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Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

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Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#251

Post by code_duck »

ramy_d wrote: post #244
code_duck wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Folks should just be honest' is unfortunately not a solid policy for an international marketplace.

It should be a rule liable to punitive measures when broken.

Of course, and Etsy has tried many rules that have punishment attached. Like most communities or marketplaces the punishment is removal of your listings or suspension of some account privileges.

Unfortunately my experience is they were very inconsistent with application of their rules, and often closed stores that didn't deserve it, sometimes repeatedly, while obvious rule breakers operated for months. Sometimes they remove items, sometimes esp. in the past you just come to log in and your password doesn't work and your store is gone.

While they also had issue forming reasonable procedures and rules, much of the problems are with application of their rules, as in having enough employees and managing training them effectively.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#252

Post by ramy_d »

code_duck wrote: post #251
ramy_d wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be a rule liable to punitive measures when broken.

Of course, and Etsy has tried many rules that have punishment attached. Like most communities or marketplaces the punishment is removal of your listings or suspension of some account privileges. Unfortunately my experience is they were very inconsistent with application of their rules, and often closed stores that didn't deserve it, sometimes repeatedly, while obvious rule breakers operated for months. Sometimes they…

Wow, genuinely interesting to see all the stories here about what's happening to the store.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#253

Post by faet »

devopsproject wrote: post #217
mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

The conversion problem on mobile does seem like an issue, but speaking as a former customer of Etsy what drove me away was the selection. Not that it's too small - rather, Etsy is now flooded with thousands of storefronts selling "artisan" pieces that are actually bought on AliExpress or similar and marked up. If they're trying to apply ML to managing customer recommendations, they should figure out how to identify w…

My wife bought something at a "local artist fair". They didn't even bother to remove the "made in china" sticker.

All of my local farmers markets are full of aliexpress crap. At least they're smart enough to remove tags. I've asked what kind of solder they used for a specific piece. "uhhh. just the normal stuff".

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#254

Post by alexpetralia »

mendelk wrote: post #220

Not sure if it's related to this, but I was scheduled to have an interview with them on 1/24/2017 for a Full Stack position, and an hour before our scheduled time, they sent me an email that "due to some changes in hiring priority this role is currently on hold", and cancelled the interview. I wasn't too impressed :)

I interviewed with them just a few months ago for an analytics role - very friendly and intelligent people. I was impressed. #anecdotes

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#255

Post by busterarm »

jasonlotito wrote: post #247
busterarm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handbags? Oh my god, why isn't she selling on Facebook? I know a very wealthy woman in Thailand selling custom $400-600 handbags to New York yuppies and literally her entire business is on Facebook. I normally don't advocate this sort of thing but their ad platform and social network are basically made for this kind of business. Custom/Handmade luxury goods for upper-middle class women over a certain age? Facebook, e…

Hrm, never really thought about that. When we started her shop, Etsy was the natural fit. There is a community around that. I'll have to look into this. Thanks for the idea!

NB: I imagine it's hyper-competitive. Instagram might also be the right choice now.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#256

Post by gaius »

adrr wrote: post #32
bpodgursky wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo was a bloated carcass by the time activist investors got involved. Cutting the fat, selling off parts, and returning some value to investors was the only fair outcome.

Yahoo stock price went up 400% in 5 years. Investors made out quite well.

... almost entirely off their stake in BABA. YHOO was effectively just an ETF invested in just one stock, their actual business had negative value.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#257

Post by Oblouk »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #2

The conversion problem on mobile does seem like an issue, but speaking as a former customer of Etsy what drove me away was the selection. Not that it's too small - rather, Etsy is now flooded with thousands of storefronts selling "artisan" pieces that are actually bought on AliExpress or similar and marked up. If they're trying to apply ML to managing customer recommendations, they should figure out how to identify w…

Agreed, I tend to stay away from anything taking more than a week to arrive.

I recently made my first purchase on Etsy for mother's day for my wife. Her father recently passed and I got his fingerprint on a necklace from https://etsy.com/shop/RachelRothJewelry I received terrific customer service, the shop owner went way out of her way to edit the fingerprint which was basically a blob. I received the print a couple days ago and for about 1/5 of what the funeral home would have charged for the same thing, even after editing. So there are definitely some great shops on etsy but I did have to look around a lot to find a shop which could deliver this in under 2 weeks.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#258

Post by anigbrowl »

lmm wrote: post #163
pembrook wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, re-selling mass produced Chinese crap goes directly against the entire concept of Etsy and everything they supposedly stand for. However they've sold a classic Silicon Valley "high growth" story to investors that they're now beholden to as a publicly traded company. That growth story can't be delivered on grandma's handicrafts. Hence the site being slowly transformed into yet another generic online marketpla…

> they've sold a classic Silicon Valley "high growth" story to investors that they're now beholden to as a publicly traded company. Less so than most - they're a B corp (is that the term?) with higher priorities than shareholder value.

Interesting detail, thanks for that.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#259

Post by pbhjpbhj »

moron4hire wrote: post #221
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think so, that people don't want, say, a unique piece of jewellery but just to pretend - through what appears to be a fraud on behalf of the seller - that some over-priced mass-produced jewellery is unique. I couldn't disagree more. In part if I buy something on Etsy I'm considering that most of the money I spend will get re-spent in that person's local community. In part I'm trying to encourage them in…

I mean, there has to be some level of overlooking the obvious going on. There's no way a person could sustain themselves on the prices that these items are going for, if they were actually hand-made.

It's really hard for small scale artisan workers to sell at a sustainable price _for a full-time occupation_.

Price are anchored lowered by comparison with mass-produced products and artisinal goods made in countries with lower cost of living.

I know people personally who sell on Etsy but only as a side-line. To me that's where Etsy and other craft marketplaces - Folksy, NOTHS - fit best.

Re: Etsy has ousted its CEO and is laying off 8 percent of its staff

#260

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #125
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like tons of things on AliExpress are just resold on Etsy. I was looking at plant seeds on there and just found and bought the exact same ones with same pics and everything without markup on AliExpress, so it isn't just jewelry and handmade items. That left a bad impression on me about Etsy.

You really shouldn't be buying plant seeds off the internet. Invasive species is a big problem, and even if you buy legit oregano (or whatever) seeds, there's a high risk that a couple of the seeds are really something else that's not native to your region.

I don't think these Japanese Maple and lavender and Carolina Reaper seeds are going to become invasive. :)

They aren't seeds originally found in China, they were just obtained elsewhere and then grown there cheaply and put on AliExpress, I assume.

As to worries about seed contamination from stray seeds from other countries like China, where do you think all the seeds in your seed catalog come from?

http://themindfulhome.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-definitive-gu...

"It's safe to say, a fair amount of what we purchase from distributors probably was grown in China." -Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rareseeds.com)

"depending on the seed variety and specific lot, we may have seed that was sourced from China." -GrowOrganic.com (aka Peaceful Valley)

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