BIG question - If you could fix one thing on Folksy what would it be?

Shop Talk
82

I raised the issue of the search function with Folksy a week or so ago. This may be of interest to others who are dissatisfied with the search facility and it’s impact on your views.

This was my question:-
When I searched ‘silver leaf earrings’ I eventually found my listing on page 16, there were 12 pendants and bracelets without the tag ‘earrings’ on page 3. I wouldn’t expect my items to be top of the list but would expect them to appear before others that don’t match the search criteria and I suspect this resulted in only 3 people looked at my pieces yesterday, would you agree?. A searcher seeing the end of items that did match and moving on to items that didn’t match the search would conclude there were no more.

Their response:-
Unfortunately we were required to update our search a few months ago, and this update included some changes to functionality, which means it doesn’t work quite in the same way as it used to with multi word searches. Searches are based on relevancy, but with the change in search, this is sometimes placing items which are extremely relevant to only one of the search terms above items that are relevant to all search terms. We know this isn’t ideal, but unfortunately with the update there isn’t a quick and easy way for us to fix this. We will be looking into search to try to find a system that works better with the way buyers want to search, but this needs research so I’m afraid it’s not something you’ll see an immediate change with.

In the meantime, you may find it easier to use less words in your search terms and use the categories to filter down (so rather than searching " silver leaf earrings ", search “silver leaf” and then select the jewellery category and earrings category.

However, your item may still be far back in the results because you only mention the terms “silver” and leaf" once each in the title, description and tags, and the words are never next to each other as they are in your search term “silver leaf”. You also don’t mention the word “earrings” at all in your tags. It can help to repeat the really important words that you think people are likely to search by, so it may help to add tags such as “leaf earrings” and “silver earrings”,

I responded:-
Re searching, as it’s not really me that needs help searching but customers, would it be possible to have the guidance you have outlined with the search box in some form? Logically you would expect the more words you include in a search the more likely you would be to get more relevant results, as this is not the case perhaps searchers need the advice you have given me.

I have tried to improve my tags and descriptions but I can’t say it helped.

8 Likes
83

Thanks for sharing this. Very useful re repeating tags, but sadly not helpful for buyers who don’t know all this and who may well just give up and find a more customer friendly site.

6 Likes
84

Thank you for sharing this, it’s good to know more about how it works and how to work with it. Makes me think I might need to rejig tags as I tried not to overly repeat things that are already covered in ‘materials’ or ‘colour’ fields.

Does also make me think that listing categories are more important than ever, so it’s a real shame that the categories we can list under are not mirrored by those customers are able to search under. Makes me wonder more than ever what the point is of allowing us to list items under subcategories that can’t then be selected in a search. It doesn’t make much sense to have to recategorise an item by the less predominant material used in its construction just because this can be selected in a search.

3 Likes
85

There has been some feedback on improving the search facility on this thread, but could I ask @kimfolksy if the team has any plans for improving promotion and publicity here on Folksy? I have just been looking at some very old threads (some from years ago), and this issue has been mentioned several times there also. :blush:

2 Likes
86

Absolute priority is promotion.

A world-class search facility is redundant when there are no customers to use it.

4 Likes
87

We can’t promise exactly what will be looked at and when (there’s still a lot of planning we need to do around this), but we’ll try to cover the major issues that have repeatedly come up both in this thread and the one on Clubhouse.

Obviously some things might not be as straight forward as others, for example promotion is something we already do, so it’s not just a matter of doing some promotion, but working out what sort of improvements are needed to make that work better, and what expectations people have when they say they want more promotion.

We know some of these issues are things that have been brought up for many years. Our little team has very slowly been growing though, which means we’re now in a better position to spend a little more time on development.

3 Likes
88

Exactly. The more promotion, the more sales, the more members, the more money Folksy makes.

4 Likes
89

Exasperating isn’t it?

The logic is very simple - if the customer types in “red dress” they do not want to be shown every red item on the site, nor every colour of dress. They want the search to select red AND dress. If that means a search program that reads items with colour “red” from category “dress” because the seller didn’t think to repeat the colour as a tag, then so be it. The customer does not need to be educated, they need the search to work!

