Ideas Questions for Admin for the week of Nov. 16th, 2012

Voting is now enabled for this thread.

Posted at 10:29 am Nov 16, 2012 EST

I'm going to turn off voting and start posting answers shortly. Get your final votes in!

Posted at 5:32 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Before I get started on this week's questions, first, an answer from last week! (Really, an answer for the past two weeks.)

FrancescasFancy writes:

"TAG CHARACTER LIMITS (follow through from last weeks thread)

"Last week I posted about the limitations of the tagging system. You asked for more details to the problem. Others were very helpful, (thanks!), as requested in the previous thread. (see below)

"Please can you clarify what is the proper tagging process to advance our business within the newly promoted SEO environment. Currently tags are limited to 21 characters. To optimize for search within Etsy, Goggle and others, we have been advised to use multi-word tags which are hampered by the limitations."

This took a while to get a definitive answer about, apologies.

First, the original request was to increase tag size above 21 characters, and to reiterate, we don't plan to make that change.

Second, the question is about how best to use tags to promote your items. As always, the best way to promote your items is to look at how people are discovering you in Shop Stats, and use tags to match those queries as closely as possible.

There are some *marginal* benefits to using multi-word tags, but they are not nearly as strong as the question implies that they are; certainly not worth being a point of contention for the feature request. Your best bet is to match queries from Shop Stats, use multiple tags if needed for length and if the query is shorter than the character limit, and otherwise not worry about it.

Thanks much for the detailed question and follow-ups.

Posted at 6:29 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Onto this week...

I usually try to identify and answer the top-voted question first. I do, however, always launch these threads by saying:

"I will generally not respond to posts unless they are constructive and stated in a way that allows healthy communication between us. I always try to meet the same standard. It's okay to be frustrated or emphatic, of course, but if you are disrespectful or hostile we will simply not respond."

The top-voted question is one I will not identify nor respond to for this reason. These threads exist to promote good and healthy communication between members and admin. The table stakes, so to speak, for my time here are a respectful approach. Of course, it pains me to have to say that about a topic that generated a lot of votes. Obviously there is interest and frustration. But, I feel it is better for the community, the Forums, and my time here if I stick strictly to the standard I laid out at the start.

Feel free to repost the question next week with a different tone and I will definitely respond to it, regardless of vote count that week.

Posted at 6:43 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Jerry Burkhart writes:

"I wonder if Etsy is concerned with or agrees that a lot of very negative Public relations issues are being said and written and against Etsy? That Etsy has 'lost It' with the Handmade Artist and Crafts People and the buyers. Is it also possible that the buyers are changing on Etsy to reflect the inventory changes on this site. I think this would have to be true. Is it possible that Etsy changes that were not thought out properly could be partially responsible or that Etsy has changed its Buisness Model and this new Buisness model does not include Handmade Artist and Craftspeople anymore except as token carryovers from the old etsy? Can we expect to see more and more unfair placement favoritism and Commercial products in the future for Etsy?"

Hi, Jerry,

Thanks much for posting this.

I definitely take the concerns sellers post here very seriously - that is why I am here every week now, answering questions. I don't want it to be the case that people feel there is a gap between how they see Etsy and how Etsy sees itself. I would consider it a huge problem if Etsy were to change in ways that would push out the businesses of those that helped us grow, and I know full well there are some people who already feel that way.

We are definitely not, and have absolutely no intention of changing our business model to push out handmade artists and craftspeople.

In answer to your question, "Can we expect to see more and more unfair placement favoritism and Commercial products in the future for Etsy?" the answer is absolutely not.

Again, I am very well aware of the concerns about Browse and other recent features. What may not be obvious nor well-reported is that I am spending a lot of time talking to the sellers who feel they are deeply affected. If people have concerns like this, my view is that it is my job to learn more about their businesses (where they are representative), see why they feel the way they do about changes we've made, figure out how best to respond, and make changes to make things better.

