♦♦♦♦ Alberta Street Team CHAT THREAD for MAY, 2019 ♦♦♦♦

[MagpieQuilts]

Welcome to the Alberta Team Chat Thread for May 1-31, 2019. Feel free to use the formatting options available for you as you post!

Posting in this thread counts towards your team participation and is the main place to get up to date on what we are doing as a team! 

Post your New Listings in our promo thread (public & sharable): https://community.etsy.com/t5/Alberta-Street-Team/May-2019-New-Listings/gpm-p/126180997

WHERE TO FIND OUR TEAM & PARTICIPATE:
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/AlbertaStreetTeam
PINTEREST: www.pinterest.com/ABStreetTeam/
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/etsyalbertateam/ #etsyalbertateam

If you have any questions about the team or how to get more involved please contact Kalen, the Team Captain, at www.etsy.com/shop/minibytes

Previous chat thread here: https://community.etsy.com/t5/Alberta-Street-Team/Alberta-Street-Team-CHAT-THREAD-for-APRIL-2019/gpm...

[hopnflop]

Has anyone seen the new homepage look for Etsy? I was a bit surprised and I'm not too sure about the layout. I feel like they're pushing the view of the item prices and trying to load the page up with a lot. Hope everyone is going to have a fun May! I'm crossing fingers the roads this week will be okay given the snow/rain we've been getting because I have to be in Edmonton this weekend.

[lampworkbyjulie]

Hello May! On my way to a very glassy bead retreat in Squamish this weekend. I think this is the 8th time I’ve attended the annual Molten Experience. 

I can see differences in the layout of my own shop pages.  I nearly never actually visit the Etsy home page, so I don’t realize the changes there. They always seem to have something up their sleeve. 😁

Theres a huge todo and a lot of angry bead people leaving Etsy as per a FB post. Someone who is rather big in the lampwork world, had all their Etsy shops completely shut down with no warning apparently. Plus notification that they are banned from ever selling on Etsy again. She is beyond furious. I’ve never looked at her other shops (besides lampwork), but apparently she had a Harry Potter imagine on one of her items.

Once I used the word pandora in a listing, of which I immediately changed after I received a warning. Anyway, according to those on that thread, Etsy is losing sellers in droves. 

Not me though. I like Etsy. It feels like home here. 

[cindylouwho2]

There are a lot of different tests right now, so not everyone is seeing the same thing. I have different home pages in my two shop accounts. Which one do you have?

It would be extremely rare for Etsy to close an established shop over just one IP infringement. Either they had been caught before, or had other issues going against them. Once in a while you see Etsy closing a brand new shop for infringement, but usually the whole shop is full of it & Etsy doesn't want to wait for the additional claims to be filed. So, it sounds like this person probably had a couple of infringements in the past, or some recent customer service issues. If you had any more info, I am quite curious 😀

The number of active shops on Etsy is nearing 1.5 million, and keeps growing, so people are joining/reopening faster than they are leaving. I have no doubt there are people leaving, though, & expect more around May 15th when standalone PayPal ends. 

It's a good reminder, though, that you shouldn't rely on just Etsy for your business, as they can close you at any time. Remember to download your listing titles & descriptions periodically from the downloads page (Settings>>Options>>Download Data, then click "currently for sale listings") and keep a backup of all of your business records, photos etc. That way, you will be able to move everything elsewhere very quickly if you need to. 

[hopnflop]

@cindylouwho2 I have the homepage with feature gallery images, then thumbnails of items below with prices that seem to use a larger font size. When signed in, the feature gallery disappears and it just becomes a big mess because there's so many products jammed on the page. 

[lampworkbyjulie]

I didn’t want to get into the whole drama from her thread, but from what I gleaned with scanning, she had been warned before. So too bad, so sad - no sympathy here. 

I am really glad to hear that Etsy is still strong and growing. I’ve never backed up my listings!!! I must do that. Will it work if I back up all 400 ish at once? If I follow your instructions Cindy, where does it go? I mean then where do I find the back up? Gawd for stupid questions. Sorry. 

I would save it in a file on my computer? 

[MagpieQuilts]

^^^Cindy makes a really great point. As much as we think we’re independent businesses here on Etsy, each of us is vulnerable to the possibility of being shutdown. It should always be part of your business plan to protect your business by having your data backed up off Etsy so if you’re ever shut down you can still recover what you need for tax purposes or to restart your business elsewhere. 

On another note, has anyone seen Spring? She’s MIA!

[cindylouwho2]

I see, Jenny - I have that one in my other shop. The listings look weird with nothing but the prices; I have a feeling they are only half-finished 

Julie, yes, you download the whole thing at once; I don't think there is a way to download only part of the csv. You save it to wherever you want; your computer/device should prompt you for what folder you want to save things in. On a lot of mobile devices it will save to the download folder first. I keep mine on my PC but try to remember to back that up on my SD card or my external hard drive as well. (Just added that to my to do list today, so thanks!)

