Déjà vu All Over Again
- Submitted by Pearle
You may remember a post we did last year about Etsy Featured Seller Ecologica Malibu.
Basically, a woman serving as the California distributor for furniture made by a company called All From Boats had opened an Etsy store, and was claiming to make all the furniture herself. Later, her story changed to include a “handful of carpenters,” and finally a letter surfaced from the owner of All From Boats, making it clear that Etsy had once again promoted a reseller instead of you.
Etsy responded to the outrage by retroactivey labeling her store a collective, which means, “Shut up, we’re making a fortune.”
When pressed to explain the rules of collectives on Etsy, they responded by looking all hurt and saying, “Wow, I can’t believe you don’t trust me.” They then put Ecologica on the front page, just to rub hand-milled artisan sea salt into the wound.
Eventually, outcry reached the Consumerist and thousands of other online outlets, and Boatwood Barbie retreated to the hills of Malibu, where magic birds continue to build boat wood furniture in her enchanted condo.
THE END
No, I’m just kidding.
Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Sierra Living Concepts on Etsy!
Now this looks a little suspect to me, but then, I’m not on the Etsy Marketplace Integrity team. Oh wait, no one is.
But something about merchandise built in “furniture excellence centers in India and Mexico” just doesn’t sound right. I admit, I don’t know what those are, exactly, but I’m envisioning 8 year olds chasing roosters out of the outhouse.
And you have suspiciously similar furniture all over the place, which tells me that the hallmark of excellence is how much you can nail together in a day for a buck and a half.
But maybe the website for Sierra Living Concepts offers the most insight:
Now call me crazy, but I have never heard of a handcrafter referring to themselves as a “California-based distributor.” Mostly they refer to themselves as “me.”
So once again, Etsy has tweaked the meaning of “handmade” to mean anyone’s hands, and any number of hands, anywhere in the world. Well except in your case. You can get your store closed down if your mom helps with shipping. How does that make you feel?
I’ve largely stopped talking about this, since Etsy isn’t even embarrassed by it anymore. When Chad Dickerson said that Etsy was “never just about handmade,” I knew we were looking at Quantum Leap: The Lost Episode. There is no Etsy anymore. There is only revisionist history, and a greedy corporation that changes the rules for everyone.
Well, everyone but you.
January 16, 2013 at 1:25 pm
“Lovingly handmade by underfed, underpaid little Mexican and Indian child labor” just doesn’t have that sort of Etsy warm-and-fuzzy ring to it, does it?
January 16, 2013 at 1:30 pm
The blessed Etsy resellers. They really don’t know any shame, do they?*
*This comment was typed at a century-old comment-typing excellence centre based in Random Third-World Country, incorporating skilled comment-writing hands from across the globe.
January 16, 2013 at 2:34 pm
My typing skills were passed down from my father and my father’s father for generations. My illiterate sister, mother, aunts, grandmother and the rest just had to suck it.
January 17, 2013 at 7:54 am
“The Scum Also Rises ” doesn’t it? Business as usual in Etsy land.
January 16, 2013 at 1:42 pm
oh I was hoping this would blow up like ecologica, people should be absolutely outraged about this and should be having total fits about this!! although it may do no good but it puts it on the books eventually enough of these situations they will have to actually define a collective and tighten up their rules to say exactly what they mean….it is all any body ha asked for. I want clear black and white rules with no cupcakey bullshit tell me what I can and cannot do.
January 16, 2013 at 1:45 pm
god I really want to go post a link at etsy and get the cupcakes crying in their frosting….I really want to know what Brandi says about this?
January 16, 2013 at 4:51 pm
It was closed wicked quick!
January 16, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Hand carved. Machine lathed. Why quibble over semantics?
January 16, 2013 at 2:36 pm
IT TAKES A HAND TO FLIP THE “ON” SWITCH! (or an adept foot, possibly a particularly agile stump.)
January 17, 2013 at 3:39 am
Countless occasions of having hands full of groceries, cats etc. have taught me that just smooshing your face on switches and doors can achieve the desired result with only a lot of pain.
January 16, 2013 at 1:54 pm
How bad is it when I have more respect for ebay? At least they’re like, “Yeah, we sell anything made by anybody or anything! Fuck it!”.
