Different companies have different ways to deal with spam, we all know that, but some go to such great lengths that they keep their regular customers or visitors from being able to function properly through their system as it is setup.
After getting muted on Etsy for trying to ask a few shop owners a business question for a yahoo group we run I wanted to look into Etsy a little more and find out just what they do and how they operate.
Who is Etsy and What do They Sell
Some of you may not be to familiar with Etsy since it deals in “hand mades”, as their website says, Your Place to Buy and Sell all Things Handmade. While their tagline doesn’t always ring true to the products posted for sale on their site, they do have a very large network of handmade items for sale.
Etsy is a cross between Facebook and eBay where you can sell on a shop type setup with many of the social networking aspects setup on the site. Founded in 2005:
We are a community and a company. Click the image to the right for a view of the community, and see below for who works at Etsy Inc.
Etsy is an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.
Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:
Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.
A quick search through their products and you will see a wide range of handmade items, but recently they have allowed the supplies that go into making those products to be sold on their website. Anything from beads, silver, and raw materials that are used to craft and create handmade products.
The Etsy Do’s and Don’ts
As with all selling and social sites, Etsy has a large, did I say large, very large list of do’s and don’ts. At least it is all on one page and you don’t have to hunt around for it like you do on some other big sales channel sites. The list includes what you should and shouldn’t do in the areas of:
- General Site Usage
- Member Accounts
- Buying
- Selling
- Reporting Items (Flagging)
- Communications
- Feedback
From my count, just about a 4,000 word document that does take some studying BEFORE you decide to do anything in the way of business on their site. It apparently is very important to read and understand these rules as a newbie so you don’t get caught up in their net of “don’ts” and get yourself banned before you get going.
One example in the selling category, is you can’t be a reseller. This technically means that you have to be the one who actually made the goods offered for sale. I am not sure how that works with suppliers of the raw materials that are now being sold? One of my clients has a store and sells a few items here and there, and they only sell raw materials.
Don’t Get Yourself Muted on Etsy, You Can’t Communicate
Being new to Etsy, and a business owner, I wanted to ask some other shop owners a few questions about their shop, and a group we run that was directly related to the group in question. In fact, each shop owner I looked at (there was 5 in total) came from blog reviews of their Etsy shop.
We all understand the fine line you sometimes walk sometimes when you reach out and contact someone you have never talked to before. Today, it seems EVERYTHING is labeled as spam, regardless of your intentions. None of us like to deal with spam, or worse, the spammer themselves, but sometimes the overly aggressiveness some social sites use to deal with spam prevents real and normal conversations.
I tried to contact 5 different shop owners and was immediately “muted” on Etsy. This apparently is not an uncommon thing as you look through the forums. It mostly ranges from people that sent to many messages in a short period of time to one lady who was sending “thank you notices” to her customers and quickly found herself muted.
In all fairness, it is in their do’s and don’ts as:
Your ability to send Conversations may be temporarily revoked if you are suspected of spamming other users. Sending spam Conversations also may trigger Etsy’s Auto-Muter, which will disable you from sending new messages. You must contact support@etsy.com to be unmuted. Using Convos to threaten or harass other members will result in the termination of your Etsy account.
What ever happened to the word verification box or something? That is pretty standard now and it seems to work well? Well, I contacted the support email requesting to be unmuted, we will see if I am banned for life or if I get my tongue back at some point. Either way, very aggressive spam controls going on over at Etsy. Not sure to question it or praise it.
What Does it Cost to Sell on Etsy
As with almost all ecommerce channels, it does cost something to setup a store and sell. While the store doesn’t cost anything, the fees are there as usually. The fees involved with seller are basically setup like other channels, it costs you $.20 for each listing and you pay 3.5% of each completed sale. You have to pay your fees twice a month (the 1st and the 15th) and if you are selling outside the U.S. you will have to content with the currency conversion they use. Probably not a bad thing with the dollar right now.
