Call me Weird.

I should really stay out of the forums before coffee.

Yesterday there was a thread, I can't remember what it was called, or who made the comment (though I remember the avatar...anyway). But a post was made to the effect of (whine) "where are all the customers, I thought there was supposed to be a holiday rush" (/whine) and a reply was made that was basically to the effect of :

You'll always hear about how busy Etsy is during the shopping season, but those sales are for the select few, and you'll be left wondering why you don't have any. Welcome to Etsy.

Really? Is this how you feel about Etsy? And if so, why are you there? I get the feeling that this is just more of the same "Etsy isn't promoting enough, they're not bringing in new shoppers, Jewelry is too crowded, not enough categories", etc etc ad nausem crowd. But by the same token, this person was talking to a seller who had only been on Etsy since August. A jewelry seller if I remember correctly. One selling jewelry that looked a lot like 75% of the rest of the jewelry on Etsy, with decent though mediocre pictures, and relatively high (compared to the average item sold price of $15) prices.

And I wanted to ask (but didn't because I sooo know better than to comment before coffee, even if I do read before coffee) so many questions. Have you loooked at your pictures and compared them to other jewelers who are doing well? Have you looked at your prices (not per se to lower them, but look at the competition..if you are charging $25-30 more per piece than the competition, and the competition has better pictures to boot, who do you think they're going to buy from)? Have you advertised beyond whining in the Etsy forums about how low your sales are? Did you try? Or do you just want a pat on the head and a cookie to make you feel better about yourself?

Etsy is a business. Once again, I go back to the comparison, where Etsy is like a mall, and we're all shop renters. There are usually 5 jewelry stores in any given mall of semi-decent size. Sometimes more. Do you think the managers of those stores whine to the mall management about how they're not doing their jobs to bring customers in? Do you think they whine to each other about how unfair it all is, and how they shouldn't have to do the legwork for themselves?

No. I didn't think so. So... again, I reiterate, if this is how you really feel...why are you still there?

I think I'll leave my rant about the number of people in the forums this morning talking about how "its ok to break the law, because everyone else does it" and "rules shmooles, break them, every one else does and you'll never get ahead if you don't".

BAH.