Finally Moved On - New Team Captain?

[funkydreamsmosaics]

Hi everyone, 

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am no longer working with Pattern.  As of today, I've moved my website to Shopify.

I'm still on Etsy, so I'm not going away.

Honestly, I loved the idea of Pattern.  I have over 600 items, and not having to keep track of inventory in more than one location, having all my orders in one spot, and not having to learn a new system all made Pattern very enticing and hard to leave.  But I feel like my business will grow better elsewhere.  And while this started prior to the recent updating issue that took Etsy 2 months to fix (!), that definitely helped push me out the door.  And there is part of me that wonders if that wasn't the point.  

I am willing to pass this Team on to another captain.  I'm also willing to keep an eye one it.  But when people mention issues with Pattern, I can no longer pop into my shop to see what's going on.  On the other hand, this isn't a Team that requires a lot of work.  I have had to delete the occasional spam message and people who only want to bad mouth Pattern without being helpful.  But both of those are few and far between.

If someone is interested in being the Team Captain, your first job is determining how to make that happen.  LOL.  I searched Help and the forums and while I know there is a way to make it happen, I can't seem to figure out how.  Meanwhile, I'll still be here checking in.  

I know some people think Etsy abandoned Pattern recently, but I started this team in 2019 because Pattern users got zero support from Etsy, so I thought we could all help each other.  And we have!

I wish only the best of luck to everyone still using Pattern.  I truly hope Etsy considers putting some energy into it.

[romaarellano]

Thank you for the many years that you were the captain of this team. I just sent you a message, as I too am going to move my Pattern shop over to somewhere. A good friend struggled with setting things up on Shopify, and she did Indiemade, which she said was super easy. But I'd like to set up Shopify. She struggled with it, so any insights you can lend as to how you made it work would be appreciated. The writing is on the wall--Etsy's support of Pattern is going away. I expect they'll force using the new Shop Manager sometime this year or next, and that has no Pattern function whatsoever. Gotta get this going before it gets pulled out from under me!

[funkydreamsmosaics]

I answered your message, but I'll just put this out here for anyone else: 

Shopify can be a little tricky to set up.  It has a lot of options, so there is a little bit of a learning curve on what everything does.  The good news is that Shopify is so popular, if Shopify's Help section doesn't help you (which is rare), you can google and find help elsewhere.

You do have to consider add-on apps in your budget.  Shopify has apps for everything, but most cost money.

The fact that Pattern was not included in the Shop Manager was one of my worries, too.  It doesn't bode well.