Conversations and Sales Rates
The big question I have as with any sales channel… can I sell anything? To me this is still an unanswered question and I would like to hear from other shop owners to see how their sales are going, in general terms. If you have a shop, please let me know how it is going sales wise, although you might not want to use the contact system through Etsy and get yourself muted. Just leave a comment here, that would be great.
I am working with a test store setup through one of my clients and although we don’t have many products listed, we have generated a few sales. Not much revenue to write home about but a few good sales. The buzz around Etsy is quite interesting. We do have several niche markets we are involved with that are in the craft area and Etsy comes up everywhere among readers, visitors, and buyers. That part is encouraging as a shop owner.
Conclusion on Etsy
What has your experience been with Etsy? Is it a sales channel you might try in the future or is it some place you buy different handmades from? They certainly seem to be generating a lot of traffic and buzz so it will be interesting to see where the folks at Etsy take their service.
Perhaps some day I won’t be muted and I will be able to talk to you, until then, if you send me a message over at Etsy I will be sure to read it, but don’t expect a response.
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I am a news junkie of sorts so this news article caught my attention over the last few days. I know we all have different ways to look at things in different parts of the world, but I sometimes find it incredible how we can not insult, or in any way degrade the false profits, false teachers, and false religions of the world and few seem to have a problem with the ultimate insult of Christ that occurs every day throughout the world. Such is the way the world works today as we try to remove the One true God from everything and raise others above Him.
Of course this is not something that is new in our time, it has been going on for 100′s if not 1000′s of years and is told about in the old and new Testaments throughout the Bible.
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd AllÄh (Arabic Muḥammad; also Mohammed, Muhammed, Mahomet, and other variants) (c. 570 Mecca – June 8, 632 Madina),[6] was the founder of Islam and is regarded by Muslims as the last messenger and prophet of God (Arabic: Allah). Muslims do not believe that he was the creator of a new religion, but the restorer of the original, uncorrupted monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham and others. They see him as the last and the greatest in a series of prophets.
Although it doesn’t even seem as this is the case, a woman who had her class name a teddy bear Muhammad has been arrested in Sudan and the school has been closed down. According the BBC news, a British school teacher was arrested and accused of insulting Islam’s profit. I don’t recall a time when a news story was broadcast saying that someone had insulted Christ and were arrested, but I wouldn’t expect one either. I also understand this is an extremely sensitive subject and topic and understanding different cultures and religions is extremely important, especially when working in the context of another country (other than Western Europe or the United States that is).
I hope her situation is resolved without any unnecessary violence.
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What if you were told you would be given $86,400 at the start of each day. Wow, great huh. You can spend that amount each day, but at the end of the day, what ever you haven’t spent you loose.
You can’t keep any to spend it the next day, you can’t save it, you can’t invest it for later use, you can only spend it today. You get 24 hours to spend $86,400. The good news is, for now, at the start of each day you will be given another $86,400 and then it starts all over again, but, no matter what you do, that is all you get.
Are you thinking about all those things you would buy or places you might go, but, opppps, you actually don’t have time to use the entire amount, or do you? Well it doesn’t really matter because one way or the other it is either going to be spent, or time will spend it for you.
So, where would you spend it?
86,400. That is how many seconds we are given each day. We don’t get any more, and at the end of the day, anything we haven’t used we loose. The next day we get another 86,400 seconds to use at our discretion, but that’s it. You can’t invest it (at least here on earth), you can’t save it, and for now, we get a new 86,400 seconds tomorrow to use. So…….. where do you spend it?
I haven’t had a lot of time to blog here lately for various reasons but it got me started thinking about what steals our time. My wife always says we have time for what we make time for, and I think that is basically true. We prioritize throughout the day even if we don’t realize we are doing it, and it controls what we get accomplished or what gets left for “tomorrow”.
I have several projects going on at the same time, including developing my first true CMS site for a niche market, and that is what is taking a lot of my free time as of late, but I think there are several things that steal our time throughout the day. Some are our own doing, some we can’t control, some we can. I made a quick list of what steals my time as of this writing, in regards to this blog. Steals your time probably isn’t the best way to describe it. A better way it where do we spend our 86,400 seconds we are given each day?
