Search results (tags) for: "etsy alerts"

Tech Update: Site Maintenance 2009 Schedule

2009-10-02T17:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: Our engineers will be working on the site on Monday, November 16, but the site will not be taken down for this maintenance window. That the site will be accessible during maintenance is actually part of the improvements that have been made.

We apologize for the back and forth. We are getting down to the final preparations before the holidays and we are working hard. One new factor appeared on the scene: the new baby of MCR, our chief Sys Admin, and his wife. No, this is not the sole reason for the shifting schedule, but it is the only one with a high enough cuteness factor to be worth mentioning.

As I wrote back in January, we have planned a number of behind-the-scenes changes and improvements for the rest of the year that will enhance the stability and scalability of the site, but require site downtime. To put those improvements in place, I announced monthly maintenance windows in which the site would be unavailable while we make these changes Since then, we have realized that we need more frequent maintenance windows to make these improvements more quickly, so we will now be doing these maintenance windows roughly every two weeks. To give everyone the most notice possible, we are publishing the new schedule below.

Our first maintenance window on the new schedule will be next Monday, June 8 from 2 a.m. - 6 a.m. ET. During this time period, all functions on the site will be unavailable, and all Etsy users will be directed to a page that notes that the site is undergoing scheduled maintenance. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com. (Note: Any sellers who have purchased a Showcase that would run during this maintenance window will receive a pro-rated credit for the 4-hour maintenance period. You can expect your bill to be credited within two to three business days after the date of the maintenance.) The new schedule for maintenance windows is as follows (all are 2 a.m. - 6 a.m. ET):

Monday, October 5 postponed to October 12 (2 a.m. - 8 a.m.)
Monday, October 19 (cancelled)
Monday, November 2
Monday, November 16

We are still thinking about and discussing the maintenance schedule for after November 16, since we want to be as sensitive as possible to the holiday shopping season and minimize any disruptions during that time.

We will communicate these dates in advance each time as a reminder. While there may still be occasional emergency maintenance windows, our goal is to use these regular planned maintenance windows to proactively make changes that will minimize emergencies.

Thanks in advance for your patience during our site maintenance periods, and thanks for using Etsy!

*To translate these times into your local time zone, please click here.

[The previous schedule was published on January 21, 2009.]

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Caching and Site Speed on Etsy

2009-08-10T15:05:00-05:00

In recent weeks, Etsy has been experiencing record site traffic, and we are grateful to the buyers and sellers who are visiting Etsy now more than ever, even in summer months. In fact, the past three weeks have been the three biggest traffic weeks in Etsy's history. With the surge in traffic, the demand on our systems has grown, and we have had to make adjustments to deal with the increasing demand. One of the methods we have used is known as "caching." In a nutshell, "caching" refers to the practice of saving a copy of the original source of information in a place that is faster to access than the original source of information. When lots of users visit the site, the speed of access is important, but since a "cache" is a copy, the copy can be slightly out of sync with the original information. In those cases, there can be a "lag" when the information is accessed from the cached location.

Many of you have experienced this in the past two weeks during our high-traffic period, as you may have noticed item listing edits appeared to lag in updating. In all cases, the price of an item has always been reflected accurately when a buyer places it in a cart. After further tuning of our systems to deal with the recent surge in traffic, I think we overcompensated with our caching approach on listing pages, and I have asked the Engineering Team to change our caching strategy back to the way it worked previously. In practical terms, this means that sellers' edits to item listing pages should show much more quickly. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Caching can be a complex subject. You may be familiar with the term "caching" from your use of a web browser like Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer or Opera. With this type of caching, your web browser pulls data (usually images) from remote systems on the Internet and saves a copy of (or "caches") that data on your computer to make access to the information faster. In that scenario, instead of going repeatedly to a far away server to fetch an image, your computer saves a copy of the image on your hard drive to make the web page load faster. As web sites have grown rapidly, computer systems that power web sites like Etsy have developed caching practices of their own to speed delivery of web pages. When a site like Etsy is slow, fewer buyers come to the site, and shopping is more difficult and frustrating.

There are different caches (or copies) of information that live in different systems inside a large web operation. At Etsy, we use Solr (open source search software) to provide the fastest search experience for users. Our use of Solr resulted in immediate increases in search speed and volume (see the post here), making it easier for buyers to find and purchase items on Etsy. To achieve that level of speed, Solr essentially acts as a high-speed cache, or copy, of the original listing data. As new listings are created on Etsy, they enter a queue that updates the items in the site search cache (or copy) in a matter of minutes in most cases, keeping the copy synchronized as closely as possible. Visitors to Etsy are rewarded with a fast search experience. Compared to a year ago, Etsy's search is roughly 10 times faster while handling twice the volume of listings.

