New Features from Etsy Amid Seller Complaints

Etsy has rolled out several new features including a redesigned Invoice page and Orders page, while at the same time some sellers complain the site is focusing on employee perks instead of phone support or website improvements.

Etsy redesigned the Invoice page in Your Etsy to help sellers access information more easily. Payment and Shipping details are at the top of the page; sellers can mark an order as paid or shipped right on the Invoice page, and Etsy displays ship date on the page.

Etsy also made some changes to the Orders page in Your Etsy. When you click "Show buyer address and message," Etsy now remembers that preference when you return to the page and made it easier to contact a buyer from the Orders page and check if a buyer is a repeat customer.

Meanwhile complaints come in from users that the site is too focused on employee perks while sellers wait for needed features and improvements. An Etsy seller wrote to AuctionBytes, "The forum threads are filled with requests for real seller tools, workable search functions, a removal of sellers deemed mass producers of manufactured goods. These types of threads are closed down routinely as Etsy skittles along its merry little way." A blog called Etsy Bitch documents such problems and complaints (see the bloggers' manifesto here).

Etsy recently stirred up controversy when it wrote about three "phone booths" it designed at its headquarters for use by employees rather than for phone support for Etsy users, and when the Wall Street Journal wrote about some employee perks. Administrators recently apologized for a case in which it appears they closed a couple of shops belonging to members who had publicly criticized it.