January 16, 2013 at 2:14 pm
I thought they just sold bays. WTF?
January 16, 2013 at 2:41 pm
They started out selling just bays, but then they branched out into rivers, lakes, fjords, inlets, and then finally everything else.
January 16, 2013 at 2:44 pm
So the key to their success was staying fluid and maintaining liquidity?
January 16, 2013 at 2:48 pm
They had a very “go with the flow” method of doing business.
January 16, 2013 at 3:51 pm
They only had problems with vernal pools. Their stock disappeared every year in late spring.
January 22, 2013 at 11:52 am
I’ve heard they’ve had a similar problem with some smaller prairie potholes.
January 16, 2013 at 3:35 pm
Really? I’ve been Pining for Fjords!
January 17, 2013 at 6:33 am
Son of a birch! So have I.
January 17, 2013 at 7:56 am
So OOAK actually means One Oak. Who knew.
January 16, 2013 at 2:19 pm
Oh, absolutely. I’ve been known to curse eBay over the years that I’ve been a seller there, but they’re very clear about their policies. Their Help section is detailed and specific, it’s updated regularly, and because they allow reselling, people don’t feel the need to mislead people into thinking their wholesale goods are handmade. Not that it never happens, but I just haven’t seen it there like I do on Etsy.
And then there’s that little thing about actually bringing traffic in (my sales are good even without any outside advertising or pimping), having advanced listing functionality, offering the ability to set up automatic charity donations, and actually permitting sellers to post responses to feedback so it’s not just one side of the story.
Yeah, it’s not even close which one I respect more.
January 16, 2013 at 1:59 pm
They have no fucking idea who the artisans are. They don’t fucking care, either.
January 16, 2013 at 2:05 pm
Once you realize artisan=child-slave-laborer you kind of have to not care since your soul died and leaked out your fucking asshole, leaving you unable to care.
January 16, 2013 at 2:06 pm
By “you” I mean chad of course.
January 16, 2013 at 2:23 pm
“You” is Mexican for “Chad”, right?
January 18, 2013 at 12:06 am
This must be why my items never get viewed on etsy. I’m not a true “artisan.”
January 16, 2013 at 2:01 pm
A-fuckin mazing
oh wait, they’ve been *distressed*
January 16, 2013 at 2:30 pm
I think “distressed” refers to emotional state of the child-laborers who’ve been told that their family will starve if they don’t crank out more boat-wood tables.
January 16, 2013 at 2:37 pm
Plus they lost all their tresses in various industrial accidents.
January 16, 2013 at 2:08 pm
Just left them this gem:
http://shopping.sierralivingconcepts.com/storefrontprofiles/default.aspx?sfid=163917
This is a company. It’s not an artisan. It’s not a “collective.” It’s not handmade by anyone remotely close to the person selling it. This is Pier1 light, Bombay company (remember them?) impersonating an “artist.” Why do you guys continue to allow this obvious anti-thesis of what Etsy was supposed to be for?
I know you need to make money, I support you guys making money and keeping the site alive, but not at the expense of the original purpose. Please get serious about the kind of sellers you are allowing on Etsy.
January 16, 2013 at 8:13 pm
THIS.
You can make money, but please stop with the bait and switch. It simply isn’t fair to buyers who think they are spending their money on handmade, let alone the sellers who work their asses off following the rules.
January 16, 2013 at 11:09 pm
Nice! It’s inevitably going to get deleted so they can keep living in their fantasy world, but let us know if anyone replies to it before that.
January 17, 2013 at 6:26 am
I should have mentioned that what I wrote was from flagging the shop for selling non-handmade stuff. I doubt I’ll hear anything, and sort of think that whole ‘flag’ business just filters complaints to a nifty spam folder.
January 17, 2013 at 6:31 am
But it’s a nifty spam folder made by the Office Depot collective with love.
January 16, 2013 at 2:08 pm
So, I guess Artisan’s are kind of similar to artisans, except they get paid less?
January 16, 2013 at 2:19 pm
It comes from the term “Art, sans all the money”.