We also use a number of other caching mechanisms to keep the web site fast and responsive as our traffic grows. We have always used caching as a means to increase the speed of the site with the ultimate goal of making it easier for sellers to manage their shops and for buyers to find and purchase products in those shops. Our goal is to always provide the freshest information possible to our buyers and sellers as they use Etsy. As we continue to grow, we may have to make trade-offs to keep the site fast and speedy for buyers and sellers, but we will do our best in the future to minimize any lags you may experience and do a better job of explaining up front any changes that might affect the user experience. In trying to provide greater stability on the site, we ultimately turned one of our system tuning knobs too far in one direction, and I apologize for the confusion it caused.

Please see this Forum thread for discussion.

Tech Update: Unscheduled Forums Maintenance 7/24/09

2009-07-23T12:00:00-05:00

On Friday, July 24, 2009 from 12 a.m. - 2 a.m. ET we will be doing unscheduled maintenance on Etsy's Forums. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) During this time period, all functions on the site will be available, with the exception of the Forums. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com.

We have published the scheduled site maintenance times for the rest of 2009 here.

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Unscheduled Site Maintenance 7/16/09

2009-07-15T19:00:00-05:00

Heads up! On Thursday, July 16, 2009 from 6 a.m. to 6:20 a.m. ET we will be doing unscheduled maintenance on Etsy's systems. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) During this time period, all functions on the site will be unavailable, and all Etsy users will be directed to a page noting that the site is undergoing maintenance. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but it's a sign of good things to come! Our engineers are preparing the site for new features currently being tested.

Billing Alert: Updates to Etsy’s Billing System

2009-06-25T16:05:00-05:00

UPDATE (6/25/09): With the migration to our new credit card processing system complete, some remaining sellers over the next billing period may need to re-enter their credit card information. This is a one time action; you will not need to re-enter your credit card information every month, unless your card expires. Additionally, sellers have the option to pay their bill with PayPal instead of a credit card.

UPDATE (5/8/09): Please be advised that Etsy is now enforcing our policy of revoking selling privileges for accounts that have become two months or more overdue. We are reviewing all seller accounts and any seller in violation of this policy runs the risk of having their selling privileges suspended until such time as overdue accounts are paid in full.

In order to avoid an interruption in Etsy's services, we ask that you make sure you are current in paying your Etsy account balance and that the email address you registered with Etsy is also current.

Etsy relies on its sellers to pay outstanding balances in full and on time each month. Etsy does not currently have the systems in place to allow for installment payments.

Please bear in mind that you may pay your Etsy bill by either PayPal or credit card.

Etsy Sellers,

Thank you for being a part of Etsy. We want to let you know about important changes to the way Etsy handles bills for seller fees. Etsy relies on collecting fees from our members in order to continue developing and growing our business. We are improving our billing and collections systems to accommodate our rapid growth.

Here is a quick review of how billing works currently on Etsy: The billing cycle starts on the first day of each month, and Etsy automatically sends you a billing statement by email for the fees accrued in the previous month. You have a grace period of 15 days to pay your bill. To pay your bill, you must sign in to your Etsy account and manually submit your payment by credit card or PayPal. If you have not paid your bill by 12:00 am UTC on 16th day of the same month, your account will be considered overdue. If your account becomes two months overdue your selling privileges may be revoked, and over three months overdue your account may be suspended.

Over the next month, we are moving to a new credit card processing system managed by Chase Paymentech, the industry leader for processing credit card transactions. As a result of this move, if you pay your Etsy seller fees using a credit card, then you may need to re-enter your credit card information at the time you submit payment for your Etsy bill. This is a one-time action; you will not need to re-enter your credit card information again as long as it remains current.

As you might already know, we recently introduced new functionality that allows sellers to pay their Etsy bills with PayPal. As an alternative, you may opt to pay your bill with PayPal if you do not want to re-enter your credit card information after we move over to the new credit card processing system. We know that most sellers on Etsy accept payments from buyers through PayPal, and now with a few clicks you can also pay your Etsy bill via PayPal.

Previously, Etsy only accepted payments of $1.00 USD or more from sellers. Now that we have implemented PayPal as a means to pay Etsy bills, we ask those owing less than $1.00 to pay their balances in a timely manner. For example, if you are billed $0.60, you can now pay $0.60, and you have the option to pay via PayPal or your credit card.

We will keep you informed of upcoming changes to our billing process and will communicate in advance of any major changes taking effect. If you have questions about your Etsy bill, please email billing@etsy.com for personalized assistance.

We appreciate you and your shop on Etsy. Thank you!

The Etsy Team

To pay your Etsy bill, sign in to your Etsy seller account and visit Your Etsy > Your Etsy bill, then click the green Make A Payment Now button. To ensure you receive important service-related announcements such as this one via email, please check that your email address is accurate and up-to-date in your account information by signing in to your Etsy account and visiting Your Etsy > Account Info. Thank you for supporting Etsy.

