation that you were
broadcasting. Do you not see what you are doing? It is so
easy to place the blame on others and not look to yourself.
You are supposed to be in a position of helping people and
moderating but unfortunately you are doing the opposite. You
are alienating those very people you are supposed to be
helping. Community has become meaningless.
In response she was told to take further complaints to Rob Kalin (Rokali) at rob@etsy.com.
The Communications section of Etsy’s Dos and Don’ts does not address conduct via email, only convos and the forum. Muting is addressed in this statement:
If a user continually breaks rules, that user’s ability to post in the forums may be suspended or Etsy account(s) terminated.
Consequences of breaking Etsy’s rules are addressed in this statment:
What are the consequences for breaking Etsy’s rules?
First and foremost, we try to work things out with users personally and privately. If this is not successful, Customer Support will issue an official warning letter. If the warning is not effective in curbing rule-breaking behavior, site abilities may be limited or an account may be terminated.
update by JB, Feb 27, 2008
Peldyn has been unmuted.
The “post a new topic” pages in the Help forum and Bugs forum have been edited to include a large warning.
Hey you!
Yes, YOU!
Are you posting a thread about view counts?
If so, please read this post in the Storque for the latest news about them.
Be sure to keep your eye on the “News” link at the top of the page for the latest announcements.
Thank you!
Edit 02-24-08 11:41 EST:
After several threads protesting the words of this statement, it has been changed:
RevolvingDork says:
I’m sorry if anyone was offended by the usage of “Hey you!” — we honestly didn’t think it would be construed as rude.In response to your concerns, I’ve changed the notice to be a bit less colloquial.
Thanks!
In this thread, Etsy admin RevolvingDork explains what happened:
Today at roughly 2:15pm EST, there was a failure on one of our load balancing machines that rendered the site inaccessible. We recognized the failure immediately, but were unable to restore full connectivity until 3:30pm EST.
Unfortunately, tracking down the issue required all of our servers to be reset, which in turn erased all view tally data from listings. It is unlikely that we will be able to retrieve this data to bring them back, but we will try.
We’re now investigating the causes of the issue, and tightening everything back up. Those that had a showcase scheduled for today will be refunded.
We apologize for any inconvenience this outage has caused, and we’re doing our best to ensure that it won’t happen again.
Posted at 3:40 pm, February 23 2008 EST
Edit:
RD has stated that all showcases for today will be refunded.
Edit (Feb. 27/08):
RD has started a new thread about the site outage and view reset.
Seller ArtfulMarket is the latest shop to be shut down under confusing circumstances, according to this forum thread started by ArtfulMarket using another account. ArtfulMarket is one of Etsy’s most successful sellers, with close to 15,000 positive feedbacks, and who makes regular appearances on EtsyTools top sellers lists. At the time of this article’s publication, the ArtfulMarket shop is the “brick wall” indicating a closed account.
lynn61056 says:
I just wanted to let everyone know that I am trying to find out why my shop is gone. I have tried to contact Etsy about it and they sent me an abuse report from a customer who says they never received their order. Funny thing is I can’t find any record of the order in my PayPal account. So it appears they may have shut me down over an order that was never paid for. To all of my loyal customers I will continue to get all of your orders out from the invoices in my PayPal account until I can get this resolved. I am in shock that Etsy would shut me down considering I have almost 15,000 positive feedback. It appears there has been a BIG misunderstanding. I have sent several more emails to Etsy and have not received any response. Please be patient…I am still around!
Please note that Etsy’s version of this incident is not currently available, and ArtfulMarket’s post cannot be verified by UEN at this time.
edit by JB February 25
artfulmarket’s Etsy shop has been reinstated
As well, earlier today, seller Whatyoumacallits reported on the forum (via another account) that her shop had also been closed without warning. Their shop has since been reinstated. Whatyoumacallits has over 140 positive feedbacks and no negatives.
Edit:
A THIRD shop has been reported as closed without prior notice: Thatsmycharm, according to this thread posted by the sellers’s girlfriend (who is a top seller herself). As of February 11th, Thatsmycharm had over 1300 positive feedbacks and no negatives.