No one here is out to push away any existing, legitimate Etsy sellers (of course, we do everything we can to push out people who take advantage of Etsy buyers and violate our policies). Every change we make is intended to, and usually proven to by experimentation before the change, improve the businesses of people on the site.

I don't know if this will feel like a good answer or not. I hope you hear in these threads, week after week, my intent to guide the department to help you more. Some of the changes needed take time, but our job is not to push you out or make your life hard. Our job is to make your lives better.

Posted at 6:54 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Bernadette from ThePeacockFeather replies:

"how do we know what the question was so it can be reposted if you won't tell us?"

If you feel an important question was unanswered, feel free to repost it in the next thread.

Posted at 6:56 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

CustomShowerCurtains writes:

"These 2 Major Google Shopping Issues NEED addressing because the forums are full of posts about this problem."

I am not expert on these concerns and have asked someone more knowledgable to respond to your post.

Posted at 6:57 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Sarah writes:

"How is etsy going to change the selection of treasuries for the front page to fairly represent all the shops on etsy and eliminate the constant presence of a few select shops? It's been an issue for 4+ years. It's still an issue. The same shops are always featured there and other shops seem to be completely shut out of the feature based on who knows what — and it's not bad photos, TOU violations, copyright infringement or offensive items for sale."

I completely agree with this concern. While we're still talking over the solution, we have some concrete ideas that I think will make a big change here and help across the board. No promises on release date, and it will require a lot of testing, but I agree that we need to address it and will push on it.

Posted at 7:04 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Gina writes:

"OPTION TO HAVE BANNER ON EVERY PAGE OF OUR SHOPS (or an editable header, so we don't have to mess with the SEO by putting it at the top of our description)."

Yup, this came up before and I agree with the need. Thanks.

Posted at 7:05 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Swoon writes:

"On the subject both of 'report an issue' and 'request cancellation', it begins to feel very much as if Etsy is insinuating itself into the relationship between customer and seller. Most of us who sell here perceive Etsy only as the venue that hosts our independent business, and not actually as part of the business itself, and certainly not our employer. It's unnecessary for Etsy to be involved in transactions at all. If there are problems or the need for cancellations the buyer should only be required to contact the shop owner. If the problem can't be resolved between them, then Paypal or the credit card company can become involved in arbitrating and issuing a refund (or not). Etsy's involving itself in this process seems to be having the effect of souring a previously harmonious relationship between buyer and seller (by encouraging pre-emptive and wholly unnecessary action) and also between Etsy and its own customers (the sellers) (by challenging those business owners' independence and autonomy)."

Well, I don't think we agree on this. In your note, you highlight that PayPal or credit card companies can be involved in the transaction, as an enforcement of law or policy. Etsy also has policies, and the marketplace you agree we should help make great can only be great if we can enforce those policies.

If a seller takes money from Etsy buyers repeatedly and does not ship those items, and the fact that is true is more visible elsewhere (PayPal, credit card companies, etc) than to us, and we continue to promote that seller, that hurts your business, since buyers will trust Etsy less and will buy on the Etsy site less. In the large, our business and yours will both fail if this goes unchecked.

You're right there are other ways buyers can be protected, but we believe that providing the best and most efficient protection to buyers matters more than throwing up our hands and trusting someone else to take care of it. Especially for transactions through Direct Checkout, we also have other responsibilities to take care of both buyers and sellers.

Our job is to make a trusted marketplace. The features and policies you are objecting to are designed to increase buyer trust and therefore sellers' businesses. We mean to do that so it benefits all three of those groups (sellers, buyers, and Etsy). If we are off the mark on that, tell us how and we'll work to fix it.