Tech Update: One Hour Site Maintenance at Midnight 06/03/09

2009-06-02T13:15:00-05:00

Heads up! Early on Wednesday morning, June 3, 2009 from midnight until 1 a.m. ET we will be doing we will be doing site maintenance on Etsy's systems. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) During this time period, all functions on the site will be unavailable, and all Etsy users will be directed to a page noting that the site is undergoing scheduled maintenance. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com.

For our regularly scheduled site maintenance times for the rest of 2009, please see this post.

(Note: Any sellers who have purchased a Showcase that would run during this maintenance window will receive a pro-rated credit for the 1-hour maintenance period.)

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Scheduled Site Maintenance 5/25/09

2009-05-18T15:27:00-05:00

It's that time again! On Monday, May 25, 2009 from 2-8 a.m. ET we will be doing scheduled maintenance on Etsy's systems. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) During this time period, all functions on the site will be unavailable, and all Etsy users will be directed to a page noting that the site is undergoing scheduled maintenance. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com.

We have published the scheduled site maintenance times for the rest of 2009 here. In the States, Monday is Memorial Day, so we're hoping you will be sleeping in and won't notice a thing.

(Note: Any sellers who have purchased a Showcase that would run during this maintenance window will receive a pro-rated credit for the 6-hour maintenance period.)

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Site Maintenance on Community Flash Applications 4/23/09

2009-04-22T13:43:00-05:00

We will be performing site maintenance on Treasury, Chat, Virtual Labs, and the Voter on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 from 3pm to 4pm EDT. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) We want to give you a heads up, since many of you use these site features every day. (For those of you who haven't tried them yet, you're missing out!)

Thank you for your patience while we keep these features performing at their best (in other words, with flying raccoons, gold stars, and satisfying "ping" sounds). We are not anticipating any problems with restoring Treasury lists, but we apologize in advance if your lists are lost.

Check out these Community site features and let us know which one is your favorite in the comments below.

How-tos about Treasury | FAQ about Virtual Labs | Voting Posts on Etsy's Blog

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Scheduled Site Maintenance 4/27/09

2009-04-22T11:00:00-05:00

Heads up! On Monday, April 27, 2009 from 2am to 6am EDT, we will be doing scheduled maintenance on Etsy's systems. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) During this time period, all functions on the site will be unavailable, and all Etsy users will be directed to a page noting that the site is undergoing scheduled maintenance. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com.

We have published the scheduled site maintenance times for the rest of 2009 here. Please mark your calendars, as these may be good times to have a snack with friends.

(Note: Any sellers who have purchased a Showcase that would run during this maintenance window will receive a pro-rated credit for the 4-hour maintenance period.)

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Seller Directory and Stocked Shops

2009-04-01T12:30:00-05:00

Hello friends,

Recently, we updated one of the ways to shop on Etsy — the Seller Directory on the Buy page of the site. We are now limiting this page to stocked shops (a stocked shop has at least one active item listing). Our goal is to improve the shopping experience on Etsy.

All Etsy shops will remain findable on the site. This change only affects which shops appear of the Seller Directory on the Buy page of the site. Unstocked shops will still be accessible via username search as well as direct URL (the username.etsy.com web address).

Shops with only inactive listings and shops in "vacation mode" will not be viewable in the Seller Directly for the duration of inactivity.

We continue to strive to improve both the selling and buying experience on Etsy, and we hope that this update to the Seller Directory is another step in that direction.

Get to know some sellers through our Shop Local series or check out the new Recently Listed site feature!

Tech Update: Scheduled Site Maintenance 3/30/09

2009-03-24T18:20:00-05:00

The time for our scheduled site maintenance is upon us once again. On Monday, March 30, 2009 from 2am to 6am EDT, we will be doing scheduled maintenance on Etsy's systems. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) During this time period, all functions on the site will be unavailable and all Etsy users will be directed to a page noting that the site is undergoing scheduled maintenance. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com.

We have published the scheduled site maintenance times for the rest of 2009 here. Please mark your calendars!

(Note: Any sellers who have purchased a Showcase that would run during this maintenance window will receive a pro-rated credit for the 4-hour maintenance period.)

P.S.
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

An Apology from Etsy's CEO, Maria Thomas

2009-03-16T18:45:00-05:00

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, whether paid by credit card or PayPal. 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.

Though I don’t particularly like to have to say Etsy messed up, I do want to set our goals and our missteps in the proper context.

As you’ve heard from us before Etsy is investing a lot of time into establishing a more efficient, scalable and market-based billing and collections system. (Please note: I am referring to the mechanisms by which Etsy sellers are billed and can pay Etsy; I am not referring to systems that enable buyers to pay sellers.)

Changing our collections’ policies is one piece of a larger group of projects intended to improve our overall billing and payment processing infrastructure, including enabling Etsy sellers to pay Etsy fees via PayPal. We also aim to make more efficient and effective our process for collecting overdue accounts.