January 17, 2013 at 6:30 am
Money? In ART? *Chortles*
January 17, 2013 at 10:03 am
Yeah, I know. Ridiculous.
January 17, 2013 at 12:53 pm
In all seriousness, I fear I will never get a job after college. Art isn’t exactly in demand anymore…
January 17, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Yeah, don’t make my mistake. Find something boring but lucrative.
January 17, 2013 at 6:11 pm
I recommend accounting.
Then you can make MY mistake.
January 19, 2013 at 5:57 pm
You went to college for art? Hah!
So did I. *sob*
January 16, 2013 at 2:10 pm
Ahhhh. Let’s see how many repins I can get out of this on Pinterest.
January 16, 2013 at 2:12 pm
If only the importers and distributors of factory-made furniture etc. had some kind of infrastructure to sell their fine products, they could leave a place like Etsy alone for “people making shit on the kitchen table or in the garage”. This infrastructure I envision could be big buildings where they could display stuff, and other ones to store it. They could be surrounded by parking places for cars! There could be food there!! AND SOOTHING MUSIIIIIC!!!!!
January 16, 2013 at 2:17 pm
Get your head out of the clouds, dreamer! Where’s a place like THAT gonna exist, MARS???
January 16, 2013 at 2:21 pm
Well, a verdant natural environment would have to be converted to a lifeless wasteland before it could happen so, yeah I guess. Who would do that here? The travel costs are going to add up fast.
January 16, 2013 at 3:48 pm
Damn. Too bad I just took delivery of a whole bunch of bricks and mortar before Matt shot your idea down.
Guess it’s going to be a really big outdoor pizza oven with ensuite bathroom now, instead.
January 16, 2013 at 4:08 pm
So a pissoirizzaria?
January 16, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Or a pisszzaria. You’re all invited to the opening.
January 16, 2013 at 2:52 pm
and and and … free food SAMPLES? Ooo,wait … oh well. Asking too much again.
January 16, 2013 at 4:13 pm
And perhaps a place that sells 1000 calorie cinnamon rolls! But alas it is just a dream.
January 16, 2013 at 2:16 pm
I’m just like Sierra Living Concepts! I’m a Rhode Island-based distributor of hand-made items made in the centuries-old furniture center of my garage, I rack my brain to come up with pieces I think people will find interesting and labor over their design, I break my knuckles to make them in the few hours I have after my shitty job every night and on weekends (when I don’t paint houses to make rent money), and I make virtually no money on the things I do sell! It’s like looking in the mirror!
Etsy is CHOCK-FUCKING-FULL of people JUST like me! I love how LEVEL the playing field is over there! You guys should all join, it’s almost as much fun as selling Amway products!
January 16, 2013 at 2:18 pm
I would totally get on board except I already sold my soul to Satan and stupidly signed a non-compete clause!
January 16, 2013 at 2:33 pm
I’m unable to sell my pieces because I signed a non-compete with Santa. This dyslexia’s gonna be the death of me.
January 16, 2013 at 2:40 pm
Can’t you sign up to be one of his elves? Don’t fuck it up and write “Sleve”. That could turn out badly for you.
January 16, 2013 at 3:50 pm
I’ve found that my dyslexia works great for online Scrabble. The mix of letters reform themselves into actual words!
January 16, 2013 at 5:39 pm
You might consider joining D.A.M. (Mothers Against Dyslexia)
January 16, 2013 at 5:46 pm
But I don’t have any eldrichn.
January 16, 2013 at 10:22 pm
Did you mean eldrichn or eldritch? Because, Cthulhu.
January 16, 2013 at 10:40 pm
No, Cthulyou!
Let Eldrich Cleaver R.I.P.
January 17, 2013 at 6:28 am
melagrana meant sdik. You know, litle oens.
Now what’s this about Leave It to Beaver?
January 16, 2013 at 3:04 pm
Etsy purchased your soul. From a reseller. Sorry.
January 16, 2013 at 3:19 pm
It’s amazing what Chinese children can make in a sweat shop these days.
January 16, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Dude, I just clicked over to your store for the first time and you make some seriously dope shit. If I hadn’t blown my paycheck on a shabby chic credenza hand-distressed with the bile of rare Nepalese mountain goats, I’d be all over it.