[Edited to correct typo: "will *buy* on the Etsy site less"]

Posted at 7:34 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Chris writes:

"BROWSE... is there a way to open it up to more relevant sellers? I understand not having the room to have every item in there, but I am noticing the same thing as other shops... a category that clearly describes a third of my shop has none of my items in it, but many sellers showing up 20 or more times... my SEO is as strong as theirs. I don't expect life to be fair, but a little more balance would be welcome..."

We definitely intend it to be open to, and including, more relevant sellers whenever possible. I won't say at all this is perfectly done now, but we have continued to, and will continue to, work to improve it. Sending great examples to support is still the best way to correct problems you see.

Posted at 7:38 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Ann writes:

"Open Cases: It seems like there has been more of these happening since the button had been moved. Yes, the customer is asked to contact the buyer, but they rarely do and it seems they still think they are contacting the shop owner. Many of these issues can be resolved without having to involve Etsy.
Will this ever be changed? Also, so our shop policies have any reflection on the outcome?"

I'll ask someone more expert to respond to this.

Posted at 7:40 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Erin writes:

"Easier to Leave Feedback - as a seller, I'd like to return feedback, but with my sales volume, it is very difficult/time consuming to find the right page to leave the feedback on. It would be great if my finished feedback page (where I see the feedback I have received) would have a feedback box for returning feedback underneath it. It would be so quick and easy to return feedback that way. Also - having the option to leave feedback from the transaction page would be useful, too. Or - give us a tool to automatically return positive feedback?"

We are committed to working on feedback as soon as possible. I'll add this to the list of suggestions we have around the feature. I agree that a huge amount of work is needed here.

Posted at 7:41 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Caroline writes:

"Shop Stats: Can we have a few more choices in shop stats, like 'Same dates last year', the 'specific dates' boxes are kind of clunky to change without a lot of clickety click!"

I totally agree with the need on this, and will forward it to the group working on it. Thanks much for the suggestions.

Posted at 7:43 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Janeane Wilbur writes:

"Report an Issue: Can we get an update on this question (below) from last week now that you may have had a chance to look into it?"

Yes, I've asked someone else to respond to this.

Posted at 7:44 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Jeni writes:

"Such a small thing, but I beg of you--can we please arrange our Featured Items with a drag-and-drop method the way we do with images in our listings?"

Sometimes the smallest changes are very big improvements!

I'll forward this to the group working on the area. I agree this seems like an obvious one. Thanks much for suggesting it.

Posted at 7:45 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Mel Fischer writes:

"I would definitely love to see a special button that we can click on if we are participating in Etsy-wide events, such as Christmas in July and Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Then it would automatically tag all of our items as EXTRA tags, with the correct tags. Which brings me to another point. We need batch editing within Etsy itself. We should not have to get third party programs to do this or wind up spending hours and hours going through each listing."

First, I totally agree on batch editing. This gets my "YES TOTALLY" vote of the week.

Second, I don't believe we should or will use tags for Black Friday-like events in the future. While I know we have suggested this approach, it is not a good driver of sales and removes other tags that might help you in search. We're going to continue with the system in place for now this year, since we aren't making big changes at this point. In the future, however, I am more inclined towards your 'button' suggestion, and letting people opt in other ways than via tags. Tags should be about search and nothing else.

Posted at 7:48 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Kim writes:

"I would love the ability to organize favorites into different folders. I make treasuries and I shop here; I find it hard to shop and find my personal favorites because they are mixed in with my favorites for treasuries. "

I get this request surprisingly often. We aren't currently working on it, but I'm surprised how often it comes up, and I'll consider moving it up in priority as a result. Thanks much for the suggestion.

Posted at 7:50 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

AnyOldTime writes:

"During Baligate, it became evident that a lot of the nuances of what is, and what is not, legal Etsy policy was not easily findable, and/or clearly articulated with examples. A lot of the clarifications on policy were here, somewhere in the forums. We had to depend on some seller recollecting that, last year some time..a Mod answered a question that kinda sorta explained things. Can the TOU or some other place be the repository for when these nuances/clarifications are made by Etsy Moderators/staff rather than have them buried in forum posts? Thanks!! Robin"

That's a great idea, and one I hadn't heard before. I'll bring it up here and see what we can do. Thanks for the awesome suggestion.