These goals remain priorities and our recent poor communication should not overshadow this important message: Etsy is making investments in its billing and payment processing infrastructure that will allow Etsy to grow significantly and to provide better services to you.

I have asked Etsy staff to communicate important changes around billing and collections via emails directly to sellers such that any changes to our billing or collection policies can be fully communicated prior to our implementation of such changes. We are working to get the first one of these all-seller messages out in the next week or two. You should expect several emails in the next few months announcing a few positive changes and improvements in our payments processing and billing systems.

In the meantime, should you have lingering billing questions, please send them to billing@etsy.com.

Sincerely,
Maria

Billing Alert: Clarifications to the Billing Collection Process

2009-03-16T16:30:00-05:00

UPDATE: This article was corrected on March 16, 2009. We have removed the message on the Sign In page about overdue accounts at this time. We have decided to postpone implementing this billing reminder change until later this spring. We will communicate in advance when this will take effect. (The article was originally published on the evening of March 15, 2009.)

Dear sellers,

Beginning at 12:00 am UTC on March 15, 2009 until roughly 4:00 pm UTC, an automated email was sent out to sellers who had not yet paid their Etsy bills. In addition, if those sellers signed in to their Etsy account, they would have seen a similar message on the site. The automated email is a new billing reminder we began using with this month’s billing cycle. By mistake, these overdue notices were sent one day early, as Etsy policy states that a seller has 15 days to submit payment before the account is considered overdue.

We apologize for the confusion caused by the email and the related message on the Sign In page about overdue accounts. We can and will do better to communicate with our seller community. We have made some changes to Etsy billing collection recently that we communicated in December 2008 and again earlier this month, however, the entire process was not clearly communicated. Adding to the confusion, the new reminder email was sent at 12:00 am UTC, which for many sellers in other time zones was still the evening of March 14.

We have removed the message on the Sign In page about overdue accounts at this time. We have decided to postpone implementing this billing reminder change until later this spring. We will communicate in advance when this will take effect.

This article is intended to clarify our billing collection process. Our goal has always been to implement a fair policy, while also recognizing that Etsy relies on collecting fees from our members in order to continue developing and growing our business.

Here are the common questions we’ve seen related to Etsy billing collection:

When does a bill become overdue?
Billing statements are emailed on the 1st day of the month at 12:00 am UTC; these statements detail all the fees incurred by an account for the previous month. There is a payment grace period of 15 days; the balance must be paid in full by 12:00 am UTC on the 16th day of the month (this is the beginning of the day on the 16th). An account not paid in full by that time is considered overdue.

What time zone does Etsy billing use?
Etsy billing operates on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is essentially the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Etsy begins sending monthly billing statements on the 1st day of each. Unpaid bills are considered overdue on the 16th of each month at 12:00 am UTC. To translate 12:00 am UTC on the 16th day of the month into your time zone, please follow these links: March 16, 2009 / April 16, 2009 / May 16, 2009 / June 16, 2009 / July 16, 2009 / August 16, 2009 / September 16, 2009 / October 16, 2009 / November 16, 2009 / December 16, 2009.

Where on the site is this stated? I read something different.
We recognize that we have conflicting information on the site regarding the exact timing of our billing cycles. We will be updating all billing related content on the site to be consistent and accurate.

Why didn’t sellers receive an email stating the changes to the billing process?
We will be sending an email to all registered sellers this week. In that email, we will include the information reviewed here, as well as additional relevant information about Etsy billing.

Will an account be suspended if a seller does not pay their Etsy bill?
Right now, we are not taking this level of action for currently overdue bills. Eventually, yes, as specified in our policies, a seller’s account may be suspended for not paying their bill. This will happen in the future as outlined below. We will communicate in advance of this policy becoming effective, which we anticipate will be later this spring. In addition, the new process will include email reminders and a message on the Sign In page for accounts which are overdue.

Here is how the upcoming changes to the billing process will operate:

Etsy bills are issued for the previous month’s fees. Billing statements are emailed to all seller accounts on the 1st day of the month. There is a payment grace period of 15 days.
If a bill is not paid before 12:00 am UTC on the 16th day of the month, the bill is considered overdue. On the 16th day of the month, an account that has an overdue bill is sent an email reminder and is shown a message at the Sign In that their account is overdue.
An account that is overdue less than 2 months will be sent email billing reminders and see the message at Sign In until payment is made. The account still retains full capabilities.
After 2 months from the date the bill was originally issued, an account that has an overdue bill will lose the ability to list, relist and renew item listings until the balance is brought up to date.
After 3 months from the date the bill was originally issued, an account that has an overdue bill will be closed until the balance is brought up to date.

