Archive for March, 2009
March 16, 2009 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Bills, Bugs, Customer Service, Etsy Communications, Payments, policy change · By GreenMamba
Over the weekend (March 15), Etsy published a Storque article announcing some changes to the billing procedure, which included the removal of payment minimums, and the implementation of both an overdue notification process and the future plan to implement the use of a collection agency for accounts 90 days, or more, past due. In the course of these changes, it was mistakenly reported that the previous 15-day grace period had been reduced to 14 and, beginning on March 15 at 12:00 UTC, overdue notices popped up during logon, and in e-mail boxes, for those sellers with a balance in any amount that had been incurred in February (or earlier) but not yet paid.
The confusion led to a series of forum threads asking for clarification, eventual corrections by several admin, an amending of the Storque article that announced these changes, and, ultimately, an official apology from Etsy CEO, Maria Thomas.
Excerpt:
Dear Etsy Sellers,
This is the kind of note CEOs generally don’t enjoy writing. Because, this is the kind of note that says, “We messed up, and we’re sorry.”
Over the weekend, Etsy messed up. We prematurely sent out notices to sellers whose bills we had identified as “overdue.” This overdue notification was a change in our billing process. We did a poor job of fully explaining this change and consistently messaging it across the site and in other communications with our seller community. In addition, the change was poorly timed relative to the March billing cycle and poorly coordinated with our recent introduction of enabling sellers to pay their Etsy fees via PayPal. Introducing PayPal as a payment option for seller fees also allowed us to accept payments of any size, so we simultaneously eliminated the $1.00 minimum payment threshold. We now ask those owing less than $1.00 USD to pay their balances in a timely manner, just like other Etsy sellers.
Regrettably, we did not lay all these messages out in an easily digestible form, and we didn’t deliver them to you in a timely and clear way.
I am ultimately responsible for this poor execution, and I apologize. I know that Etsy sellers need clear, consistent, timely communication from Etsy in order to plan your businesses. That’s our goal, and we will all work harder to be more diligent and timely with future announcements affecting all sellers.
I asked Etsy staff to roll back the changes (that is, to go back to the billing policies and process in effect prior to March 14, 2009) until such time as we are able to more thoroughly and consistently email all of you about what we’re doing and why. Let me repeat, we have moved back to the policies and process that were in effect prior to this weekend’s communications about overdue bills. Please note that sellers will still be able to pay your Etsy bills via PayPal, and you will be able to pay your bill even if the balance is below $1.00 USD.
Read Maria’s full article here.
Editorial comment:
Kudos, Etsy and Maria, for handling this so quickly and professionally, and for owning and correcting the mistakes made during the initial rollout. This is a huge step forward in Communications, and is much appreciated.
March 11, 2009 at 11:19 pm · Filed under Checkout System, Payments, Search, Seller Opportunities, Showcase, Site Security, Site Use, The Future · By JB
The Head of Etsy’s Product Team has posted an update on their progress and projects for the coming months.
Source: The Storque
Sara recaps the changes from the past several months including Google Analytics, beta testing of API, the Etsy Shop application on Facebook, and changes to the RSS feeds.
She also mentions features which had previously been promised but have now been put on the back burner, including more tools for Etsy teams, and the Super Etsy Mini.
Key points in their plans for the coming months include:
- “Search is our top priority for 2009. We anticipate numerous updates to Search throughout 2009.” (more details are available in Product Manager Sean Flanagan’s Storque article here.)
- Payments: There is currently a seller survey about payments, which Sara did not mention but that will possibly result in some new payment options being incorporated into Etsy, such as google or RME. Sara only mentioned changes which have already occurred such as sellers being able to pay their bills with paypal, and the fact that Etsy now employs a collection agency.
- Checkout: In the coming months we will be working to better clarify the functional elements of the overall (checkout) process, including introducing inline registration (i.e. letting first-time buyers checkout on Etsy without forcing them to confirm their registration first).
- Safety, Security, and Trust: No specific details are given here, but Sara says “While it may not always be possible for Etsy to disclose its fraud deterrence practices…Etsy takes these issues very seriously and thus we continue to update our infrastructure to keep fraudulent behavior off of our site.
