Oh man....why didn't I think of this?????

How far has Etsy fallen you ask? Holy Handmade! I should have thought of selling this and then I too could quit my day job and become an Etsy bazillionairre. That's right; not only is someone selling this comforting reminder of our childhoods as high quality handmade craft but they're selling it for $18 plus $5 shipping! AND on Dec 10 at approx 9:30 pm it made the front page. LOL! OMG! How can any of us hope to compete with this level of talent and originality? Is my hope to achieve financial success through the uniqueness, quality and sustainability of my particular product in vain? Are festive paper chains~no...Handmade Festive Paper Chains the wave of the handmade future? Is this a true example of what Etsy hopes to hold up as handmade artisan talent? *shakes head* Then I am well and truly fubared at Etsy; as if I didn't already know that.

I believe in each to his own and while some artists do quite well at Etsy, even without the favoritism, I know that my future does not lie with them. So I laugh and shake my head at stunning, eco friendly paper chains. Sort of like a B movie that is soo bad it's good. I take pride in my work and I can't possibly feel right about being a B movie soo bad that it's good enough to be on Etsy's front page. But I still love to watch them. LOL!

I'll be leaving Etsy....and here's why

Guys, I've come to a serious decision. I'm going to be letting all my listings in both of my Etsy shops expire, last one ends in late Jan. I'm not going to close them but leave forwarding info (shh don't tell the Nazis) after the SEO mess up my sales there have almost disappeared. I never really promoted my Etsy shops like I do my Artfire shops but I'm surprisingly unique enough that people tend to find me a few times a month every month since I started Aug. '08. But I haven't made a sell at Etsy since mid Sept and my views have almost stopped when I was getting several new views and hearts almost every day a few months ago without any effort on my part. Splitting my time between two sites is a lot but mainly I don't want to confuse my local customers by sending them to 2 different sites when Artfire is so much better for me at least.

Also on a more personal (slightly evil bitter note) I found something on Etsy which sealed the deal for me. A particular shop there (no names) opened a few months after me, sells feather jewelry which (in my biased opinion) is more primitive, less imaginative, smaller selection and she frigging takes 2 pic with the earrings obviously lying on her couch, wtf??????? And she was FEATURED!!!!! in the DOURKE, storke, stourge, however you friggin spell it a few months ago and now her views are crazy and her sales are double mine.

To be clear I'm not jealous of her, she may be perfectly nice and deserving of success but I'm pissed at Etsy for ignoring their own "rules" of pro pics/listings/ etc and featuring a shop which is in my opinion not top quality. Not saying it should be me but it should definitely not be her. But if she's being featured only because of who she knows and not her talent/product then I'm not wasting another dime there.

(I mean at least her inside friend should have nudged her saying, "Hey, hon what don't you upgrade those pics before I feature you, okeydokey?) That just makes Etsy look as stupid as they obviously are, duh.

whew, rant over....

Have you read the Etsy Wars article?

I'm a follower of Etsy Bitch, sometimes I agree and sometimes I don't but the posts are usually very interesting either way. Here's the latest post about a magazine article that is soon to be published and it's pdf version is readable through on Etsy Bitch, here's the link --

Etsy Wars

Check it out!