Yet Another Reason Etsy Just Doesn't Get It!

The other day, I was searching for a cover bead for the  next day's issue of Glass Beads Daily. I do my best to feature all the "regulars" at least once a month.  This often involves me checking to see which of a particular artist's beads I've featured in the past few months. My fear is that I will love something so much and that it hasn't sold and I will feature it twice.

It was my real life friend's Donna's turn to be cover girl. Her studio is Prima Donna Beads. As I perused her last few features on the blog, I clicked on one of the featured beads as a quick way to get to her Etsy shop.  And this is what I found:

I can't tell you how angry this made me! Think about this from a seller's perspective: I leave links to MY work around the web;  I do the promoting of my shop; Someone clicks and if that item is sold out, there is NOT ONE photo of MY work but there are one DOZEN pics from the competition??? WTF ETSY???

Let me clearly state I have NOTHING against the artists who happen to be listed here. In fact, I "know" all of them through Glass Beads Daily as they all share their work over there. I deeply admire all of them and their mad skills. I guess kudos go to Etsy for not randomly choosing some of those mass produced Chinese glass beads and using actual artisan links.

But really, would it kill you to stuff a few pics from the artisan that brought the customer to the website. I knew Etsy was doing this if there was nothing in the shop that the customer clicked on. But Donna's shop had several dozen items... they could have filled that page with her beads and hers alone! Wouldn't that be the fair thing to do??? After all it was her link that got the customer to Etsy!

Between Etsy's policy of allowing contract work - which I read as "Bring your Chinese crap beads and sell them here! We don't care if they are mass produced garbage that's not annealed and likely to break as long as we (Etsy) make money!" Now this... I'm so done.

BTW, the artists listed in the pic are genuine handmade glass bead artists one and all and they all make lovely beads too! They're shops are: 

Beads by Stephanie | Heather Behrendt | Debbie of All My Beads | Lampwork by Amy

As so many of us are migrating to an interactive customer experience, if you truly enjoy artisan glass beads and quality lampwork, here are a few private Facebook pages to join:

Lampwork Beads for Sale
Lampwork Bead Market
Artisan Lampwork Beads for Sale

These are just a few... There are also groups specializing in wire wraps and pendants, lampwork jewelry, etc... Come join the fun!! It's a great place to hang out, be inspired, interact with other artists and...people who "get it!"