Other Blogs
I do write on other blogs and trying to keep up with each one doesn’t always work. The one that gets the most attention is the one that has the highest priority at the time.
Work or Projects
Yes, I guess we all do have to work at something. This may be a necessity but it does take up a majority of our time (as it should) and it usually takes priority over non-revenue generating projects
Family (and Friends)
This is another good thing, but also one that keeps me from blogging on this blog. Over the Thanksgiving holiday I had planned to have a quiet week and get a good weeks worth of articles written for this blog. What did I do, I spent most of it working outside on our property with my dad. Worth far more to me than getting the articles done I had in mind. I also ate a little turkey and watched a lot of football.
Not Being Well Organized
This is something we can control but being well organized will keep things running smoothly. I started keeping a log book of things I needed to get done or have done. It sits on my desk right by my computer and I jot things down on it all day. When I travel, I have a miniature version I take with me. It does help me stay a little organized.
This is a big one for most of us. I have read 100 blog posts on how you should not check your email every 5 minutes, and it is probably true, but I just can’t do it. I usually spend a good majority of my time each day in email or having something to do with email.
Your Feed Reader
This is probably one of the areas you could spend a ton of time looking at, and writing this blog, I hope you do, but I try to read my feeds at night after the day’s work is complete. This doesn’t always work, but there are so many great articles to read that it can take a huge amount of time.
Watching TV or Other Entertainment
We all watch TV or do some form of entertainment. I am a big sports fan and I can always find a game to watch. Even if there isn’t a game on, ESPN Classics is probably re-playing some great rivalry game from 1982. I don’t usually spend to much time on these items, but they can take up time that you don’t spend doing more productive things (unless you can figure out a way to do both at the same time).
Internet Social Sites, Groups, News, General Surfing
Don’t think I even need to elaborate here. Just try to do the most productive things each day in the order of priority. If you make your living on the social networks, great, if not, look at these areas when you are finished with your work each day.
Where Do You Spend Your 86,400 Seconds Each Day?
So, those are just a few. What areas use up time each day for you? I think each of us can probably look at some areas where we could probably spend our time more wisely, I know I can. Leave a comment below and let me know what those are for you?
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I hope everyone had a wonderful week last week, it was certainly one of the more quiet weeks online since many of the U.S. blog writers were on vacation or just taking a little bit of a break.
I took a little bit of a break, on the computer anyway, and did a whole lot of outside “work” over the week, along with watching the multitude of football games that were played over the later half of the week.
Week In Review
There were several Thanksgiving day posts on various topics and I also tried to post something with a little meat to it about thinking globally, Thanksgiving is a U.S. Holiday, Think Global, which I think all of us, especially here in the U.S., should keep in mind when operating on the Internet where articles don’t see political borders.
There was still the musings on the Google PageRank, I guess that is here to stay, but there were also several news stories that came out of eBay, Overstock, and many of the online retailers in preparation for black Friday. I don’t normally star these items since they are very visible by all, but I have put some of them on the share list (see bottom left of the footer). There was still a great list of high quality articles I have listed below.
Top 15 Post and Feed Information
My feed reader is now up to about 370 subscriptions, not to many added last week since I tried to take a little time off myself. Something I have found feeds to be very useful for is searching and creating its own feed. I have posted about this before, but displaying a feed from these feeds can be quite useful (see footer), especially for niche sites where you can target information directly to your visitor.
If you are not familiar with this post, it is a weekly recap of the Internet happenings (as seen by me) from the prior week. As always, if you have other good articles to suggest I would love to hear about them. Even though it was a vacation week of sorts, there were still many high quality posts over the week and I have listed them below for you.
Top 15 Stars of the week of Nov 19th-26th
Del.icio.us: An Underrated Link Building Tool
via Vandelay Website Design by Vandelay Design on 11/19/07
On the subject of social media, Digg and StumbleUpon seem to get almost all of the attention right now. While the traffic potential for these two is considerably higher than other social media sites, Del.icio.us can be one of the most powerful resources for your link building efforts.