Thatsmycharm’s shop was reinstated on Saturday.
According to a statement by admin Kfarrell in this thread, this is Etsy’s notification process:
kfarrell says:
Transaction report emails go out automatically whenever a customer files a nondelivery report. The seller receives an email to let them know a report has been filed, and the buyer receives an email advising them to contact the seller directly. The emails do not assign blame to either party.If you get a notice of a nondelivery report filed against you, contact both the buyer and support ASAP with any information on when you mailed the package, how it was shipped, where it was shipped from, etc.
for previous coverage of this issue of shop closures without warning, please see these previous articles:
http://etsynews.com/584/two-seller-accounts-deleted-under-strange-cicrumstances/
http://etsynews.com/73/unwarrantedaccidental-shop-suspensions-sellers-be-warned/
http://etsynews.com/75/another-case-of-erroneous-shop-suspension/
http://etsynews.com/80/how-does-admin-handle-shop-suspensions/
http://etsynews.com/312/etsy-says-no-double-billing-has-occurred/?cp=5
(see comments, not main article)
Edit by Serena 2/22 1:30 ET:
Etsy admin daniellexo recommends the following steps to ward off surprise account closure:
1) Please make sure your email addresses are correct on file. If this address isn’t correct - we can’t contact you and neither can buyers.
2) Add support [!at] etsy.com, abuse [!at] etsy.com and billing [!at] etsy.com to your address book. This way it will not be forwarded to your spam/junk mailbox.
3) Keeping open lines of communication with Admin. We will try to contact you numerous times.
Source: Fora.
For those who had not yet heard, the Heart-o-Matic is up and running again! A wonderful feature has been added by Juln – a hearts-to-views ratio per item, as well as an overall hearts-to-views ratio. For more indepth information, see our previous UEN article. Don’t forget that the Heart-o-Matic is now hosted at Etsytools. If you haven’t been to Etsytools lately, it’s definitely worth a visit! Etsytools and Heart-o-matic are unaffiliated with Etsy and run by Etsy members, Interrobang, Vertis and Juln.
In this Storque article, Etsy announces that instead of just appearing on the first page of a top category, the Category Showcases will appear on every page.
Dear Sellers,
The Category Showcases now appear on each page when you’re browsing the Top Categories. That means you get more coverage with your Showcase ads than before, since the Category Showcases previously only appeared on the first page. So enjoy and know that buyers will have their eyeballs on your items even more!
Thanks to Halflyng for the heads-up on this change.
In this forum thread, Etsy admin RevolvingDork announces some much-needed changes to the last checkout page.
RevolvingDork says:
Based on the community’s feedback and suggestions, we have been able to make several tweeks to the final checkout page (aka page 4) during the payment process!
The changes break down like this:
*The biggest change you will notice is the big green button that says “pay with paypal” rather than the former text link.
*We changed the text from “total for this order” to “total for this seller.”
*We changed the text from “Please send all payments now. Remember you have to pay each seller individually” to “Pay each seller individually. Each order is not complete until you pay.”
*We changed the credit-card-through-paypal help button to say: “Use paypal for credit cards. Need paypal help?”
*Changed the text from “view full receipt” to “invoice;” this lets the buyer know that they aren’t finished yet!
*Changed the text and wording of the help guide for payments on the right hand column of the screen.
Thanks again for all of your feedback and suggestions; this is something that we have been working on to create less confusion during the checkout process and less work for our sellers! This would be the perfect time to go buy your most favorite item in your favorites list to see exactly how it works!
Posted at 5:34 pm, February 21 2008 EST
I’m so pleased to introduce a new member of the Unofficial Etsy News team: DejaVu. DejaVu hails from the Great White North and has been an Etsy member since January 2006. She is known for lovely whimsical purses, totes, and wristlets. She has been a long-term reader of UEN and we’re grateful for her willingness to volunteer here.
Please join me in welcoming DejaVu!
