EcommerceBytes Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Your emails to EcommerceBytes
For consideration, send your email to ina@auctionbytes.com with "Letters to the Editor Blog" in the subject line! Remember to include your name as you would like it to appear in the blog.
Tue Jan 14 2014 13:50:33

Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Policy

By: Reader

Sponsored Link

Dear Ina,
Re: Etsy Clarifies Offsite Linking Policies (January 14, 2014)

I hope that you are getting many responses from Etsy sellers who wonder like I do why Etsy is re-visiting this policy when they have never clarified it countless times over the last several years; this latest statement from Etsy hasn't changed the murky waters.

Etsy clearly has another agenda because sending shoppers to another site to shop cannot be the real issue. It's something else although I am not sure what.

Etsy promotes a select and small number of sellers and product types on its site for free and has done so for 8 years - all other sellers are never promoted and never give the tens of thousands of dollars of free advertising that Etsy gives daily to their selected sellers.

If Etsy had a different promotion system, they would be well within their rights to prohibit links to other shopping sites. But they don't.

All the sellers who aren't promoted for free on Etsy have to hunt and peck for shoppers and sales which probably won't come through Etsy. Since they aren't promoted for free on Etsy, it seems simply vindictive that Etsy wants to limit links.

They can unevenly and unfairly promote selected sellers who sell well because of Etsy's practice of free promotions for only those sellers at the exclusion of all those sellers they pointedly don't promote.

While I have written to you and commented on the Bytes about this embedded problem at Etsy, I happen to sell a fairly rare product on Etsy. Etsy has promoted only one seller who makes the same kind of product I do and never any other even though there are only a few of us who sell this product type. She is a top seller year after year and benefits directly from the regular, free promotion she gets from Etsy.

All the rest of us who sell this same product type sell far fewer items (year after year).

Just by my product type I know the system Etsy uses and how it benefits their selected sellers. I have seen it in action.

Thanks. The last few months of Bytes articles have been great - and thanks for keeping up the only source left for aggregated news about online selling for small sellers.

N. (please do not use my name due to Etsy's punitive actions towards seller criticism)



Share

Comments (7) | Permalink

Readers Comments

Perminate Link for Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol   Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol

by: Patricia This user has validated their user name.

Tue Jan 14 15:33:09 2014

Etsy is following Ebay's history.  There was a time when Ebay didn't care about links...then switched it and came down hard on everyone.  I suspect that is the case with Etsy.  I wonder if they realize a LOT of their sellers have already jumped ship...many to zibbet.com where they are welcomed with open arms.  I have stuff in my Etsy store that hasn't seen one view in months.  

Perminate Link for Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol   Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol

by: HarmonyGroveAntiques This user has validated their user name.

Tue Jan 14 17:38:57 2014

We don't put links into our Etsy (nor Ebay) listings so we don't really care. We are, however, Thrilled with our Etsy sales! They have surpassed Ebay for some time as Ebay has continued shoting itself in the foot.

Perminate Link for Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol   Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol

This user has validated their user name. by: Siobhan

Thu Jan 16 05:28:05 2014

I have always been suspicious of their Front Page Treasury. Always the same shops over and over with the same panties and bras, studded throw pillows, chevron, triangular, pyramid and geometric items of every description and oh, let's not forget origami hanging lamps that look to me that they would be a fire hazard.

Perminate Link for Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol   Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol

by: VintageLady This user has validated their user name.

Thu Jan 16 12:26:00 2014

If I did not know better and countless dissatisfied Sellers did not notice as well, I would say that Etsy has become a comedy or errors, played by immature kids with no business sense and a narrow vision. Just take a look at the front page any given day and visit the Forums to get the ''feel'' of a place that soon will not be taken seriously anymore by serious Sellers and Buyers. Just to scratch the surface: incompetent administration (unable to clarify or fix anything, reverting to sanctions of whoever has the courage to raise a real problem), incompetent marketing (leaving thousands of outstanding shops invisible), skewed trending (not representing by a long shot the the majority of buyers), non-existent vintage promotion (while benefiting from the most outstanding vintage stock/shops on the web)...add to the above a poor and biased search system that diverts views to select shops and more.
Investors, are you listening?  

Perminate Link for Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol   Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol

This user has validated their user name. by: Puck

Sat Jan 18 11:47:50 2014

Etsy apeing eBay.

eBay apeing Amazon..

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum..."

Perminate Link for Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol   Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol

This user has validated their user name. by: elpereles

Sat Jan 18 12:17:24 2014

I believe the Etsy comments about the links issue. It will not be the 1rst or last one. I believe it is nothing bad add a link to another marketplace. Etsy is technically a niche site. Not all the sellers have items that fill in its categories.

Now to be fair. There is always some sellers abusing of the links. Thanks to that type of sellers some sites have excuses to implement crazy and unfair rules.

So be ready for big changes in any moment.  

Perminate Link for Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol   Sellers Suspicious about Etsy Revisiting Links Pol

This user has validated their user name. by: bitbybit

Sat Jan 18 20:47:52 2014

Etsy and eBay lost their moment in the sun as soon as they started thinking the grass was greener on the other side of the road. Too bad instead of nurturing and growing what they had, their quests are filled with crab grass and weeds.



Login is required to post comments.
To sign in to leave a comment, fill in the form below. If you have not yet signed up for AB Verify, or if you'd like more information, go to the Registration Page.

Login for AB Verify
Be sure and use your email address and password to log in.
 
Email:
Password:
 
 Forgot Your Password?
 Even though you are signed in with the AuctionBytes Blog, you will have to sign in to the EcommerceBytes blog. But you can sign in with your existing AB Verify info.