5 Powerful Techniques to Help Your Posts Stand Out
via ProBlogger Blog Tips by Skellie on 11/19/07
In this post regular contributer Skellie from Skelliewag.org helps you differentiate your content.
Blogs are now so popular that it’s very hard to find a niche that isn’t already saturated. There are probably dozens or hundreds of other bloggers writing on the topics you cover.
The Flagship Blog Project: Creating Multiple Blogs for Profit in 30 Day Cycles
via Dosh Dosh – Making Money Online by Maki on 11/19/07
Popular blogs are often read daily by a large audience. Reaching thousands of people, popular blogs can widely influence opinions and are terrific personal branding platforms as well
How to Create a Blog That People Really Digg
via Copyblogger by Jonathan Morrow on 11/19/07
Have you ever noticed that some blogs seem to rise to the top of Digg over and over again?
You might think that they’ve discovered some magic formula for getting attention, built a “Digg culture†on their blog, or they just get all of their friends to Digg their posts.
And they might.
40 Resources for WordPress Theme Designers
via Vandelay Website Design by Vandelay Design on 11/20/07
One of the reasons WordPress is the most popular blogging platform is its theme system. WordPress allows its users with almost unlimited design options when modifying or designing themes. This is a collection of 40 resources that every theme designer can
Why TLA (and others) has to follow Google
via AdesBlog.com by Ades on 11/20/07
There are couple of reasons why TLA and its counterparts LinkWorth, ReviewMe, and P-P-P… etc should be considering “nofollow†tags.
Are You Sabotaging Your Social Stories?
via Blogging Experiment by Ben Cook on 11/20/07
I’ve been a participant in the social media scene, both as a reader and content producer, for a quite a while now. I’ve had several stories I’ve written become popular and I’ve had even more submissions
International Copyright on the Web: What Rules Apply to Me and What Court Will Apply Them?
via SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog by Sarah Bird, Esquire on 11/21/07
Posted by Sarah Bird, Esquire
May it Please the Mozzers,
I present myself to you as your legal resource for all things SEO/M related.
A graduate of the University of Washington School of Law, I have spent the last three years litigating complex and diverse legal issues. With much gratitude and enthusiasm, I recently accepted SEOmoz’s invitation to bring my expertise to the SEO/M community.
The SEO Book Blog is Now Creative Commons Licensed
via SEO Book.com - by Aaron Wall on 11/22/07
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
When I published the SEO glossary I made it creative commons licensed. I wanted to do that with all the blog posts on SEO Book too, but just got around to doing so. If you like any of the blog posts here feel free to do what you like with them.
Readers vs Visitors – Whose Needs are You Meeting?
via ProBlogger Blog Tips by Darren Rowse on 11/23/07
The following post on meeting the needs of Readers and Visitors is a guest post by Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress.
Smashing Magazine asks Who Is Your Visitor?, using some new research into the preferences and characteristics of the average visitor to your blog and website.
10 Things To Do With Your Old Computer
via The Computer Zone by Adam McKerlie on 11/23/07
One of the constants in this world is the fact that technology will change, and it will change quickly. The average lifespan of a computer these days is between 2 to 5 years. Since technology is changing so quickly this equates to a lot of garbage from your old
Bonnie Brown On Her Years at Google
via Google Blogoscoped by Philipp Lenssen on 11/23/07
Bonnie Brown was working as massage therapist at Google from 1999 to 2004. Before that, she ran a private school for 10 years. Now, Bonnie is traveling and also wrote a book called Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google. I met up with her on Google Talk (the transcript below has spellchecking and punctuation added).
Does Commenting on Blog Posts Really Increase Your Visitor Traffic – An Experiment
via mytropicalescape.com by Mark on 11/21/07
One of my new goals here at MyTropicalEscape will be to experiment (I am a trained scientist after all) with helpful techniques and tips (whether it’s attracting more traffic or making money) that other bloggers are suggesting and then report back on my success, or lack thereof.