January 16, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Agreed. Those book shelves?
*drool*
January 16, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Thank you both!
I wish I had time to make more pieces. Someday. But not today.
January 16, 2013 at 5:33 pm
It’s the vinegar bottle and carburetor sconce for me!
January 16, 2013 at 5:36 pm
Nuh uh. I saw them first. And make no mistake: I will not hesitate to cut a bitch.
January 16, 2013 at 5:43 pm
And make no mistake: I’m an arborist, and I have saws. On my belt. In holsters.
January 16, 2013 at 10:30 pm
Bitches, please. When I have all the moneys I will furnish my whole mansion in Matt Johnson aesthetic even if I have to pay him in fucking gold-pooping cave salamanders. But you can all come over and rub you hands on my woodwork. (You can do that now, actually)
January 16, 2013 at 10:43 pm
I have lobster claws instead of hands.
January 19, 2013 at 5:13 pm
Matt, your shop makes me wish I’d let my husband buy power tools back when we had money for power tools. NOT that he could make anything anywhere nearly as exquisite as your works of art…but if he had power tools, I could sell them to buy one of your lamps.
January 16, 2013 at 2:18 pm
They even have a 1-866 number in their shop banner so you can speak to their “Friendly Staff”.
Wow!
You call my shop’s number and you can hear me yelling at the washing machine.
January 16, 2013 at 2:20 pm
Yeah, but do you have an exotic Indian accent?
January 16, 2013 at 2:22 pm
I’ve yelled at that thing in many languages.
Nothing works.
January 16, 2013 at 2:24 pm
Try sitting on it. I’ve heard that works wonders for women somehow.
January 16, 2013 at 3:42 pm
Well it’s less about sitting, and more about positioning.
But too much of it and you end up addicted to internet appliance porn.
I heard.
January 16, 2013 at 5:14 pm
Only if you’re dirty. Nice girls just go to mixers.
January 16, 2013 at 5:41 pm
Um, what’s a mixer again?
January 16, 2013 at 10:32 pm
You mean, like a blender? Keep the lid on!
January 16, 2013 at 10:45 pm
Keep the lid on?
Put the seat down!
January 16, 2013 at 2:28 pm
“By the many arms of Krishna, do you call this clean? I have seen holes in Calcutta that would do a better job! This load of wash is not fit to be touched by untouchables!”
January 16, 2013 at 2:36 pm
“Sari? Oh, you’re sari alright! Get back to work!”
January 16, 2013 at 2:43 pm
*LeeLoo’s iPhone mishears and begins weeping softly.*
January 16, 2013 at 2:55 pm
Before transferring to a Mumbai accented phone tree with cheerful washer agitation noises in the background.
January 16, 2013 at 10:33 pm
*shivashivashiva*
January 16, 2013 at 10:49 pm
Kali me sometime.
January 17, 2013 at 2:39 pm
NOT ENOUGH THUMBS IN THE WORLD.
January 16, 2013 at 3:06 pm
I totally did that earlier today, when I posted on the forum about the banner. I had called the number. When answered by “Sammy” I asked if they had more items other than what they had on Etsy. long silence and “what is Etsy?” then I asked if they had a website. “Oh yes. It is http://www...” I put that in my little flagging as “having a phone umber that directs you to an outside company is straight up fee avoidance. You do not allow it. ”
Of course we know they looked at that and laughed.
January 16, 2013 at 9:38 pm
To be fair, you really don’t know that “Sammy” was umber.
Let’s see if Etsy gets upset about bullshit that actually costs them money.
January 18, 2013 at 3:40 pm
The shop’s gone (and in record time for a reseller complaint), so I guess that fee-avoidance thing got Etsy’s attention.
January 19, 2013 at 7:53 pm
I hate when people ask to talk to me on the phone to talk over a custom order. About all you’ll hear is the absolute chaos of three kids and several animals. You could concentrate better at a heavy metal concert.
January 16, 2013 at 2:57 pm
“Many of our artisans learned their craft from their father, and their father’s father.”
Their family has been enslaved for a long time eh?
