Sunday, March 14, 2010

How do you know that it's not handmade?

Can you take the time tell us how you know that it should not be on Etsy? 

12 comments:

Life During Wartime said...

Is it a reseller? Red Flags that tell me to take another look before I buy:

1) Free shipping. Not for a limited time as a promotion, but for most or all items, all the time. And the items happen to be priced around 5 bucks or less. The item probably cost the seller only a few cents when they bought it wholesale.

2) The seller has no announcement, profile, or policies filled in. These things are far more important to a buyer than cute banners and avatars, all the silly threads in the forums to the contrary.

3) The seller says she has a shop because she wants 'to share' her love of whatever she sells with you. Not one word about loving her art or craft, how she started doing it, why she does it, etc.

4) The Renaissance Woman -- too many diverse crafts for sale in one or more shops. How can one person mass produce garments in a wide range of designs/fabrics/sizes, make jewelry, create handmade lampwork beads, weave rugs, and make soap? And keep 100 or more items in their shop all the time? And have the photography skills to take impressive catalog quality photos of every item? Odds are they make one kind of item, and the rest they buy wholesale.

5) Stock numbers in listing titles or in photos.

6) Shop has a large number of listings, every one with multiple professional quality photos.

7) Shop has text on all their professional quality photos.

8) Shop has a watermark on all their photos that is not their Etsy ID or Etsy shop name.

9) Similar or identical items in the shop are in multiple categories, like vintage and supplies and jewelry. The seller doesn't know what Etsy is about, or doesn't care. They are getting maximum exposure any way they can to move product. Deceiving customers or stepping on other sellers who follow the rules doesn't faze them.

10) Seller uses vintage as a tag but the item does not include any vintage recycled materials.

That's a starter list.

Anonymous said...

How about when they leave the wholesale company's name in their stolen product pictures?

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42701868

http://www.lpisb.com/itemdetail.asp?itemid=sz00222

Melina and Denise said...

Or search an individual item on Ebay and find that it is sold in bulk numbers really cheaply.

Anonymous said...

They have a website that is clearly for their mass produced sales. "Life During Wartime" has a superb list there...

QueenGinya said...

I was chatting early this am and found 3...(3!) people chatting who obiviously were resalers...all over seas stores, all willing to make things for me in whatever size or amount I needed. When I asked about who they were they grew really, really quiet.

Holly @ BeachCoveJewelry said...

Ok though, a few things to say about your list, I do make handmade jewelry myself and do not buy it elsewhere. I think currently I have 28 listings in my store.

I do offer free shipping all the time to US buyers only because honestly it only costs 1.80 to ship a pair of earrings to most places and when I see someone else charging $3 for shipping why would you want to pay that.

And the other thing is the photography, my husband is my photographer, and happens to be a professional one so just lucky at that...

But I totally agree that most people that are resellers do fit most of these catagories!

Eponajewels said...

I see resellers almost on a daily basis. I have flagged many of their items but Etsy has not done anything about it. As far as $3 for shipping? It costs me $3.55 to send a 1 oz pkg. That includes INSURANCE on each and every package. That is the cheapest I can ship for.

Anonymous said...

I never realized that etsy had some many resellers. I thought it was a site of real artists, till I went to buy some earrings. Look at this person,http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheEarringChest?ref=ss_profile%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20?ref=ss_items
This is Earringchest, all items that are made in Bali, but the person here claims they carved them. I just happened to find them on this website.
www.bodytouchonline.com
They are a wholesale shop selling the same earrings for $1-$2. What a rip to sell on etsy and say you made it. I looked at more shops and found
http://www.etsy.com/shop/thaisaket?ref=ss_profile%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20?ref=ss_items, wow, look at that. The same people are selling same earrings and even make clothing that are all over ebay and selling it for 3-10 times more saying they made it. They are selling $1000 a day doing this. Looks like a great living, but a bum sale for people wanted to buy handmade goods. So, maybe etsy has a few real artists, but not many. Read the profiles. Etsy is selling a lot of stainless steel, something you cannot make in your home???

Naruemon Kongmee said...

This site sells clothing for huge profits a lot of it!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/thaisaket?ref=ss_profile%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20?ref=ss_items

You can find all of his stuff at this site,

http://www.weloveshopping.com/shop/s_product.php?page=5&shopid=112738&groupproduct=all

If you look at the sellers stock number on etsy, you will see he has the same stock numbers, just added some numbers to try to conceal his idenity.

I also call this shop in Thailand. They are open 9:30am to 7PM, and are located in the Pratinum shopping center, famous in thailand for selling clothing and jewelry.


this is his other shop for handmade earrings, all made in bali



,http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheEarringChest?ref=ss_profile++++++++++++%3Fref%3Dss_items, you can buy all of this very cheap on this website,


Look! www.bodytouchonline.comHow about this guy, claims to make earrings on Etsy,

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheEarringChest?ref=ss_profile++++++++++++%3Fref%3Dss_items, you can buy all of this very cheap on this website,

Read his profiles, I had to laugh. To make clothing and earrings, you need a huge skull and have to been in a poor country like Indonesia.

He said he is learning tooling, the people that made the earrings are not learning.
here is a site in Bali that is a corporation, it shows a lot about this kind of product and the people that make it.


http://www.coconutjewelry.com/


Tribalstyle on etsy,

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TribalStyle?ref=ss_profile%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20?ref=ss_items

these are the same people that are on Ebay also, but they know they cannot sell much on Ebay. On etsy, they sell $200,000 a year! Can you imagine a reseller on etsy selling that much?



here they are on EBAY, and they admit they are part of a corp. They are in Cleveland OH, same place as tribal style!
Look how this hurts other sellers on Ebay. Mark sells $1000 a day and does nothing, just replaces stock numbers, and this other site, in their profile, they dont bother to mention
they are a corporation and are resellers of earrings made in bali. Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Funny how I personally checked these sights and the stuff passed scrutiny! Steam Punk ruffle dresses, and EMO that are for sure handmade. The other clothing in question labeled as purchased looked similar but not alike at all on close examination and again could easily be made by any good seamstress. I looked closely at the website given on the stock number issue. As to stock numbers? These are nothing alike either. You think people cannot make piles of clothes? Ever work in a Thai clothing factory? They make 100 plus items in a day! So sad when another Thai is jealous because someone made something good for themselves. I suspect this Thai lady posting in here was kicked off Etsy for re-selling herself or some other nasty violation. Anyone ask her that??? Now she is just trying to hurt others.

As to the earring thing? The 1st shop pictures in the logo of crafting. I again checked website supplied by this person and found some slight similarity but not the same again. They have so many not like this site at all!!! Again just here say. Something that looks like something else may be close but not exactly the same. Many designers borrow or make a different version of the same thing. Star pendants for example. How many in the world?? You get the point.

Lastly the tribal persons shop. They clearly seem like a big company and should be questioned. perhaps Etsy has done so as I am sure many supplied the same information as in this blog and they are still there.

Food for thought! The people posting in here are not experts on given mdse. and products. They have had no credential check prior to posting. They can say or do any silly thing they like as this is the internet. Many further may be X Etsy users and should be questioned on this as axes do get ground often in society. Just think and read all the here say in these blogs. Disappointing to say the least........

Anonymous said...

It looks like that Etsy shop TheEarringChest changed it's name to FakeGaugeOrganics.

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