I see we are finally getting our money back from the months of overcharging, & there is also a notice that we can change shipping profiles under Settings in our shop manager, so I guess that they are doing some announcements today in conjunction with the 1st quarter numbers coming out at 2 pm. I haven't been to the main forum yet, so maybe they are finally making some of the big announcements we've been expecting. WIll try to remember to come back & post the link to my quarterly update thread once I start it. 

Have a great day, everyone! 

[cindylouwho2]

Here's my thread on the 1st quarter results: https://community.etsy.com/t5/Pricing-and-Finance/Etsy-1st-Quarter-2019-Financial-Results-Site-Sales...

[lampworkbyjulie]

I just want to say how much I appreciate the information you stay on top of Cindy. Never in a million years would I take the time to see or find what you do. I LOVE that you keep us informed and I cannot thank you enough.

[cindylouwho2]

You are welcome! I'm glad people find it useful. 

[Splurge]

It is sooo useful Cindy! Thank you :)

[hopnflop]

Hi team!

Looks like Etsy is starting a Etsy Design Awards. Check it out at this link here and enter your stuff: https://etsydesignawards.com/?fbclid=IwAR3r4HGsRyPo-WF4iPWGqhTOQsKcesNrO2J-CrmkFPgGv1i2ZJwDp1ZiJbg

Application open now until May 28, 11:59pm ET.

[lampworkbyjulie]

Ha! I was just coming on here to mention the design challenge! Lol

I read about it on fb and entered right away. Chances are slim, but you can’t win without a ticket is my theory😁

[lampworkbyjulie]

Possibly a dumb question - I just updated my shop with 'free shipping' on my listings. 

There'll still be the shipping option when I make a sale, right? I mean - the 'print shipping label'?

Did anyone else go with the free shipping option? 

[Splurge]

Hi Julie,

I have left my shipping as it is - shipping is charged on the first item only. Previously when I have tried free shipping, there was always an option to print a shipping label.

[lampworkbyjulie]

Good to know. Thanks!

[MagpieQuilts]

Are you in any local markets this spring and summer? Let us know here or message Jenny from Hop and Flop and we’ll spread the word on our team social media platforms. 

Also if you’re in Calgary, there’s a few of us meeting this Wednesday (May 29) at 6 at Rosso’s In Inglewood. 

[MagpieQuilts]

I’m feeling a little nostalgic for the old days here on the team pages of Etsy. When I first started my shop in 2010, this was the first team I joined. It was where I asked the questions I had, about how to do things on Etsy and how to shop and not lose my shirt on shipping and just to connect with other online entrepreneurs. We now have over 200 members, but only a little over a dozen that are active here. Does anyone have some ideas on how to engage our fellow team members? 

[lampworkbyjulie]

I’ve been wondering too. I remember (was it around 10 years ago?) when we had dozens and dozens of PAGES of comment interactions between our members. Often I couldn’t keep up.! 

I wish I could figure out how to get team members back. I too feel it’s partly due to the new format but comments were depleting before that too. 

[Splurge]

I am on a few teams and many of them have started to slowly dissolve with the new forum format. I appreciate that people on this team are persisting and posting on a regular basis! Engagement is tricky and a lack of engagement could be due to many factors, often unrelated to Etsy.

I do have a question - does posting our new/renewed items in team threads have the same value as in the previous forum format?

[MagpieQuilts]

Participation is still a team requirement and posting in our discussions is encouraged but we’re not enforcing it as much as in the past. The new format gives us some better tools to track it, but as leaders, we’d rather focus on promoting our team and networking than tracking participation. We do an occasional check for activity in members’ shops and will remove those who are inactive there. 

[lampworkbyjulie]

Off topic - again I reply in the box right under Ann’s comment and it appears as a reply to Darcy! At least that’s what I see on my iPhone. 🤔

[Splurge]

Hi Julie, on my desktop, Ann's comments are indented and appear to be a reply to my comment but yours seem to be a new comment. Let's see what this reply looks like~

[hopnflop]

I applied for the Etsy Design awards. Eeek! Took me awhile to finish all answers to the questions they asked for, but at least my entry is in! Good luck to you @lampworkbyjulie too! I hope some Alberta makers win.

Re: forum participation, I agree the new format has definitely reduced the communication which is quite unforunate. For those that still comment here, yay! And my question back to you? Would you like us to try another method to connect with each other a bit better? Like a Facebook private group page? or occasional meetups which don't have to be in-person, etc. 

If you have any ideas too, feel free to share.