Do I have to pay if I only owe less than $1.00 USD (between $0.01-$0.99)?
Previously, Etsy only accepted payments of $1.00 or more from sellers. Now that we have implemented PayPal as a means to pay Etsy bills, we ask those owing less than $1.00 to pay their balances in a timely manner, just like other Etsy sellers. If you are billed $0.60, you can now pay $0.60, and you have the option to pay via PayPal.

More details about paying your bill via PayPal can be found in this announcement from March 10, 2009.

What happens to an account when the Etsy bill is 2 months overdue? 3 months overdue?

When the new billing process is in effect, an account that is overdue by 2 months, regardless of amount owed, will lose listing, relisting and renewing abilities.
When the new billing process is in effect, an account that is overdue by 3 months, regardless of amount owed, will be closed.

Why am I receiving errors when paying my Etsy bill with PayPal?
We have investigated these reports. There was an intermittent problem for some sellers over the past weekend. For those who attempted to send an Etsy bill payment via PayPal and received a failure notice, no funds changed hands. Please try again. We believe this issue to be resolved now.

Again, we are very sorry for the confusion and poor initial communication surrounding these changes. Should you have further questions, please email billing@etsy.com.

Tech Update: Freshening Up the Category Pages

2009-03-12T19:15:00-05:00

Etsy's Category pages have a fresh new look—check them out. This is the first set of enhancements we have in mind for the Category pages. Our goal in implementing these changes is to enhance the shopping experience on the site, making it easier to navigate and to find items to purchase. We also hope that the improved design will encourage shoppers to spend more time on these pages.

So what’s changed?

More prominent Category Showcases. The Category Showcases have been given greater prominence at the top of Category pages and are more clearly distinguished from the rest of the page with a slightly shaded background and the title “Sponsored Items from Etsy Sellers.” The images are larger than in the previous version, and we have also added the item title and price to make browsing more efficient. We will be carefully following the performance of these pages and listening to feedback from shoppers and sellers. We may make design adjustments based on that information.

To accommodate these changes, three items from the Category Showcase will randomly display each time the page is loaded or refreshed (versus the five smaller item images in the previous version). To browse through the entire Showcase, there are navigation arrows on each side as well a link to a page showing all items in a particular Category Showcase. Items will continue to be randomly displayed in this section from the full pool of relevant Showcased items.

New area for Category title, subtitle and illustrations. We have also added an area for each Category's title and subtitle, making the purpose of the page more clear, particularly for those who land on the page from searching on Etsy or via a link outside Etsy. As an additional benefit, this will help improve Etsy’s visibility to search engines since they principally read text. The new illustrations on each of Category page are meant to add a cohesive visual element from Etsy’s front page.

Nested subcategory list. Now when you browse to a subcategory, you will see a nested list of the other subcategories on the left side menu. This allows a shopper to quickly navigate from one subcategory to another.

Here's the big picture:

As noted above, we will have a few other changes to Category pages coming in the near future. One of these future enhancements will be highlighting related content from Etsy's blog on Category pages. Content that is relevant to each top-level Category will be featured in the left side menu. We have seen that engaging content draws shoppers into the site and can inspire people to discover new treasures. We’ll keep you posted on other improvements to the Category pages as we get closer to releasing them.

We welcome your feedback on these design changes to the Category pages in this discussion thread in our Forums. (We’ve closed commenting on this article to consolidate the conversation.)

Here's to a better shopping experience on Etsy!

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Billing Alert: Change to Overdue Bill Collection

2009-03-02T16:20:00-05:00

UPDATE: Sellers, we are bringing this post back up to the top as a reminder. If you have any questions about your bill, please contact billing@etsy.com privately. Note, you can now pay your Etsy bill using PayPal. Read about this new option here. We now accept payments under $1, so we expect all sellers to pay the full amount due, even if your bill is less than $1.

[The following post was originally posted on Dec 2, 2008.]

Hi Etsians, my name is Sinohe and I'm Etsy's Controller (aka bean counter). Behind the scenes, all of us have been working hard to improve the overall Etsy experience and to put Etsy on a path to be a lasting and profitable company. Like many other businesses, Etsy relies on collecting fees from our members in order to continue developing and growing our business. The majority of Etsy sellers do pay their bills promptly and in full, and, for that, we are very thankful. However, there are also some sellers who allow their bills to become overdue.

Etsy will be emailing a reminder to those sellers who have overdue bills. The email will outline how to pay and the consequences for non-payment. We want to provide everyone the opportunity to settle their account balances. We do realize that this is a busy time for everyone but think that it is important enough of an issue to address it with the November billing cycle.

Two weeks after the initial email referenced above, Etsy will begin to send seller accounts with bills over 90 days past due to a third-party collection agency. This means that if a seller still holds an unpaid balance from August 2008 fees or prior, then that seller may receive a letter or other communication from a collection agency on behalf of Etsy about settling his/her outstanding balance. Before sending a seller to the third-party collection agency, Etsy will attempt to notify him/her a final time by email. This new step of involving a collection agency as a regular part of our collection process is the only change to our billing procedure at this time. This is not an action we take lightly, but it is one that is important for building Etsy as a lasting company.