January 16, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Castes are a funny thing.
January 16, 2013 at 3:30 pm
According to the California Secretary of State’s business entity website, Sierra Living Concepts is owned by one Raj Nathawat of Fremont, CA (matches the address on his website).
His linkedin profile notes having 11 to 50 employees and he even shows up on an importer website, moving furniture from Hong Kong to Oakland.
You can even google him for images, videos, etc.
Enjoy.
January 16, 2013 at 5:35 pm
Mmmmmm, furniture wholesaler porn. Pass the linseed oil, somebody.
January 16, 2013 at 5:32 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
January 16, 2013 at 10:40 pm
As long as we are “Buy the cheapest, no matter who makes it.” and they are “Export or die.” this will continue. We have to let them down easy (so they won’t die) but also foster some goddamn local manufacturing (so we won’t die).
January 16, 2013 at 10:48 pm
We’re manufacturing consent.
-Mrs Noam Chomsky
January 16, 2013 at 5:39 pm
So… when is Apple going to start selling “handmade iPhones” on Etsy? What precisely is the difference? Is it just the level of pretentious wankery that makes it okay for someone to import sweatshop furniture and sell it on eBay when it wouldn’t be right for an electronics firm to do the same thing with phones?
Fuck Etsy.
January 18, 2013 at 12:10 am
I second that emotion.
January 16, 2013 at 6:02 pm
Glad to do my part…
I was secretly loathing this shop for two days now..
I am so stoked it’s been called out here on Regretsy!
I am just curious how long it will be before they spotlight this shop…maybe a featured seller!
January 17, 2013 at 11:40 am
Well it did show up in my “rustic reclaimed wood furniture” search as a sponsored item.
But the three armed sweater now takes its place.
So high five.
January 18, 2013 at 4:02 am
You mean three high fives.
January 16, 2013 at 6:28 pm
I guess this is what Etsy has come to. “Handmade” meaning “bought in a factory where hands touched things and resold by Etsy shops for a profit”….
Here’s another great reseller example — I posted in the forums about them a few weeks ago– GenuineGoods786 (great name, right?)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/GenuineGoods786
They have 6,900 sales and have been on Etsy since 2010. The same products are all over alibba and you can even find links to the factories they come from, like here –http://www.leatherjournal.co.in/aboutUS.php
BUY HANDMADE, right?
January 16, 2013 at 6:30 pm
Quote from his Etsy profile…
The art of making leather articles is passed down to me by my grandfather. He was a very creative but poor man and did hard labor to earn his meager wages even though he used to make journals,diaries,photo albums for the kings then. He would always smile at me looking at my fascination for his creations and would say “One day people will care for creativeness and labor and my boy will make masterpieces then”
Well here is the boy walking on his grandfather’s steps. I started a workshop where we produce pure leather goods.
I do have few employees(they keep variating) in my workshop, who do help me with small tasks. I guide them out when we need to cater to wholesale orders.
January 16, 2013 at 7:15 pm
Wow! That shop has a lot of bad feedback!
January 16, 2013 at 9:42 pm
And there’s a common theme…
January 17, 2013 at 1:35 pm
How does Etsy even calculate the feedback percentage? It says this store has 97% positive feedback. But 1004 positives out of 1110 sales is 90%.
Huh?
January 17, 2013 at 6:06 pm
So many sales. All those people, duped into buying factory crap ‘handmade’ by people likely working in terrible conditions, because Etsy totally checks on these sorts of things and would never lie about what kind of items are allowed on the site and neither would ‘artisans’, right?
It makes me sick to my stomach with anger and disappointment. People ask why I won’t sell my handmade goods on Etsy, and this is why. I don’t want my work tainted by the lies and exploitation that’s excused by all those 20-cent listing fees they shovel into their pockets.
January 16, 2013 at 6:42 pm
So done with Etsy…closing my shop in 10 days (lots of stuff on sale..kittendelux or The Kynd Wytch or Psychotica Eclectica). Sorry about the self promotion but I want to get rid of this stuff and make a few bucks too.
I’ve actually gone back to selling on Ebay (which I never thought I’d do) but someone else here hit the nail on the head: at least with Ebay you know what’s what!
