Hi Pennee...it goes...lol! My mom and I are in our new home and we love it. We're working on getting our cats used to each other.
I haven't touched my jewelry in forever and I majorly backed off once I started working at the new place. I've been working crazy overtime practically since I got there and finally decided that if everyone else can leave on time, so can I. I really want to get back to the club and start where I left off. I still have a ton of sketches for my Architexture line and about 7 pieces of OOAK that are still floating in limbo.
Slowly though. I feel guilty every time I leave on time...too used to NOT leaving on time. But I'm not alone anymore. I'm the cook in the house. My mom trumps any job for sure!
How is everyone doing? I've really been out of the loop....
Hi Sha! Good to hear you're trying to get some balance in your life.
About the rolling black-out thing. In 2014 I didn't believe in it, since it was going so well for me. Now I don't know. But for me the major thing is I think that somehow my shop is not favored for far away shoppers. I don't know exactly how it works, maybe it's some filters that are easily applied in Search, but the percentage of sales to overseas countries like IS, Canada, Australia, has decreased dramatically for me, and most of those sales I make are either return customers, or through promoted listings. US sales used to be a major chunk of my sales, so sales are down to a trickle now.
If I list the countries of my most recent sales (August 2017) it goes like this: Spain Luxemburg USA France Greece USA (return customer) Italy USA
August 2014: USA UK USA USA France Australia USA USA Mexico USA USA USA USA USA (return customer) USA USA USA (return customer) Australia Estonia (return ccustomer)
That's really interesting Esme. I haven't had a sale to another country in at least a year. I assumed it was because of the high shipping but your experience has me wondering now. I'm not sure how long ago it was introduced but I wonder if being able to choose filters easily for where something is made matters. Lately I've been limiting my search for stones to the US because of ship time. I wonder if people are shopping more locally now and not getting a chance to see your shop.
Laura, I think somehow the algorithm is made in such a way that it favors local shopping, but I don't exactly know how it works. You would think that promoted listings bypass that algorithm, since you pay to get a spot, but I find that they don't. Or it's just too crowded in the search results where my items show up.
And I also have the feeling that the bonus that renewed sold listings get in search has a best before date. All my bestsellers from before (needle ring, honeycomb things, elephants) are not getting found now, and I have sold close to 200 needle rings by now.
Sorry for my whining. I just feel frustrated with the recent Etsy changes.
Esme if I look back at when Etsy started that buy local thing for the UK and AUS my international sales went down the toilet. All countries, not just those. I used to sell regularly to the UK, AUS, France and Italy with a few others tossed in. The only one I can say I sell to now is Canada. I may have had a sale 3 months ago to Switzerland. So it's no different on this side of the pond than your side. I don't know what else they did but it killed international sales. And our postage went up considerably in the last few years for international. A first class label on Etsy to the EU is now $14 and Canada is $8.88 before insurance of any kind, add VAT to that and the lower value dollar still doesn't make it worth their while to shop with us. That may put off a lot of buyers on my side not sure that makes a difference for you?
International sales used to make up 1/4 if my soap shop sales. The January the Pist Office raised international rates significantly, 4 or 5 years ago, those sales went right downhill. I still sell occasionally to other countries from this shop, but not very often.
It is odd though Esme- everyone I met in Europe always said they love coming to the US to shop because the prices were so much better, thy would bring an extra suitcase just to buy clothes. I remember seeing plain old Levi jeans in France for 50 Euro when I was there 5 or 6 years ago. I can't imagine jewelry isn't super expensive there too compared to us. I se a few UK sellers with the exact same items as me on Etsy asking $100 more and always assumed it was because they had to pay the assay office for hallmarking etc. It occurs to me that even with VAT and duties a lot of us should still be selling international- maybe not. And I never thought your prices were high enough- add shipping, still not a bad deal at all for the unique things you make
Don't you guys remember when etsy announced they'd be feeding people stuff from there own countries more then ones outside of their country? That was like a couple years ago I think? That's when international sales dropped off. It was more for the U.K. And Australia specifically. I don't think it was applied to the US people, so that doesn't explain Esme's dilemma
my sales to overseas dropped dramatically. I used to have a decent number of sales to the UK, France and Australia even Asia. Now if I get one, its usually a repeat buyer / collector who follows me. Which is wonderful, but I'm not getting the exposure I used to get in those areas.
Rolling blackouts >>> I really think this is a semantics issue honestly. So let's not call it rolling blackouts. With a database this large, there is almost no possible way that that everyone can get equal time and exposure AND they already do admit to weighting results for certain demographics, I remember a recent admission of implementing a way for newer sellers to get noticed and like Jen just said, getting more exposure in your own local area (country) So - if you are manipulating in that way, you can do it any way you like.
Call it what you will, the fact that I had nearly 4 months of nothing here and then all of a sudden the faucet got turned on again without ANY changes on my side, means there is more going on than they will cop to.
And remember that if they actually "turned off" access to your shop (whichI am NOT suggesting they do), they would then have to refund you money for the times your listing arent' showing. Like when cable goes out and the cable company has to refund you money because they can't charge you for the days of no access to their service.
So... let's not call it rolling black outs. I don't know what to call it, but the low sales patterns that seem to echo low views, low convos etc... then the opposite are not the ebbs and flows of retail. They are something else totally out of our control - it might not be a conscious effort on the part of the business plan here, it might be something less nefarious... but I agree 100% that sometimes Im more easily found, than others.
Yeah, I don't think they are "blackouts" I think it's something else. Which is why etsy keeps saying there's no blackouts. People aren't asking the right question.
Yes Jen- I did refer to that announcement- but if they are saying local- then wouldn't you assume they are also showing US sellers more local US work than that in the UK or EU or AUS? When I do a search I do see things from other countries for sure, I never sort on US, but how many people do you think possibly sort on US just because they think they will get it faster? I'm just throwing things out there- guessing, like we all are. We'd almost have to have insider info to even think about figuring out Etsy's goofy way of doing things
