I've been developing new content and a whole new style for my ElectriKolor website, and am about a week shy of re-launching the site. The writing part has been easy, the design part has been relatively easy, and the most difficult part yet to complete is the online transaction processing part. But I'll get that done soon enough.
Last year around this time, I began immersing my online efforts into Etsy, which was supposed to primarily be an online venue for handmade goods. If the truth is told, the major portion of the site's sales come from supplies, which are mostly commercial items being resold by online members. Of course, this is an excellent business model, in which Etsy itself profits from the transactions of creative sellers buying from their online "friends" instead of evil big box stores. It's apparently not a big deal if the individual seller sells things at a hefty mark-up, though...
The organization of Etsy itself is benefitting from those of us trying online selling for the first time, touting itself as a great community, and using the most successful sellers there as their model citizens. Of course, most of the listed "seller" members of Etsy now have shops that are either empty or haven't been updated in months. Many of the buyers are actually sellers, who love taking whatever money ends up in their PayPal account as sales proceeds and going right back and spending the money on something cute on Etsy. Again, this is an excellent business plan for Etsy. Get people in to the organization listing their items and relisting their items to gain exposure on the site, and while they're off waiting for customers to come into their store, ensure that they go off and tell other sellers just exactly how much they ♥ the other folks shops. If the hearts actually translated into sales, then that would be of interest to me...
The other parts of Etsy that I find to be most problematic are their totally FUBAR search engine and the fact that as a seller, you're expected to bring your customers to their site, but once you do, you really don't have easy and direct access to the members that you brought in. That is, unless you communicate outside of Etsy. Yes, Etsy does allow members to "convo" each other...but don't do it too often or include information that might seem repetitive. Heck, even cutting and pasting a common thank you note to your buyer can reduce your "convo" privileges. Heaven forbid if you want to contact the customers who have shown any interest in your products by marking them as their favorites...that's considered spam. No, you can't offer your customers or potential customers opt in/opt out permissions for your portion of the site.
If I were to go into more of a rant, I'd talk about the fact that the folks who are pumping the ideas into the site don't know jack about business and have been losing sellers who become successful or who just get "fed up" with the kinds of toys that they keep adding to the site. Yes, I love Flash as a tool for delivering online content, but if you don't have the simple site basics running like a well-oiled machine, what the heck do you need another shiny new useless tool that customers won't use? Etsy would benefit from a visit from a usability expert. Heaven knows they refuse to pay attention to the sellers and buyers who've been identifying their pain points for at least the last year that I've been trying to make sense of things over there.
End Etsy rant for now...
2 comments:
Here here , you tell 'em Edna. Perhaps if enough people ranted , someone would listen ! Hm , or not.
I'm not sure whether or not they're paying attention to members on the fora, but they might pay attention to what constitutes "unhappy customers" that will come up as search results associated with their name...I can dream, can't I?
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