Posted at 7:51 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Thanks, all, for participating - I'm going to wrap up for the night. Tomorrow morning, I'll check in and read responses, but will likely not post at that point.

Take care and have a good weekend!

Posted at 7:53 pm Nov 16, 2012 EST

Ann from PrettyVagrant says
Open Cases
It seems like there has been more of these happening since the button had been moved. Yes, the customer is asked to contact the buyer, but they rarely do and it seems they still think they are contacting the shop owner. Many of these issues can be resolved without having to involve Etsy.
Will this ever be changed?
Also, so our shop policies have any reflection on the outcome?

Now I do have a idea......
When we cancel a order we have a series of questions to answer. Why can't the open case button work the same?
"Have you contacted the seller?"
No....have a convo box open.
Yes....has the seller responded to your satisfaction?
No..."Ok, we at Etsy are here to help resolve the issue along with following the shops policies"

of course the wording is just an example. This would help save many unneeded cases from being opened.

--------

Thanks for bringing this up!

We have seen an increase in the number of cases since we changed the "Report a Problem" section on the purchases page. We're monitoring the content of these cases through our new system. If we see a spike in the number of cases opened in error, we'll definitely revisit the open a case flow.

We know that many of these cases can be resolved by the buyer and seller. That's why the first part of the case process doesn't involve Etsy at all. Cases aren't meant to be a punishment, but rather a tool for resolving issues with your buyer.

We did have check boxes like the ones you described in the old case flow. We found that they didn't have much effect on the buyers filing cases. That being said, if we do find a higher number of erroneous cases, this might be a great tool to experiment with.

When you have a case filed against you, Etsy does take your policies into account if the case is escalated for review.

We're still making improvements to this system and appreciate all the feedback!

Posted at 6:04 pm Nov 17, 2012 EST

Janeane Wilbur from ArtByJaneane says

RE: "Report an Issue"

Can we get an update on this question (below) from last week now that you may have had a chance to look into it?

Also, can we get a drill-down of what the customer sees on their end when they click on "Report an Issue"?

A comment on this that I'd like to add is that the wording seems to be confusing to people and the user interface/site navigation location of "Report an Issue" seems to behaving more like a prompt that encourages a click.

------


Marc Hedlund says Highlighted Post

Janeane Wilbur writes:

"Lately I've been seeing a huge increase about the number of cases that are opened against shops for non-delivery. Seems this is due to the location and wording of where the "Report an issue" drop-down menu was placed where it is. Many of these cases seem to be opened frivolously before the mail could possibly deliver the item(s). Is admin planning on doing anything about this spike and looking into another wording and location for reporting? Also, why is it that someone can open a case for a non-delivery instantly after the sale is clicked as 'shipped' and no time is considered for the mail to actually be delivered?"

I'm going to look into this more before responding in depth. We did just make a big set of changes around this, and I'd like to see what the effects were in detail before responding. I can certainly understand the concern and would not want to see any frivolous cases supported by the setup on our side.

Thanks for posting this.

Posted at 6:23 pm Nov 9, 2012 EST - Report this post
Actions: Delete post - Threads - Lookup - Login history - H


---------

Hi,

First off, we've also seen an increase in the number of cases too. This was expected. In the old system, it was really difficult to file a case. Moving the link to the purchases page and changing the link language to make it more intuitive for buyers was meant to make it easier to file a report. I said in my other response, we're monitoring the content of these cases closely. If we see a large number of cases being filed for reasons other than undelivered items or items that are significantly described, we'll revisit the language.

I'd like to clarify a few of the details about the reporting structure.

The Report a Problem link appears either:

7 days after an item is ordered
or
If processing times are used, after the processing time or when the item is marked as shipped.

