Update - Life without Etsy

Well it happened again, another shop suspended. Etsy did one of their sneak attacks Friday at the end of the Day and suspended the shop of a seller, without any warning. This is a seller whose sole income is that of her Etsy shop. These are the cruel people you work under and support. Etsy shuts down shops on Friday at the end of the day, because no one is there on the weekend to answer your emails or calls. I know because it happened to me.

Type in my old address and this is what you get akacinders.etsy.com

So how is life without Etsy? I just had to compile my finances for the past 5 months. I was on Etsy in January, sales very good, then I was booted off on February 11th. It was very hard for me to look at that month. While I was trying to negotiate with Etsy, and trying to figure out what to do, I had NO sales for 2 weeks. I was misty eyed as I filled out the financial statements.

Then in March when I decided to get back on the horse and fight, I started making sales again. I really love Artfire, and my shops had sales, but the traffic is still not as good as Etsy. Although I didn't want to, I went back to eBay too. I spent weeks trying to figure out my niche there. I made some sales, but it was 1/4 of what I made in January.

April got a little better, some Artfire Sales and a new Product on eBay that was selling. Still not as much as I was making last year on Etsy.

May, now there was a month. But mostly it was due to hours of blogging work and exposure from a blogged item. Now if only I can get more people to blog my work, life could be rosy. My sales in May were actually higher than my Sales at Etsy last year. But we will see how that goes when I'm not freshly blogged.

By the way, I am selling my Genre Aprons and Clutches. My Jewelry suffered terribly and I was just getting off the ground with it on Etsy. Very disheartening, as it was to My daughter Poppy when she got her shops shut down too.

So even though it was a struggle, there is life without Etsy. If you ever get yourself into the same predicament, please feel free to contact me HERE and I'll help you get through it.

Handmade Disaster - Etsy Exposes Buyer Information

OK, I must admit. I have a grudge. Etsy closed my Daughter's shop for nothing more that being flagged a few times, without good reason. Then they shut down my shop because it had a link to hers. She persisted and opened new shops to sell on (we checked, nothing on the TOS about opening a new shop). Etsy kept shutting her down and eventually I got behind on bills helping her with the cost of living and they shut down all of my shops. 


I guess they didn't like what we were saying about them Friday when I found out that they were exposing buyers and their buying history to the world without their express permission, so they shut down my very innocent buyer account, and blocked my IP address. I must be a big threat to them. 


Anyhow, they are claiming that there is one little blog with irrational claims about what they did (post and email  to members) Their public (was that an apology?)  http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-life/rethinking-feedback-12472/ You can't comment on this, but you can on the Thread. http://www.etsy.com/teams/7718/site-help/discuss/6819608/ If you are a member and want everyone in the world to know what you think.


Here is a summary posted on the thread of the "few" blog articles about the abomination that is Etsy's privacy policy.


Consumerist - http://consumerist.com/2011/03/you-want-your-real-name-associated-with-your-etsy-purchase-history-right.html

Ars Technica - http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/03/etsy-users-irked-after-buyers-purchases-exposed-to-the-world.ars

BoingBoing - http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/15/etsys-privacy-valdez.html

MSNBC - http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/15/6273251-e-commerce-site-etsy-exposes-users-shopping-histories

Forbes - http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/03/15/etsys-experiment-with-social-could-be-costly/

Digital Trends - http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/etsy-comes-under-fire-for-revealing-buyers-names-purchase-histories/

Help Net Security - http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10746

NY Magazine -http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/03/unannounced_privacy_changes_ex.html

NY Convergence - http://nyconvergence.com/2011/03/etsy-exposes-buyers-and-purchases-online.html

Auctionbytes - http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y11/m03/i15/s02

The Business Insider - http://www.businessinsider.com/etsy-takes-a-page-from-the-facebook-playbook-2011-3

Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/5782146/etsy-privacy-catastrophe-reveals-users-full-names-dildo-preferences-and-other-less-embarrassing-purchase-information

Village Voice -http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/03/etsy_privacy_policy_dildos.php

The Mary Sue (awesome new geek chick blog, if you haven't seen it yet) -http://www.themarysue.com/etsy-privacy-settings/

Buzzfeed - http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/etsy-new-privacy-policy-not-so-private

About.com - http://antivirus.about.com/b/2011/03/14/the-etsy-trojan.htm

Reputation.com - http://reputation.com/blog/2011/03/15/etsy-privacy-change-shows-users-purchase-histories/

Yahoo -http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110315/tc_digitaltrends/etsycomesunderfireforrevealingbuyersnamespurchasehistories

Salon.com -http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/03/15/etsy_privacy_people_search/

NowPublic - http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/etsy-people-search-privacy-policy-change-exposes-users-2767071.html

Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/the-circuit-kerry-hutchinson-introduce-infrastructure-bank-franken-to-propose-new-net-neutrality-bill-free-calls-texts-to-japan/2011/03/08/AB7m9gW_blog.html

Geek Sugar - http://www.geeksugar.com/Etsy-Privacy-Settings-14921901