Love the super fat cat though.
January 16, 2013 at 7:25 pm
Multiple people using a single account (collective shops)
An account that involves more than one person is called a collective. There are three scenarios, outlined below, in which multiple people who know each other may use a single Etsy account.
this is what etsy says, so the multiple people WHO KNOW EACH OTHER seems that woul dbe really hard if they are spread all over the globe in different contries….I really want to kick Chad right in his big giant twat!!
January 16, 2013 at 7:29 pm
Giant Twats scare the crap out of me!
January 16, 2013 at 9:43 pm
If the person who answers the phone doesn’t know what Etsy is, my guess it isn’t a “collective” even under Etsy’s broad overly generous (to them) definition.
January 16, 2013 at 10:01 pm
“in which multiple people who know each other may use a single Etsy account”
must really be hard to “know” each other when some are in california, india, germany, spain etc I think they use face book alot!!
January 16, 2013 at 10:44 pm
Is it “know” in the Biblical sense?
January 17, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
January 16, 2013 at 10:25 pm
You can get your store closed down if your mom helps with shipping. How does that make you feel?
—————————
This is absolutely 100% true. A friend of mine who lives overseas was told that her Mom could not ship out her HAND MADE items from her home town in the US.
January 16, 2013 at 11:04 pm
This whole thing really irks me and this is why I got rid of my old shop on Etsy anyways. The resellers in the Home Decor side of things are sickening. My husband didn’t even think too much about it and was like well, its not really my problem until I made him sit down and open up a search on alibaba and etsy for something simple like ikat pillows and he was outraged cause he knew fully well how much money I had put into fabrics, working my tail and after one year of coming one step short of selling my soul to the devil himself, I had less than 10 sales to my name. Mind you I learned how to sew from my now 93 year old granny who worked in a shirt factory for 40 years, and am a pretty good sewer but when the top #1 seller in pillow covers is from India and has over 2500 different pillows in the course of three years, I can’t compete with that. Anymore I just sell a limited amount of soap to out of town relatives and that’s it. I’m very much burned and mad at Etsy.
January 17, 2013 at 8:08 am
Just went to take a peek at the shop and I got the three armed sweater. Rats. I was hoping to see overpriced, slave labor produced furniture. Guess I’ll have to go to Walmart today, after all.
January 17, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Took me 3 paragraphs to recognize April’s writing – and I am sure I would have been faster if I wasn’t so dozy today.
Aaaah! THAT is what was missing in my life.
January 17, 2013 at 1:00 pm
So this is the type of stuff that really grinds my gears. I can’t believe a company can even pretend that they have integrity when things like this happen.
That being said, I clicked on the link to look at their shop and it isn’t there. I’ve also tried searching for them and can’t find them at all. I wonder what it all means…
January 17, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Sure enough! It was there yesterday.
January 17, 2013 at 2:10 pm
It probably means that a legitimate but Etsy-inappropriate company decided it wasn’t worth the trouble or bad reputation to continue using it as a marketing channel.
Because I doubt Etsy grew a sense of shame overnight.
January 21, 2013 at 9:32 am
It’s gotten to the point now that, any time there’s anything listed on Etsy that seems like a good deal or that is something I could possibly afford, I’m afraid/sure it’s a reseller. And then I go on a quest to discover if the pictures exist on other sites. It doesn’t… exactly make for a positive shopping experience.
January 22, 2013 at 12:18 pm
This is why I do my research before I buy on etsy. I have purchased a few items, from actual handcrafters, and I have been very pleased with all of them. Sadly I am not artistically talented myself, but there are a lot of people in this world who are, and their careful attention is apparent in their works. I’m glad that I found them, and that there are some people in this world who still do what they actually say they do. Thanks, regretsy, for helping me to find them!
January 22, 2013 at 1:30 pm
So…..does this mean I can sell vintage clothing because I folded it myself?
January 24, 2013 at 4:32 pm
Oh, I just love it when Ms. Killer unleashes her inner Chernobog and smacks down someone bigger than her who really deserves it.
Reminds me of the good ol’ days on her old website.
April 4, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Wow….the shit floats to the surface every time…