30 Beautiful Blog Designs
via Daily Blog Tips by Daniel on 11/23/07
The folks from Smashing Magazine are always looking for beautiful designs around the Internet, and this time they published a list with 30 blogs that feature an appealing and unique look.
Post Frequency, Case Study on 5 Blogs
via AdesBlog.com by Ades on 11/24/07
This is a follow up case study on the 3 parts series that I had previously blogged – “Guide on blog posting frequencyâ€
Lately, it seemed to me that, post frequency for the blogs that I read regularly, started decreasing i.e they started posting less. In order to to prove if my assumption was correct, I selected five blogs and recorded their number of daily posts, for each day starting from October 1 through November 22 (about two months).
Be Brave – Break Your Blog
via ProBlogger Blog Tips by Darren Rowse on 11/24/07
The following post on ‘breaking your blog’ and setting up test blogs was submitted by Michael Martin from Pro Blog Design.
One of the best kept secrets in design is that we don’t always know what we’re doing. Understanding design theory and color and all the
Conclusion
That wraps up a good list of blogs and articles from last week. There are always so many great feeds from the week it is hard to decide on 15 or 20 to wrap up an entire week, which is why I go over many times. What were your favorites for the week? I have going on 400 feeds in my reader but there is always room for one more, let me know what you suggest below.
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Today, black Friday, starts the holiday shopping season in full swing. If you have an eCommerce store site, one thing to keep in mind when selling online is that the second your customer hits the submit order button, they expect the doorbell to ring with the delivery.
Get Your Orders Delivered Before Christmas
Knowing that the order will arrive BEFORE Christmas is the number one goal to keep those customers happy. This could be a different topic all together with analyzing how customers expectations for online shopping can create false hopes, but you can minimize the aggravation by posting a shipping schedule.
Every major shipping company you might use has a schedule posted for the last shipping day for a package to arrive before Christmas. You should make this your schedule, and post it some place prominently on your store. Some of these schedules are not quite as easy to find (like USPS) but they are all posted at this point.
To try and make it easier, all of the links below go to the carriers holiday shipping schedule.
- USPS – last day for First Class and Priority is December 20th
- UPS – December 21st, last day for Next Day Air packages to arrive on December 24th,
- FedEx – December 17th last day for FedEx Ground
- DHL – December 21st last day for Express
Remember the key dates for shipping at specific speeds. Priority Mail has a different close date than FedEx 2-day air, so not all dates are going to be the same.
Publish Your Own Holiday Schedule
One thing I usually do is post my own shipping schedule dates in one single table. Don’t worry about the different carriers, give yourself a few days buffer between the last shipping date and your last shipping date. This will give you time to get all your current orders packaged and ready for shipping, and a few days to spare. 
Make sure you have posted that any orders that are received after this date will not be delivered before December 25th. People will inevitably order anyway in hopes that is will arrive, but when it doesn’t you can have something to refer the customer to that might help ease tensions a little bit. Of course this goes for more than just your last shipping day.
Make sure you post your schedule in hours of operation for the holiday shipping season too. If you are going to close early on certain days, great, just make sure it is posted somewhere so your customer don’t run off 10 emails about something you can answer when you are opened again.
Keep Your Policies Clear and Easy to Find
Something that customers don’t tend to do is read a lot of details, but, you can make it a little easier to find the information they are looking for by keeping it on the front page where they can find it. Try to find the USPS shipping schedule. They posted it in their new releases, not even on the front page. Keep your policies front and center for the holiday shipping season and it will make things go a little smoother.
I also posted a recent article called, Get Ready for the Fall Holiday Shopping Season, which has some other holiday shipping tips. You can also find several good pages to read on shipping information specific to the holiday schedule on each of the shipping carriers site.
An informed customer is usually a happy one, or at least an understanding one. Don’t keep them in the dark over the holiday shipping season and it will make your life easier and your company run smoother.
