As some of you know, I’ve had an ETSY shop since 2007. Although for me it’s a hobby site, rather than a true business, my ETSY shop provides a venue to show my art, share links and widgets to showcase art on Facebook and my websites, and, most importantly, an e-commerce platform to sell my art worldwide.
However, there have been major changes at ETSY, and most likely there are more to come.
ETSY’s focus is changing from enabling individuals to sell their handmade and vintage items to creating a new social network, like Facebook. In doing so, they’ve gutted the functionality that enabled sellers to sell and for their items to be found.
They’ve eliminated the popular community forums, regularly feature a small subset of sellers on the front page, removed “shop name” from the search options, broke the search function entirely, subdivided the community and pushed seller interaction into narrowly focused “teams”, emphasized building “circles” based on “taste”, muted sellers for asking legitimate questions, and enabled mass market resellers to masquerade as artisans of one-of-a-kind handmade items.
As a result, ETSY’s changes are making it harder for buyers to find my shop and buy from it.
Success in the new ETSY environment requires a major time commitment to build circles and select favorite items from other shops, build “treasuries” of items from various sellers that are color-coordinated and artfully arranged, and monitor team discussions and off-site blogs and forums to stay current on what’s changed and how the changes impact your business.
In essence, to remain visible on ETSY, I need to spend more time chasing my own tail on ETSY than I currently spend actually making art. I’m not willing to go there.
So, current plans are to let my ETSY shop wind down and focus on making art for my next three shows (ConQuesT, SoonerCon, and Archon). I’m also considering ramping up my Zazzle shop to offer more images on more items, and making my originals available for direct sale through my blog.
I’m open to suggestions. Feel free to leave comments.
aquariann
March 10, 2011 at 4:13amI’m in the same boat. That’s why I’ve been focusing on my blog and am working on designing a website I can sell my art through directly.
Dressedtothe9s
March 10, 2011 at 5:37pmI couldn’t agree with you more, I am very disappointed with more and more mass market stuff making it’s way onto etsy. I haven’t had a sale since Christmas. My blog is also my focus right now and am considering switching over to Artfire. I sent Etsy two very long emails voicing many concerns and have not had a reply.
Sigh…
geekmom
March 10, 2011 at 9:58pmArtfire.
RuthL
March 11, 2011 at 12:15amPerhaps what is needed is a website for customers to go to that will link to the new locations of their former favorite ETSY sellers.
Whimsical Trovers
March 16, 2011 at 3:23amYep. That’s why I left E altogether. That was not what I signed on for.
While I have a shop on Artfire I think venues for handmade and art will not work out in the long run. Even AF is gearing up to set up a “commercial” area to corral mass produced while still making money off of ’em. So I built a website of my own and plan to move there, and I’m kinda looking forward to that challenge. I learned a lot on Etsy, so I’m taking it with me.
Love your work. Found you on UEF.
Allison Stein
June 16, 2011 at 5:55pmThans for the comments, ya’ll. Sorry for the delay in responding. I haven’t listed or renewed anything on Etsy since April, and I’m still getting the same daily traffic — in the single digits. I assume those are just ‘bots on autopilot.