Will New Etsy Badges Appease Sellers Unhappy with Star Program?

by: The End

Etsy wants to "appease" sellers ?
Back the take rate DOWN to 3 1/2% (hold your tongue).
Take NOTHING from our shipping and taxes.
Stop being a HOG.

by: postbuster

Is this any different from crap on a stick?  (handmade or vintage)

Got plenty of that from many years of business with all the Big Commerce platforms.  
I don't spend much money at those places anymore.  Boycotting Corporate Greed and Abuse.

by: LDWCallsOut

All these badges remind me of the monthly Usenet's Lamest Loser awards from 2 decades ago.  Winners were known for flaming generally, more specifically Doxing, and making death threats.  

The Etsy Forums thread linked in the post above is worth reading because the comments say it all.  Especially the one that says we don't need more awards for reseller shops.

Maybe it would be fun to award a badge for egregious abuse of the Production Partner citation.  I've seen some winners.  One reseller stated their partner was "god" (small g).  Another cited her toddler son -- not as a member of the shop but as production partner.  "na" shows up once in a while.  And I liked the counterfeit reseller who said her fake Chanel bags were produced for her by Gucci.

More fun awards would be for outrageous medical claims, spooky power claims cited for crystals, and sales achievements made by shops reselling multi level marketing products.

by: Shanna

Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!

Sorry, had to be done.

by: Snapped

“…for eligible sellers…”

‘We’ do it for you.  That’s the message.  ‘We’ will take what ‘we’ consider to be ‘suitable’ metrics, using ‘our’ data, and do the work of deciding FOR you what you believe to be suitable as a measure of trust and reliability.  

And when all the ‘stars’ align, sellers who meet with ‘our’ approval will have a special participation trophy 🏆 as an indicator of ‘our’ endorsement.  Leaving you more time to buy more without all the pesky due diligence a conscientious buyer can to do for themselves.

And so, sez who?  Sez Etsy!  

Only…where’s THEIR ‘badge’?  Who’s judging the judge?  Would ‘they’ even qualify for one of their own?  And what happens when ‘everybody’ becomes ‘eligible’?  

Sellers (and buyers) do not want ‘appeasement’.  They want ‘venues’ out of their hair.  They want a level field on a reliable platform.  Objective measurements are fine, and the buyers can chose to use them as they deem fit.  Stop 🛑 the knob polishing and manipulations.  You can’t spend some flashy digital medal.

However - if they must ‘decorate’, LDW had some terrific ideas a couple posts back on snazzing it up a bit. (Good stuff 👍👍).  Maybe they could do like a virtual quarterly award by ‘category’ show every quarter or something.  Align it with fee hikes and ‘take’ enhancements to kinda take the sting off of those accompanying ‘slaps’.  

by: pace306

Shanna 😀

Big +1 on the Blazing Saddles reference!

by: Zigmund

I really don't care for these cheap 'appeasement" badges. I simply ignore them.
I am also sure that most buyers don't even notice these badges.
BUT, if Etsy want really to appease, then it should be BUYERS, not sellers.
Give buyers incentives to come back, give them coupons, give them what Amazon does. Example from Amazon:" Free Shipping on $49 order (eligible items)."
Something like that.

by: Cbaker

Sounds like a participation trophy for the whiners.  Good grief!

by: I_Fix_Dolls

The Star Seller and partial "badges" are a sad farce, rewarding actions the seller cannot control or "fix". I have had bad reviews such as the buyer's printer ran out of ink (bought a printable item) another "Couldn't find the download" (never contacted me , didn't read how to look up your purchases.)
The other is amount of sales and how much money people spent at your shop. Can you drag people in kicking & screaming to buy from your shop? Not everyone can offer highly popular and expensive items all the time, especially if the whole reason they are doing the work in the first place is to make some money on the niche items they may have, or make. Etsy needs to value their sellers more, stop letting bots take down legal items that take weeks for a seller to get Etsy to reinstate, and go after the sellers who sell without regard to Etsy's own rules about reselling and porn type pictures and just "icky" stuff like dirty underwear.

by: Tinysaur

The only reward we need is more cash. They want to take an additional 1.5% and trade us a trinket that won't get us a cup of coffee.

by: Queen of the Jungle

AGREE with all of the above comments.  Their badges are nothing but participation trophies- meaningless virtue signaling.

If they really want to help, how about doing something about the search engine which still sucks.  

Etsy has the only search in the world that does not return suggestions- you have to type in the exact name of a shop for example.

Also- I will never forgive them for how they destroyed Vintage.

by: Sierra

LDW - Great suggestions!