We know that the window with regard to processing time is not perfect and it's something we'd like to revisit.

When a member clicks on this link they see a drop down with:
- I did not receive an item
- An item does not match it's description

I appreciate your feedback on this language and the timeframe in which it is displayed. We'll continue to monitor the content of cases and make changes to this language as necessary.

Posted at 6:19 pm Nov 17, 2012 EST

CustomShowerCurtains writes:

"These 2 Major Google Shopping Issues NEED addressing because the forums are full of posts about this problem.

ISSUE ONE: In the last few weeks, ALL ETSY ITEMS have been invisible to American Shoppers (our biggest buyers) during the peak buying time of 5PM to 12AM EST. Meanwhile, all non-American shoppers can find our items all day long. Other marketplaces have no issue like this with Google Shopping and feature our items 24/7. Why is this an Etsy issue? Is Etsy NOT paying for full day exposure as other venues are?"

--

We were thrilled to announce our partnership with Google Shopping earlier this year and we continue to be excited about offering it our members throughout the holiday season. One of the main differences between Google’s new paid shopping experience and their previous product search is how results are included. In the new model, marketplaces are charged every time a listing (ad) is clicked. Etsy has set aside a budget of more than a quarter of a million dollars throughout the holiday season to purchase ads for our eligible sellers. In doing so, we have a daily budget with Google and once that budget has been reached our ads no longer run.

Since Google launched their new paid shopping experience, we've seen some changes in how listings (ads) appear. Specifically, we've noticed that ads are not evenly distributed throughout the day. Overall, we now receive more traffic from Google Shopping than we have ever before -- we're just getting more clicks earlier in the day. We are working with Google to ensure a more even distribution going forward, and we appreciate your patience in the meantime.

Google Shopping is currently only available in the US. Non-American based shoppers still receive the previous shopping experience, which is not based on ads. Since it isn’t a paid model, there is no daily budget and items appear throughout the day.

--

"ISSUE TWO: Yesterday morning (November 15), Google deleted Etsy's catchall "Etsy - Seller" account from Google Shopping. As you are aware, Etsy had to lump a bunch of sellers together that used to show as "Etsy - Seller" in Google Shopping because Etsy could not get enough sub-account with Google in order to show everyone's individual shop name. So now we do not show up in Google Shopping at all, ever! What happens to us "Etsy - Sellers" ? We feel like second class citizens yet we pay the exact same fees as everyone else."

--

Late last week, Etsy accidently syndicated items that are prohibited on Google Shopping to Google and as a result, other non-prohibited items were affected and not displayed. Unfortunately due to the sheer volume of items we submit to Google Shopping it took longer than expected to track down this problem and address it. We worked with Google around the clock to address this issue and as of very early this morning, the prohibited items have been removed and we believe Etsy’s items in Google shopping are appearing as expected. We are taking steps with Google to prevent this from happening in the future.

--

"The admins' answers to our pleas are few and far between as though they have an "ignore" order from high above. Or they answer robotically with "Google has changed" and "it's normal". This is NOT normal, nor fair. This is only happening with Etsy, not other marketplaces. So please be clear about how much Etsy has done, is doing, and what it hasn't done.

Our sales are down because of this issue, not because of Browse, or tags, or elections, or hurricanes. Our shops will close soon if things are not addressed.

Is Etsy abandoning us sellers who's sales came mainly from Google Shopping? Is the cost not worth the profit?

Thank you and I hope this MAJOR ISSUE gets addressed fully and honestly once and for all."

--

As we discussed above, we are still evaluating the value Google Product Listing Ads drives for sellers, and weighing the benefits against the investment from Etsy’s side. We also know that this process has not felt smooth or painless for some of our sellers, and we will take that aggravation into account as we decide how to move forward in 2013.

Thanks,
Frank

Posted at 1:02 pm Nov 20, 2012 EST