Etsy's Town Hall Meeting

I forgot to sign up. By the time I got confirmation it was over. The forums though, as you can imagine, were extremely busy. Normally I try to steer far away from the forums during any announcements of change, the sky is falling posts are like locusts getting everyone worked up about and against something they'd all been screaming they wanted for ages. Boggles the mind.

This is another one of those things but on a much bigger scale - a case of be careful what you wish for! I was pretty concerned myself at first until I realized this actually gives them more control to get rid of the resellers. How many Chinese factories do you think Etsy will ok? They're notorious for terrible labor practices and no sweat shops will be allowed. Obviously manufactured items have to be disclosed to Etsy or the shop gets closed.

Everyone gets caught up in the how will I compete. The thing is, we aren't competing. It might make it harder to be seen, but it's always been hard to be seen. We've always had to drive our own traffic, that doesn't change. More importantly, our customers can see the difference in manufactured and hand made too.

What allowing outside help does FOR us is if you need help for a large order or the Christmas season it's ok to hire someone or more. If you've worked your behind off to get that wholesale order with Macy's -I have a friend who did, she was super excited until she realized her first order was more stock than she had and the deadline was looming - this allows you to be sure you can meet your order deadlines. Ensuring your success. It also means for those of us who have been approached for crowdsourcing a short run, we can say yes if that's what we want to do.

Success means different things to all of us. As we grow the definition can change too. Etsy is trying to make sure they can continue meeting our needs as that happens.

Change can be scary and this is a big change. But we will survive it, just as we always have. My sales have increased with each change, even during the recession, so I remain hopeful with this one as well.



On to happier things! My Pieces for Bead n Button are finished, boxed up and ready to ship off for photography! I can't wait to see what they look like professionally shot!

Paige and I worked on our project a little bit, still waiting on Erin's bead to arrive but we're pretty happy with what we have so far. Amazing how what you see in your head changes when you bring another artistic soul into the mix. Completely different from what I had envisioned but much more in keeping with Paige's style. Since this project is more about her that works!

I'm smiling big toothy grins more often these days, as I hope you are too.
Thanks for stopping by!
See ya next time!