Queen of the Jungle - Last time I tried to search for a specific Etsy shop, I could type in part of the shop name and click the "Find shop names containing ..." link. Doesn't this work for you? I usually use a laptop, so maybe this isn't available on the app or mobile browsers?  

by: Old Artist

Stars and badges are like being in kindergarten and grade school. You get a star in kindergarten, then graduate to first grade and get badges ! Whoopeeee! And I can’t even take them home and show mommy!  

by: Snapped

“ And I can’t even take them home and show mommy! “

Yeah, you gotta yet yer mama to snag one of them ‘smart’ refrigerators.  Then you could eMail it to it’s door….or if funds are tight - and if you sell on the big E that’s likely these days - just magna-clip your cell to the door. 📲

by: BargainzBabylon

I suspect sellers needy for validation pay more attention to these silly badges than shoppers (or sellers without validation issues), and Etsy is playing on this. I find them irrelevant.  

by: tigerlily

I have been a star seller for approx 15 yrs on Etsy.. Great Fb .. No cases.. No problems..  Fast ship ..Fast response to messages.. Follow the rules..And I know many other long time great sellers on Etsy.. We don't need your stinking Stars!.. Want to make us happy??? Stop the greed!! Stop taking more and more of our money. It's barely worth selling on Etsy  anymore. I have had your star for the last 4 months.. don't give a cr%p!.. What I care about is making a fair wage for my work so I can pay my bills..Etsy doesn't give a cr%p about treating sellers fairly!

by: tigerlily

How do I change My PW?

by: tigerlily

Found it,, the pass word thing..

by: Stone Cutter

***The consumer mood is very dark***

I have no doubt Etsy wants to improve the appearance of seller performances, FOR ETSY. Latest economic data says that inflation is indeed causing pause for U.S. consumers and that the mood of the consumer is "very dark". We aren't yet rid of Covid; inflation continues to tick forward while a very ugly war in Ukraine adds concerns for many Americans.

As a jeweler on Etsy, it's very quiet for this Spring buying season. Sales are weak, while very few sellers are posting new pieces. And here's the kicker...when sellers have full shops, it becomes too expensive to produce more products so shops become dead by a lack of activity. Sellers, too, are experiencing inflation which is why I think many sellers aren't posting new pieces until they sell their current inventory.

I have no doubt that this change in the Seller Badge is because Etsy needs something new to draw in buyers, however, if buyers don't have the disposable income to spend, it really doesn't make much difference. Sellers have increased their price points to compensate for increased fees but now sellers are becoming priced out of their market.

I'm really hoping a contraction in consumer spending will be the catalyst for a major downturn for Etsy. CEO Silverman came into Etsy when economic times were good, but can he perform when recession fears loom? And what about those low end investments Etsy made in Brazil and the UK. I'm sure those aren't going well as the global economy is expected to contract.

Someday, Etsy will find new management in hopes a new management team will be better business people. Those who continually "take" and never "give" will eventually fail. If sellers aren't motivated they WON'T PRODUCE...period.  And this is what I see on Etsy...sellers are losing profits with every fee increase, while in a weakened consumer market. So why bother?

by: LDWCallsOut

The market on Etsy counterfeit luxury brand jewelry is very strong.  Buyers are purchasing several replica Chanel brooches at one time, for example, at $50 to $70 each.  The total purchase amount is close to the price of an authentic pre-owned Chanel brooch.  Sellers of ''handmade'' (= imported from China) Tiffany jewelry discovered this year that they can make more sales by increasing their prices to match the market for authentic pre-owned Tiffany jewelry.  Even with one star reviews from buyers who were shocked to discover their purchase wasn't the real deal, new buyers keep on buying and buying and buying.

The market for replica bags and accessories on Etsy is also strong right now.  Much better than the last two pandemic years.

People whose income has actually increased over the past several years, like me, find the current consumer price increases nothing more than a mild annoyance.  But I wouldn't dream of literally throwing money away on purchasing a counterfeit fashion item.  

The buyer Etsy corporate has targeted for at least a decade now (which is often not the same buyer targeted by any individual Etsy shop) is very young (maybe 14 to 29), and often not supporting themselves financially.  These are the buyers who I believe write glowing reviews of their Etsy purchases where they paid $80 for a necklace that anyone can buy on AliExpress for less than $3.  

It's people who actually have to work to earn their living that are most impacted by current inflation AND are more likely to appreciate the value of authentic artisan work or vintage items.  They are shoppers LESS likely to buy from reseller shops.