Hi everyone. We’ve made a small change this week to the way the number of items sold is displayed in your Folksy shop.
Previously, the number of items sold was displayed underneath the shop banner, and would appear on every shop after the first sale. Now the number of sales will only display once a seller has reached 50 or more sales. If a shop has fewer than 50 sales, there will just be a link to ‘view sold items’. If a shop has had 50 or more sales, this link will also display the number of items in brackets eg ‘view sold items (366)’.
We hope this change will help support new shops better, as we’ve heard from several smaller or new sellers that they’re worried displaying a low number of sales could put off customers and that it can be a bit demoralising for them to have the sales count prominently highlighted.
You can read more about it in the blog post below. We’d appreciate your feedback too - as sellers, do you feel 50 sales is a good number to start displaying the sales count or would you rather it displayed the quantity once you’ve reached 100? Or maybe 25?
You can still see your total number of sales in the Statistics page of your Seller Dashboard.
I hate it. I use that figure to check quickly if I’ve sold anything. Now its a two or three step process, takes time and is a pain in the backside. I’ve been here for years, have 43 sales and you think its more important to put the delicate egos of some new sellers over the practicality of use for me. Great. That’s just great. Thanks a bunch.
I’m not sure about this change either. It doesn’t effect me much as I am over the 50 sales mark, but I can remember really enjoying watching the number creep up on my shop page. I was so proud when it said ‘1’ and I got a buzz each time I had a sale and watched the number go up.
I also think it may be detrimental to new sellers. If potential customers see little or no feedback and have no idea if a seller has sold 1 item or 40 then it may make them even more reluctant to buy. If they know the seller has only sold a few items then they will understand the reason for it. If you are going to do this then the ‘sold’ figure should be much less, maybe 10?
I can see why the change could be beneficial to new shop owners but as a customer I would question why some shops show their sales numbers and some don’t. Without knowing it would put me off.
As I’m now on 91 sales it doesn’t affect me directly.
I’m not keen on the change either as it will separate those who have reached certain sales and those who haven’t. I have just reached 25 which has taken me time, so to now not show that, it’s a shame. As others have mentioned if some shops show sales numbers and others don’t, a customer may question why…
Hi Kim and Lois @Beesandblossoms. We can change the number of sales, depending what sellers want and also what will instil confidence for buyers. We’ve set it at 50 as that felt like a good number of sales for sellers to aspire to but if consensus is that it would be much better at 10 or 25, then we can do that.
Sorry you hate it Lois. It wasn’t a change designed to make life more difficult for established sellers, or even just to make new sellers feel better but also to increase conversion (ie encourage someone viewing a shop to make a purchase, in this case by removing the perception their products aren’t in high demand), and to encourage more established sellers using other ecommerce platforms to move across to Folksy. If we can get more sellers to open shops on Folksy, the increased traffic benefits the site in general and will hopefully be good for everyone.
One way to make it easier to quickly see if you’ve had a sale is to set up as a bookmark to the ‘Orders’ page of your Seller Dashboard in your browser – that would make it a one-step process and means you could quickly verify that it’s been paid for and what it’s for.
And you’re right Kim, that feedback should be more visible. We’ve been reviewing our feedback system and want to give reviews much more prominence on Folksy, and also encourage more buyers to leave feedback.
It would be great to hear what other people think in terms of the number of sales, both as sellers and potential buyers. What number of sales would give you more confidence in buying from a shop?
Number of sales never puts me off of purchasing from a seller. I understand that there may be many reasons that a shop has just set up (not necessarily because they are totally new to the craft) I’m more interested to read their “About me” section, where they can write down their experience within their own area of expertise. Feedback is good to see too but obviously you need sales to have that. Maybe it would be helpful if guest buyers could leave feedback as sometimes only something like one in 5 buyers is actually able to leave feedback anyway.
I feel rest assured that when I pay through Paypal, if an exchange should go wrong, I can claim my money back that way if I need to.
I would prefer the number of sales to be totally transparent. I’m not sure if it seems a but underhand to keep that information secret. It wouldn’t change my mind if a seller had one sale or 100 sales if I liked the item enough to purchase it.
