May 8, 2012 (ShapeShiftas) -- It looks like the latest thing in social media is to be social shopping. Sites where you can vend things and buy things and then tell all your Facebook friends about it.
There's something called Payvment that I see go by now and then in the FB ads claiming that it's so easy to import your Etsy listings and start selling, and a new one, Copius, (hate the name), that I actually signed up for but haven't done any listings yet. I looked into Copius a little and found a board of directors and lots of venture capital, but no real merchandising strategy other than "better than Etsy," so I think it's just an elaborate data-mining service where I will do no business. I don't think friends on Facebook want to see what I've bought or sold, and anyway there's only one site in the www that's better than Etsy.
And that site is, of course, Regretsy.
There's a harcover book, too, perfect for bathroom reading!
For the past weeks or so, I just can't stop going to Regretsy. It's hilarious, snarky, heartfelt, and smart, with continually updated, clean copy and great graphic work. I think it's just two people that run the site, April Winchell who writes the posts under the name Helen Killer, and her partner (don't know his name), who does the wildly funny graphics and runs the website.
I'll be sitting in my chair, with my iPad and my Assistant lap pillow, surfing the web and laughing out loud at the latest weirdo Etsy offerings that Regretsy has dug up. "Mom, are you on Regretsy again?" they'll shout, embarrassed at my belly laughs.
My favorite chair, with my favorite Assistant. Red, of course!
The Regretsy slogan is "Where Do It Yourself meets What the F***," and they post actual listings of items on Etsy. There are listings of things that are just weird, like scary taxidermy, or soap with an embedded goat fetus. They find all sorts of apparel items, from bad tie-dyed jumpsuits to fetish and ritual wear.
You will see an amazing amount of awful work that is questionably conceived of and terribly executed, but laugh-out loud funny and ultimately very sweet. Many of the listings they find sell after they provide them the exposure, but as you can imagine, other featured Etsy artists become enraged and send demands to remove their listing from the Regretsy site. Usually, they comply, after posting the mis-spelled, faux legalese cease and desist letters for our further entertainment.
Besides all the creepy, offensive, and/or just plain stupid stuff Regretsy finds, they also post listings that expose the dark reality of many Etsy shops. Although everything offered for sale on Etsy is supposed to be hand-made by the artist, or "a member of your shop", an incredible amount of junk is sold by importers or resellers.
There is no such thing as quality control on Etsy, and the only way an importer gets caught is if they are reported. So, recently, Regretsy posted the truth behind the manufacturing practices of one Etsy "featured" seller, who had her profile on the front page until Regretsy pointed out that she was importing all the merchandise from Bali.
Another time, Helen Killer created an Etsy "treasury" (this is a feature where you can post items you like, usually with a theme like Hearts On Fire or Purple Passion) where every one of the 16 selected items, all from different shops, was a necklace with the same $1.50 "owl" pendant. I'm not sure how much artistry is needed to buy a chain and attach a cheap, Chinese-made pendant with a jump ring...
This is an example of the "protest" Treasury. Etsy doesn't let them stay up for very long.
But perhaps it's all sour grapes, because I have never sold anything on Etsy. Granted, I don't pay a lot of attention to my shop -- I use it to sell samples and other one-offs, and only list items occasionally. Nor, for that matter, have I ever bought anything, amazingly, or participated in the forums or target groups that provide some social interaction and marketing outreach.
Almost everything is so cheap, and looks so poorly made, that I have rarely been tempted to buy. I find it very hard to find good work there, especially now that it has grown to something like 800,000 sellers and 12 million buyer accounts. With numbers like that, no wonder these newer social-shopping start-ups like Copious want to spring off the Etsy back.
It may not be the place for every artist to sell their work, but for Etsy, it has worked out fine. They claimed something like $400 million in revenues in 2010, 5 years after they launched, and plan to go public in the future.
peace, Deborah