- Showcase: In March you will see improvements to the design of Etsy’s Category pages and, more specifically, the design of the Category Showcase promotional modules at the top of those pages. …
In the coming months, we are looking to expand Showcase placements to other relevant areas of our site to provide more opportunities for sellers to gain additional exposure. (ed:this is possibly related to Sean’s mention of possibly selling paid ads on the search results pages.)
- Seller Tools: In the next month, Etsy plans to release tools to allow sellers to rearrange the items in your shop.
- Site Performance: Sara does not mention any details, but refers readers to Chad’s recent article here which goes into detail about site performance.
Sara closes with the promise of more regular updates:
I’ll be back with regular updates on what we’ve accomplished from this list and what else we have lined up for the remainder of the year.
For the full text of Sara’s article please see The Storque.
Commenting is closed for this article, but there is a forum thread open to comments.
March 11, 2009 at 7:09 pm · Filed under Checkout System, Payments · By JB
Source: The Storque
Etsy is conducting a short survey for sellers about payment options.
Click here to take the survey. It is about 3 minutes in length.
The survey closes in one week,
March 11, 2009 at 7:03 pm · Filed under Down Time, Site Maintenance · By JB
Source: The Storque
Etsy will be offline for approximately 20 minutes at 2am EDT, on Thursday March 12. (tomorrow/tonight, depending on your time zone)
Follow this link to convert to your local time zone.
March 10, 2009 at 9:54 pm · Filed under Bills · By JB
Source: this Storque article
After a short period of beta testing, all sellers now have the option to pay their Etsy bill with paypal. You can pay the full bill or make partial payments by filling in any amount, just as you did with credit card payments.
You will now see an option for PayPal under “Method of payment” when you go to Your Etsy > Your Etsy Bill > Make a payment.
When you select PayPal as your method of payment on this screen and click “Submit Payment,” you will be taken to PayPal. Log into PayPal to complete the payment. You will be directed back to Etsy upon completion of the transaction.
Paying your Etsy bill with PayPal is optional. You can still pay your Etsy bill via the credit card you have on file with Etsy. Regardless of whether you pay your Etsy bill with PayPal or credit card, Etsy sellers need to keep a valid credit card on file with Etsy because we require a valid credit card to become an Etsy seller at this time.
Etsy has also removed the one dollar minimum payment.
With this release we are also removing the minimum payment amount for seller fee payments, whether paid by credit card or PayPal. Previously, Etsy only accepted payments of $1 or more from sellers. This is no longer the case—Etsy sellers will be expected to pay their bills in full regardless of the amount. So, if you are billed $0.60, you can now pay $0.60, and you have the option to pay via PayPal
Please see the full Storque article for more information and for some Frequently asked questions and answers.
The Storque article is closed to comments but this forum thread is currently open.
March 9, 2009 at 10:11 pm · Filed under Search · By JB
Today the Etsy search has made several small changes.
- Search dropdown menu choice has been made persistent. Previously, when performing a search under Vintage for example, the search dropdown menu would switch back to Handmade after clicking to view an item in the search results. Your dropdown menu choice is now persistent when searching under Handmade, Vintage, Supplies or All Items—until you change it. We’ve also made it easier to return to your search results from an item listing page—just look for the “Search Results” link in the breadcrumb navigation below the Etsy logo.
- Search result sort order has been made persistent. Similarly, if you like to sort search results by price for example, Etsy will remember your preference and allow you to keep sorting search results the way you want to for the length of your session on Etsy.com, until you decide to change it (or open a new browser window and start a new session). This is another small way to help make Etsy more searcher friendly.
- A price filter has been added to search results for Materials. You can now set a price range for search results under Materials—look for the price filter under Search Tools on the right.
Search issues Etsy is working on now include:
- Simplifying the Search Dropdown Menu
we will be including an option to search descriptions for Handmade, Vintage, Supplies and All Items on search results pages, and making the search dropdown menu exactly that: Handmade, Vintage, Supplies, All Items. The other existing search dropdown options such as “Materials” and “Sellers: usernames” will still exist, as will the search dropdown options available from other areas of the site.
(ed: since May 2008, Vintage and Supplies have been unsearchable by description, this change will restore that function.)
- Improving Accuracy
Our goal is to give browsers and buyers an option to sort search results by relevancy, in addition to recency, to help them find items of interest.