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How far does your Internet connection reach? I am speaking mostly to those of us in the United States, but the question is a valid one for everyone. How far does your blog reach? To the ends of the political borders you live in?
To some of us here in the U.S. that might be as far as a writer might think about, but thinking that way is very limiting, and offending to some. So, happy Thanksgiving to those readers that are in the U.S. (or that celebrate this holiday), and to everyone else, happy regular Thursday.
Write and Correspond for a Worldwide Audience
I just love seeing posts in forums and blogs that have a huge “Happy Thanksgiving” greeting as if the entire world is celebrating Thanksgiving. I really wish some of us here in the U.S. would have a little broader perspective of the world and realize that just because it is going on over here, doesn’t mean it is the same everywhere else in the world.
It does show how the writer probably has a book full of blank pages on their passport (if they have one) and just doesn’t think about the readers from other countries. Once you have traveled around the world just a little bit, you can see that there are so many cultural differences that thinking globally is important.
So, when writing, remember that you are writing to a worldwide audience. Don’t limit your work, or offend your readers by totally ignoring what takes place outside the 50 states, or your country.
Get Out and Travel to Another Country
I will say that Americans probably don’t get out and travel to other countries as frequently, or as much as we should. Those in Europe for example, are accustom to interacting with different cultures and languages where traveling to another country means a weekend holiday or visiting a relative. After-all, if you are in the U.K., France is just a train ride away.
If you live in the U.S. Mid-West (or interior somewhere), you might not ever hear another language other than your native tongue if you don’t leave your home state. So if you get the chance to travel to another country, take it. Not only will it be enjoyable experience, but you will learn so much that you can apply to how you correspond to other readers, on the Internet especially where borders are non-existent.
Use an IP to Country Flag Plugin
If you think you are not reaching the international crowd, just install one of the IP to Country plugins that shows the country flag in your comments. There are a few different versions that will show the country, browser, operating system and a few other options, but they all use an IP to Country database.
The plugin I use for WordPress right now is called Easy IP2Country and is based on the IP2C database, which should be updated every so often to ensure the flags show correctly. If you don’t want it to show in your comments, you can still install the plugin and just not use it in your comments area. It will still show you where your readers are viewing your blog or website.
Happy Thanksgiving and Thursday in November
For those of us in the U.S. and who celebrate Thanksgiving, it is a great time of celebration. Abraham Lincoln put it as:
“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VI, “Proclamation of Thanksgiving” (October 3, 1863), p. 497.
So, to all my U.S. readers, I would like to wish them a happy Thanksgiving and lets try to think globally as we move into the fall season. Your readers will appreciate a different perspective. There are a whole bunch of readers in Europe, Asia, and all over the world that have access to your blog, write as if you know this fact.
I have to admit it has been several years since I have visited another country, but when I did, it was a great learning experience for me. I have been lucky enough to travel quite a bit. From Sydney, to London, Hong Kong, Paris, Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, among a few, and many places in between. Each trip gave me a little more perspective from another part of the world, and I have learned to appreciate other cultures and differences, and it has taught me to be aware that my Internet connection does reach outside of my state, region, and country.
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I had the first Bald Eagle sighting over our property today. A drought stricken pond gave up one of its last remaining fish for this Eagle, a magnificent sighting for here. I had been looking for raptors on the property since we moved in but the most common one is the Red Tail Hawks (and a variety of other hawks) that seem to like to hang around our bird feeders and pick off the ones that hit the window or some other problem. Not the Bald Eagle. He only wanted the fish and quickly flew off.
I took this photo here of a Bald Eagle at an Auburn football game. This is Spirit, one of Auburn’s Bald Eagles, but he looked just like this out here at our little pond. I am working on a list of wildlife seen on our property. So far, a home for several families of Fox Squirrels, a Fox, Coyote, Armadillo, deer, Re-tail Hawk, Coopers Hawk, Kestrel Hawk, Bald Eagle, and a large number of species of feeder birds.
What does this have to do with faith… well… God made all the creatures of the Earth, right.