We hope to only use the collection agency as a last resort, and you can help us avoid it by responsibly paying your bill on time. If your bill is overdue and consequently you are unable to list, relist and renew items, please sign in and pay your bill to have your shop privileges reinstated. If your account is closed and you still owe fees to Etsy, please email billing@etsy.com to discuss paying your bill and reinstating your account.

For more information on paying your Etsy bill, check out our billing help guide, How Billing Works. If you have any questions about your Etsy bill, please email billing@etsy.com.

Site Maintenance: Etsy Forums Only, 2am Monday March 2, 2009

2009-02-28T14:23:00-05:00

UPDATE: All done!

Etsy forum-goers,

We want to give you a heads up that early Monday morning, March 2, 2009, at 2am we will be performing site maintenance on Etsy's forums. The rest of Etsy will be functioning normally. We estimate that the forums will return at 7am. To translate these time on a world clock, try this tool. We will be posting updates on the progress at fix.etsy.com, but commenting will be closed there in order to handle the resulting high traffic.

Thank you so much for your patience as we make necessary tweaks. Hang in there!

P.S.
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Scheduled Site Maintenance

2009-02-16T13:02:00-05:00

UPDATE: All done!

On Monday, February 23rd from 2am EST until 6am EST, we will be doing scheduled maintenance on Etsy's systems. (Click here to translate this time on a world clock.) During this time period, all functions on the site will be unavailable and all Etsy users will be directed to a page that notes that the site is undergoing scheduled maintenance. For updates during the maintenance window, please see http://fix.etsy.com.

We have published the scheduled site maintenance times for the rest of 2009 here.

(Note: Any sellers who have purchased a Showcase that would run during this maintenance window will receive a pro-rated credit for the 4-hour maintenance period.)

P.S.
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Etsy Alert: Scheduled Site Maintenance - Sunday November 30 at 4am EST

2008-11-28T13:15:00-05:00

UPDATE: Success! All fixed.

[the following was originally published on November 28, 2008]

During our last site maintenance window, we discovered an unanticipated network issue that prevented us from completing the network maintenance successfully. To correct this issue, we will be doing network maintenance on Sunday November 30 at 4am EST. Users may experience sporadic connectivity issues between 4-6am EST.

We will be posting updates on fix.etsy.com.

Etsy Alert: Site Maintenance November 21, 2008 from 4-5 am EST

2008-11-20T17:29:00-05:00

UPDATE: Success!

Tomorrow morning from 4-5 am EST (Friday, November 21, 2008), we will be performing emergency network maintenance that should not interrupt service to the web site; however, we wanted to let you know in case you experience any issues during that time.

We will be posting updates to fix.etsy.com during this maintenance window. Thanks for your patience as we continue to work to make Etsy better!

TechUpdates | Join Etsy on Facebook | Opt-in for Etsy Email Lists

Etsy Alert: Scheduled Storque Maintenance

2008-11-17T21:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: All done!

We will be taking Etsy's blog, the Storque, down for maintenance on Tuesday, November 18, 2008, from 10:30pm EST until 12:30am Wednesday.

When you return to reading the Storque — as we hope you do obsessively — you'll find pages loading a lot faster. Many of the other changes we're making will likely be invisible to you: optimization fixes and admin panel features. However, you will see neat little widgets to add a post to Facebook or Stumbleupon.

Thank you in advance for waiting through the downtime and let us know if you see any problems when we come back online.

TechUpdates | Join Etsy on Facebook | Opt-in for Etsy Email Lists

Etsy News Alert: Scheduled Site Maintenances

2008-10-27T06:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: Migration is now complete and we're excited to say we even finished up a bit early. If you do notice any bugs, please post in this thread in the Bugs forums.

[The following was originally published on Oct 17, 2008]

I'm just completing my seventh week as CTO here at Etsy, and the Engineering Team here is continuing to work on the infrastructure for the site, including putting in some new systems and processes in place that will make Etsy more reliable both for the holidays and for the long haul. Next weekend, we will be migrating Etsy's master database to better and faster hardware. Since the master database contains the most essential information used to run Etsy, the key functions of the site will be unavailable. We have scheduled this maintenance for 3am until 6am ET on Monday, October 27, 2008. We will have a page up noting that we are in maintenance mode, but you will be unable to use search, listings, checkout, Storque, forums, convos, or anything else you normally use at Etsy. Because this is a significant migration, we wanted to give you plenty of advance notice.

This weekend, we will be taking the Storque database down for maintenance from 11pm-midnight on Sunday, October 19, 2008. Storque will be unavailable during this time.