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Our current work on relevancy involves weighting some item fields more than others. What do we mean by weighting? We mean the importance attributed by the search engine to the types of fields being searched. For example, to return quality search results by relevancy, we may find we need to give item tags slightly more precedence than titles and significantly more precedence than descriptions.
- Redesigning the Listing Process
we’re focused on redesigning the item listing process, which is really where it all begins when it comes to search on Etsy.
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We’re taking a thorough look at Etsy’s category structure and our current use of tags. Incorporating more structure here will ultimately enable category-specific filters on search results pages, allowing users to narrow down their search intuitively. It will enable multiple ways to shop: for example by category, by recipient, by material or by technique.
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Expect improvements throughout 2009. Details will be announced on the Etsy Blog, in the Etsy Forums and to the Etsy News email list.
Other areas Etsy is exploring include:
things like links to related searches on search result pages, spell-checking functionality to suggest searches for misspelled words, advertising options for search result pages and many more features we’ll discuss as they near completion
Other useful Information:
Etsy is beginning a series of Virtual Labs where they will give anyone interested access to a test area to try out different searches and discuss the future of Etsy search. The first of these sessions will take place this Friday, March 13 at 1:00 pm EDT in the Virtual Labs.
Source: this Storque article
Coommenting on that article is closed but you can discuss it or ask questions in this Etsy forum thread.
March 9, 2009 at 9:21 pm · Filed under Search, Site Maintenance, The Future · By JB
Etsy’s Chief Technical Officer Chad Dickerson wrote an update today on Etsy’s technical progress and plans for the coming months.
Key points included:
- Monitoring and Communication
we rolled out a sophisticated monitoring system in November that today enables us to keep an eye on 700 services running on over 170 pieces of hardware, including servers, network gear and storage systems. When there is an issue with one of our systems, our engineers are proactively alerted. The monitoring system performs over one million automated checks every day — about 12 checks per second — and notifies us of any problems 24×7.
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We also use a third-party service from Gomez to proactively measure page load times for Etsy at various points around the world. Gomez (which is used by 14 of the top 15 most visited sites on the Web) is an incredibly rich information source and tells us how fast Etsy’s home page is loading right now in Los Angeles, or last week in Madrid or the average for the world last Tuesday.
- Performance and Scalability
our performance as measured by our own systems and Gomez has vastly improved in the past six months even as site usage has grown considerably. In other words, the changes we have made to our systems and approach are demonstrating scalability. The numbers from Gomez, our third-party measurement service, tell the story in clear measurable terms. Our home page now loads 2-3 times faster in most locations around the world compared to October and as much as nine times faster in some places
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We achieved some of these improvements by using the services of Akamai, a web infrastructure company. Akamai directs 25% of the world’s Web traffic using 40,000 servers in 70 locations around the world.
- Search and Developer API
When I arrived in September, Etsy’s search function was unacceptably slow, plain and simple. As I wrote in that update: “Some searches are taking as long as 60 seconds to return results and others are timing out altogether.” We began work on Search immediately. You should have noticed speed improvements in search and across the whole site beginning in November as we improved existing search and eventually migrated the backend entirely to a widely used open source platform (Solr) in January.
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In February, the Etsy API has also been released to a small group of developers and a public beta launch will follow soon.
- Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, our goals in the Engineering Team are very simple: to continue to refine Etsy’s technology architecture towards a high-performance and scalable model, and to deliver the new features to buyers and sellers in the areas described in Maria’s update on Etsy’s priorities for 2009.
Source: this Storque article
March 9, 2009 at 8:43 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous, Treasury · By JB
This is just a short post to introduce our readers to craftopolis.com/, another new third-party site with useful tools for Etsy users. Craftopolis currently has a treasury search tool called the Treasure Hunt. This lets you type in your shop name and see a list of all the treasuries you are featured in, including treasury west and alternate spots. It’s a nifty time saver from having to scan every page of both treasuries looking for the gold or silver stars.
The site was designed by the husband of Etsy seller StudioMarlene, and UEN hopes to have an interview with the creators coming soon.
Also coming soon, according to Craftopolis, is a search for the gift guides.
The site is brand new and there have been some bugs reported, most notably when they had used up their allowed 5000 hits to the Etsy database and users got the error message that the name they typed in was not a registered user. Craftopolis has requested an increase in their daily hit limit from Etsy to alleviate the problem.
I have also added the link to our sidebar with all the other great third-party sites.