You want more shops to open? To increase your income? Easy peasy - just carry on ignoring the “personalise a bought in item” shops as you have done till now. That’ll be good for us handmakers, sure it will…
All that other speil? Marketing babble. High demand? Not buying something because it doesn’t appear to be in “high demand”??? Yeah, that works for fast fashion, but for “handmade” marketplace, that seems pretty irrelevant. If I want to buy something handmade, it’s because I truly love it and put a value on the work. It being a “high demand” item isn’t even one of my considerations.
Serious question - are Folksy looking for quality or quantity?
New shops shouldn’t worry too much about not having many sales at first. We all start with 0 sales.
I’m not bothered by the change…but I do find the phrase a bit long and makes that section there look a bit busy. If it can’t be shorter maybe move it at the bottom, under Feedback?
And about the Feedback system, is it possible to allow guests to leave feedback? That might help new and older shops to increase sales and improve performance?
The change doesn’t effect my shop but I don’t think visitors or ‘outside’ shoppers would notice the difference. If Folksy is going to keep this new format then I think the number of sales reached needs lowering. As a lot of shops have said, it’s nice to see the numbers increase… seeing the sales number go from 2 to 3 to 4 etc gives the shop owner a buzz and maybe helps some people to keep motivated but I don’t think it makes any difference to the buyer.
As for the feedback system, it would be great if guest buyers could leave their feedback. x
Hi – thanks very much for your feedback so far on this.
We’ve received feedback from potential sellers in the past to the effect that they were put off selling because they perceived the sales count as being demoralising.
There are a number of things we could do to mitigate that, including making display of the sales count optional. The arbitrary cutoff at 50 sales was considered the quickest way to address the issue and start getting some feedback on whether that number needs to be moved higher or lower, or even if we need to implement something more involved.
We’ll keep an eye on this thread to get an idea of how people feel about it – and thanks again for the opinions shared so far.
With regards to buyer feedback, that is something we’re actively discussing at the moment.
And in tandem with improvements to our buyer feedback system, we’re also discussing ways to use that feedback much more effectively across Folksy.
Cheers, and thanks again,
Doug.
I like the fact that potential buyers can see what I have recently sold but I would still like the number of sales shown. Could take me years to reach 50!
It would have been good manners if this info could have been broadcast yesterday to us and not today after the event, doesn’t make me feel very valued as a Folksy seller.
You could see sold items before, if you clicked on the number. I’m not sure buyers ever realised this, so it being clearer is a positive. I’ve had things made for me by sellers when I spotted something I loved in their “sold” items section, after all.
I wish we could have BOTH - number of items sold (for me, that’s information I, myself, find very handy to watch, I don’t know if buyers do…) and what you’ve previously sold.
I think more potential sellers would be encouraged on here if we had the ‘Variations’ on our page which were being discussed over a year ago. It would also help a lot of sellers who are already here judging from the comments that are on the relevant thread! Is this on the ‘back burner’ again’?
I consider that to be far more important than hiding the number of sold items for new sellers.
I don’t mind either way but why are you bothering about something like this when it would be far more important to know after all these years why is there no Folksy app?
Don’t worry, we are still working towards variations and an app @KBCreations@valerie. This was just a very small, quick update whereas the work involved in both of those tasks is much more significant and more time-consuming. Neither are on the back-burner.
I’m disappointed the figure has been removed for lower sales volumes. I’m really proud to have 30 something sales and love to see that figure creeping up. Not everyone is looking to sell huge quantities ( although that would be nice!). I’m pleased with every sale.
I’m a newish shop with low so sales but I hate the change, I really liked to see the number of sales even when it was only 1 item sold. ‘View Sold Items’ just seems to bring more attention to the section which is more likely to put people off, sort of, ‘do you really want to buy from this shop with it’s low number of sales’. I’ve never heard anyone say they were put off by low sales figures. With all the improvements that could been worked on this was a waste of time in my opinion.
Although it doesn’t affect me as I am one of the lucky ones with over 50 sales, I’m not sure I like the change. Perhaps making the sales count optional as Doug @dougfolksy suggested would be a better way forward then it would be up to the individual shop owner to decide whether to show it or not.