You might notice that the maintenance window for the master database is 3 hours, whereas the maintenance window for the much smaller conversations database on September 22 was much longer (approximately 11 hours). This is not a coincidence, but very intentional and the result of better planning and execution. Since September 22, we have begun putting a more thoughtful and intelligent design in place for our database systems with the specific goal of shortening maintenance windows and any downtime you will experience. As we continue to work on Etsy, we will do whatever we can to minimize the disruption for all of you.

For both of these maintenance windows, we will be posting updates to fix.etsy.com.

Thanks for your patience as we continue to work to make Etsy better!

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Etsy News Alert: Necessary Site Maintenance for Conversations

2008-09-22T06:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: Maintenance is now complete! Thank you for hanging in there!
The following was originally published on September 19, 2008:

We will be performing necessary site maintenance to the Conversations feature on Etsy this weekend.

The maintenance will take place from 7pm Sunday, September 21 to early morning on Monday, September 22 (Eastern Daylight Time). During this time, all Convos will be inaccessible. However, none of your Convos will be deleted and will reappear intact after the site maintenance.

The Conversation system is integral to a few other Etsy features, so we will also be taking these down during the maintenance:

Please use email to contact buyers regarding transactions. You can find contact info by clicking "details" on the Sold (Orders) page in Your Etsy. Get contact info for sellers by clicking on "invoice" in the Purchases page in Your Etsy.

Many members choose to use the notification setting that emails you when you have a Convo. In this case, you should have copies of these messages in your email inbox (if you are an email hoarder, like many of us). If you have not been using the notification option and you have important Convos that you will need during this site maintenance, you should copy/paste them to your computer now. Again, none of your Convos will be deleted, but we are aware that many sellers, for instance, need info regarding custom orders and buyers' instructions in order to do time sensitive work during the site maintenance.

New folks, in case you don't know what Convos are... "Convos" or Conversations make up Etsy's internal messaging system. It's how Etsy members can message each other and how admin notices reach members. Click "contact Seller" in their shops or click "Conversations" at the top of any page. Read more about this site feature in the Convos FAQ.

The engineers are using fix.etsy.com for status updates.

We will close commenting here so we can follow all the discussion in this forum thread.

We apologize for inconveniencing our members, and thank you so much for being patient with us while we do this important maintenance!

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Scheduled Maintenance August 20 1pm EDT

2008-08-18T18:38:00-05:00

Dear Etsians,

Etsy will be conducting site maintenance at 1pm EDT (e.g. Wednesday afternoon eastern time U.S.), August 20, 2008.

We are not anticipating any issues or downtime — in fact, we hope you will not notice the change at all — but we want to give members a heads up. We are doing this maintenance at "prime time" so that the admin can be all hands on deck. That way, in the event of any issues we can switch changes back. Should you experience problems and are unable to post in the forums, please email support@etsy.com.

For now, if you have questions or concerns about the site maintenance, please see this forum thread. We will close commenting on this Storque post so we can consolidate info there.

Thank you for your patience while we continue to improve the site!

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the listserve.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: Credit Card Gateway Issue

2008-08-11T19:03:00-05:00

Update 8/11/08:

We spoke with our credit card gateway provider, and while they assured us that the refunds were imminent, they told us that those involved may not see their refunds reflected until later this week or beyond depending on how their banks process the payments. We are truly sorry for the delay, and promise to share any information as it becomes available from them.

We will be directly contacting the sellers involved to share this development with them. I will also be sure to update this article and the forums once we have confirmed that the refund process has been initiated.

I do want to be abundantly clear that this was an isolated incident at our payment gateway. The problem was completely rectified hours after it occurred and no longer effects the functionality of Etsy's billing system.

We truly appreciate your continued understanding and patience in this matter.

____

Original Post from 8/4/08

Yesterday (Sunday, August 3) from approximately 4:00 AM to 11:30 AM EDT a small percentage of our sellers experienced a problem paying their Etsy bills. This was due to a malfunction at one of our third-party credit card processor's gateways. As a result, these sellers were informed that their cards were not charged, when in fact they had been. Some sellers attempted to pay their bills more than once and subsequently were charged more than once.

The third-party credit card processor resolved the malfunction by 11:30 AM EDT Sunday and all subsequent Etsy bill payments have been recorded and processed correctly. At no time were any credit card numbers or sellers' personal data exposed.

In order to clear up this problem, our credit card processing company is crediting back all impacted bill payments that occurred during this time period. We are contacting the sellers that were affected to let them know what happened.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Since this is a billing matter, we will work privately with the sellers who were affected. Please contact billing@etsy.com if you have a concern or question regarding this matter or your Etsy bill. Thank you.

We have closed commenting on this post and would like to direct discussion to this forum thread.

Tech Update: Scheduled Maintenance Friday July 25, 2am EDT

2008-07-23T16:44:00-05:00

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@etsy.com.

For now, if you have questions or concerns about the site maintenance, please see this forum thread. We will close commenting on this Storque post so we can consolidate info there.

