Update on Sad to say, but its goodbye to Folksy

Well I had a surprise,  James from Folksy ( yes THE James, CEO)  commented on my blog  Sad to say, but its goodbye to Folksy  I was a bit taken a back but was quite pleased he had made the effort.  I replied and he then commented on what I had said.  I thought it was interesting as I am so rarely on the forums these day that it was nice to get an update and to see that they have actually been thinking about the problems and solutions to them.  

I wanted to share it with you as I think some points are interesting.  I realise that those of you on the forums will already be very aware of these things already.

So for your interest here is the comment James made on my blog followed by my reply and all the comments in purple are James's replies.

Think what you will,  but I was happy he made the effort and although I will not be jumping back into Folksy at this time.  I will definitely be watching and seeing what happens.

JamesBMar 25, 2012 10:39 AM

Hi Janice,

Thank you for posting your thoughts. I totally understand your frustration with the re-design. It would be really good to understand more about what you mean by "the good old days" of Folksy. A number of people have made the same reference. What do you mean?

It seems with some of our selling customers we've made some mistakes and we'd like to put that right. We have the weekly Q&A on the forums which is helping us to get your feedback more directly, but perhaps we could have a session for disaffected Folksy sellers to understand why we're not working well enough for you and your ideas on how we could improve? I'm up for having a live web-chat or some such thing. Or perhaps a specific Q&A?

We still believe we do some things really well but these don't seem to be noticed (in which case maybe we should put our resources elsewhere?). And it's fair to say we can't compete with the likes of Etsy as they have a huge amount of venture capital funding. We have to try and be different by design, think differently, and not ape them. We believe we have good ideas for how to do that but we'd welcome yours too.

Thanks,

James @ Folksy

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Thanks James for taking the time to comment on my blog 

I am happy to put in my tuppence worth about how you can improve as I
think folksy was a brilliant platform  and I would hate to see if
suffer because of what I see as a few issues that if resolved, could
bring it back to a great place to sell handmade work.

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Hi Janice,

Thank you for your feedback on Folksy, it's appreciated. I've replied
in-line to some of your comments (so it's easier to read).

Best wishes,

James @ Folksy

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I personally was happy that mass produced items were cut down on as I
always felt its strengths lay in the individuality and uniqueness of
items offered. And I am pleased to see more interaction with sellers
and better communication, that would have perhaps cut down on the
confusion and bad feeling. However it doesn't seem to extend to those
of us who can't spend all day on the forums finding out information, I
have no idea what is going on any more  so  I feel a sellers e-mail
with updates would be useful.

Good point. We're launching a new "community" area next week and this will bring together lots of the information you need to know as a Seller and also focus on announcements. We do have the monthly Seller email too and we'll be making this more informative (and making sure, at least from next month, all sellers get it as some did unsubscribe from the other email which bumped them off this one).

Information is key and  I agree that I can get more information from
google analytics with regards to shop views.  but the views on folksy
especially on individual items were not only useful but an instant
link to the folksy site.  Its ease of use to see if people were
looking at my newest listed items,  made me visit the site.   Once
there I would browse the site, buy and interact on the forums.  When
that was removed then I had no need to actually visit the site, so my
buying also stopped as I wasn't on the site browsing.  So reinstating
some kind of stats information would not only be helpful in knowing
what was being viewed but would keep people connected.

We're going to be bringing back basic analytic information in the summer so you can see who has seen your work.

We've also - yesterday! - brought back "recently listed" items as a view on the site, accessible from the home page http://folksy.com/recently_listed

But I think the main problem I have had is with the technical know
how.  When I started selling on folksy I didn't need to know anything.
I could just sign in, add items and I wouldn't need to know anything
else. I learnt how to promote through the help on the forums which
helped me get sales,  but I still didn't need to know anything
technical.  It was quite simply, simple to use. I didn't know how it
all worked but it just did.
Since the changes I now feel I have to understand, google analytics
and believe me after being on it for over a year, I still haven't got
a clue!! I have to understand how to tag items in order for them to
show up on google and other search engines,  I have to understand
paypal,  I used to just get an email and it told me everything I
needed to know, now apparently  I have to search for the information.
The illusion now is that if I knew everything I now need to know to use
folksy, I could actually set up my own online shop .
I know its a terrible stereotype but us Arty farty crafty folk, can't
create and do technical stuff at the same time,   I  just want to be
creative and all this time trying to find out how things work takes
time away from that.

Good point. It should be easy and we want to make it simple to use. Some things we're doing:

1. The Seller Pack we're introducing in April will help here (which
will be prominent on the new community portal). We've taken keywords
away because they were complex and because they weren't good for
Google search and people misused them. This meant some people thought
their work wasn't being seen and people (wrongly) jumped to the
conclusion Folksy didn't work well with Google search. It does. Just
describe your item well and it will appear - think what someone will
search for and use those words.
2. PayPal is reverting back to the way it used to work and we're
making the emails more informative for you, to make your life simpler
(we're testing this to make sure they will be more useful).
3. Guest Login will mean the platform is simpler for buyers to just
buy too, something Etsy and others don't offer.
4. Listing - the listing process is due to be made simpler with faster
upload and also simpler postage options.
5. We're going to be bringing in re-stocking of items which will mean
no relisting - just update the quantity of the item.
However, there is some complexity we can't avoid. Legal issues for
one. We're launching a better way for sellers to comply with the
Distance Selling Regulations in the next month which will help
everyone, but complying with Safety law around toys and cosmetics is
something we can't help with.

We used to rely on each other for information,  but the forums have
died a bit of a death as people now worry about what they say.  So
perhaps some online videos would help. Joining instructions when you
start to explain some simple information with links  ( apologies if
you do this now but when I joined there was nothing)  I think you need
to remember that most people starting out are terrified and have
little or no understanding of selling online.

Good idea. We'll be bringing in videos with the Seller Pack and have already started our monthly video updates (we're not the most polished presenters yet, but we're trying and you can see we're human beings not robots!).

The forums can be so helpful but they can also be a source of mis-information which can be very frustrating to us (the Google search threads were one such issue). It's not possible to be in the forums all the time but we do try and manage them. The forums were really unpleasant last year (we had to ban a few people because of their behaviour) and we've worked hard to make them more useful and productive and supportive. The weekly Q&A hopefully helps and we're working on better ways to communicate our announcements and gather feedback so there will be less misinformation. The new support system (green tab on the right of the site) allows people to nominate and vote on new features, for example.

I hate etsy,  I really do.  I opened a shop to try it and I never used
it as I thought  they were impersonal and faceless and far to big and
corporate, to get noticed on,  everything I thought folksy wasn't.
They also weren't British, something very personal to my heart. But
with the changes,  rightly or wrongly I thought you were trying to be
like them.   I have to keep an online presence if I want to succeed in
my business,  and they are the only real alternative, easy to use,
cheaper  and I don't have to think about it, I just have to use them.

No, we don't want to be Etsy. We want to support Craft and not be a faceless corporate place that allows people to re-sell lots of non-handmade things. We have to be different to Etsy and in the next year you will hopefully see more of that. That's not to say Etsy don't do some things very well, they do, but we believe that we can support craft and the work of designer makers, better.

I am sure that none of  this is news to you,  but thanks for making
the effort to ask.

Contact me if you want to do a Q& A but I  don't think a web chat
would in my case would  be effective as I would spend ages trying to
figure out how on earth it works!!



Thanks again for your feedback.

Best wishes,

James.