Thank you for your patience while we continue to improve the site!

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the listserve.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Etsy Alerts: The New News Emails

2008-04-23T12:02:00-05:00

Many Etsians have been asking for a cut and dry way to get only the important site news from admin. The Storque is great and all, you say, but there's so much content, it's hard to pinpoint what's what in the Etsy News Section.

We over here at the Storque are up for the task. We are converting the Etsy News Email list to be an Etsy News Alert system. In the past, Etsy News was about a weekly or so collection of headlines from the Storque. Pleasant enough, but not instantaneous! Not hard-hitting!

That was then, this is now: just sign up for the Etsy News Emails listserve here, or by clicking on the envelope icon on the homepage of Etsy.

You will get breaking news headlines straight from Etsy Central, as they are published on the Storque, delivered to your email inboxes. Hello, synchronicity!

Included Topics:

Downtime & site outages
Cooperative Advertising announcements
New site features launched
Statistics
Showcase announcements
Policy & legal announcements
Important Customer Support how-tos
Major posts from Etsy's founder Rob Kalin, aka Rokali
Town Halls or other community-wide events
Other news important enough for us to bug you

We realize the need for a swift, targeted and convenient way for Etsians to get headlines. We know your are busy and you need the headlines which will help you run your businesses on Etsy. As with any curated content, we'll be making judgment calls on the fly as these stories break, and those calls may fall prey to human error once in a while. But we promise to do our best! Of course, we hope you'll read the rest of the Storque too for other Etsy News on Competitions & Opportunities, EtsyinthePress, as well as insightful and useful posts about Legal Info for Artists, EtsyTeams, Virtual Labs Schedule, Shop Makeover Series, etc. But these can be read at your leisure if you feel the urge...

We are just starting this, so please let us know your thoughts below in the comments! And go subscribe here!

Customer Care Update: Billing Reminder!

2007-10-31T12:00:00-05:00

Hey Sellers!

January is only two months away now, so we want to remind everyone to make sure they pay those bills soon. We will have penalties for overdue bills in the New Year and we'd love to get everyone started off in 2008 on a clean slate.

Remember, no more auto-billing either! So go to Your Etsy > Your Etsy Bill and take a look at your bill.

You can make payment from this page by clicking the big, bright 'make payment now' button.

Be sure to email billing@etsy.com with your questions.

NOTE: Enter "billing" into the Storque tag search bar or click the "billing" tag below to see all articles relating to billing!

Customer Care: Mistagging and Correction of Tags Without Notice

2007-10-08T16:02:00-05:00

Hi everyone!

We have great news. Etsy has responded to the community need for an improved search by developing some tools that will allow us to correct or remove tags that either don't qualify or that confuse the search engine.

Searching on Etsy will now be more efficient due to Admins' ability to crack down on tags.

We receive a huge volume of emails about items that have been flagged because they are tagged incorrectly. We understand that most mistagging is a mistake and that when you are tagging your items that you are attempting to get the widest exposure possible for your item. There is no fault in that line of thinking.

However, mistagging items, albeit accidentally, is making it difficult for buyers to search for things. For example, an item tagged as "stocking stuffer" (that is actually a bar of soap) makes the search for handmade stockings impossible. The buyer looking for a stocking finds soap and gets exasperated — and they might leave and not come back.

Due to the extraordinary volume of mistagging, Etsy will be correcting tags without email notification, but we are happy to assist you in any way if you have questions. Simply email support@etsy.com. We will email you if there is a problem.

As we improve this system, we should be able to provide resources that help people learn how to tag. Best of all, we are all going to see a highly improved search function just in time for the holidays.

Further Resources:

Online Workshop: Tagging Recap

Tagging Tips and Guidlines

Your Etsy Bill's Reminder System

2007-10-05T18:14:00-05:00

We've just implemented our reminder system about paying your bill. You'll now see an alert bar just below the header and, if you have fees more than 3 months overdue, an interstitial screen letting you know.

Until the end of this year, reminders are the only consequence of having overdue fees. Starting on January 15 of 2008, accounts with fees that are 2 months overdue will not be able to list new items, and having fees 3 months overdue (or greater) will have their accounts suspended. We'll always contact anyone with overdue fees several times beforehand to make sure things are OK and see what we can work out.

Once again, until the end of this year, reminders are the only consequence of having overdue fees.

NOTE:
This article was edited to comply with the Billing FAQ.

Billing Alert: Transaction Refunds Currently Disabled — UPDATED!

2007-10-02T15:19:00-05:00

UPDATE:

We've fixed the technical problem but we humans are working on catching up with the backlog of requests. We will get to your request as soon as possible!

Our ability to perform transaction refunds is currently disabled, but it should be back very soon. As soon as it is back we will be refunding all reported transactions.

Thanks, from Etsy Billing!