Sometime in the future, a search like ebay advanced search that does “exact words exact order” and so forth, but meanwhile just something that doesn’t drive our customers to find another site would be good.

5 Likes
90

As a customer, the searching. I have had customers give up.

As a seller, I would like Folksy to be as well known as Etsy and the go to place to handmade , UK, and from small businesses

6 Likes
91

The improvement of promotion and publicity. Folksy is a great platform but unfortunately not well known. Whenever I mention selling online people usually mention either E**y or Not on the H*. A few have said that the ‘Folksy’ name sounds like an older persons site and not for the younger (buying) generation.

8 Likes
92

Great question! For me it would be more advertising and promotion, getting the Folksy name out there.

5 Likes
93

Off the top of my head here are a few promotion ideas that Folksy can do outside of the usual social media channels:

  • Better SEO
  • Reddit
  • Quora
  • NextDoor
  • Content marketing
  • A Folksy podcast
  • Regular guest spots on other relevant podcasts
  • Radio interviews, radio adverts
  • Magazine / newspaper interviews and adverts
  • Bumper stickers / window decals
  • Press releases
  • Google ads
  • Sponsorship
  • TV
  • British Chambers of Commerce

I’m sure there are lots more ideas that creative people can think of.

4 Likes
94

I would be interested to know if Folksy has a promotional budget, and if so, what it is (as a percentage of turnover) and where it is spent, and also whether Folksy retains the services of a marketing agency to advise on where the budget would be most cost-effectively allocated. For me one of the major advantages of Folksy is that it is extremely reasonably priced. I am a standard account user, not a Folksy Plus member simply because I could not manage a high customer demand for what are ‘slow to make items’, so it is absolutely ideal. I realise that others depend on high volume sales and have different expectations, but I am simply explaining why it suits me so well. I would hate to see membership prices increase to fund advertising with high cost/high wastage results. Precisely targeted marketing under the guidance of a marketing agency might produce more cost effective results. I appreciate that Folksy is a small team, and that too helps keep costs down, so using a marketing budget that is targeted very precisely might produce greater market presence for Folksy and for Folksy sellers.

2 Likes
95

I agree with you Judy. Advertising costs big money, editorials are free and Folksy needs to bombard magazines with themed content to try to get some articles included in an issue.

N…s charges high percentages and joining fees, therefore can afford to put on tv ad’s. I don’t want fees increased which is what a lot of press coverage would do. If that happened would have to leave.

It is getting a happy medium, getting the folksy name out there but keeping costs to members low.

6 Likes
96

Improving the search function would certainly help.

1 Like
97

I agree. Also, when I have my made to order items listed, 21 days isn’t long enough.

1 Like
98

Thanks for asking us about our thoughts on Folksy. I think if there was one thing that i would change it would be the homepage -x-

1 Like
99

Oh Tina, yes! The images that show in the collections drives me potty - a lot of my items go across more than one collection so I always end up with duplicates which look rubbish. I’d LOVE to be able to choose which image I want for each collection…

4 Likes
100

I confess I’ve avoided this corner of the forum because my first answer is: “just one?!” so I’m late to this party!

Don’t get me wrong, I dearly love Folksy and all that is stands for, but there’s a lot of things that really need some serious improving. I think any ‘one’ change would have to be aimed towards customers: making it easier, better and also getting them here in the first place. So that has to be priority if we’re talking about ‘one’ fix, rather than making things more comfortable or smooth for us as sellers (to my mind).

Search: search, search, search - or at least an easier way of browsing (better categories, more ways of filtering) - or ideally: both! The search function seems to have fallen over and it’s so hard to find anything on here as a shopper (particularly for multi-word long-tail searches - which are the exact ones that should be spot on because those customers are the ones that want to buy and know exactly what they’re looking for)! This has got to be the number one fix - the site has to work properly (for customers) before anything else is tackled. Not every shopper knows what they are searching for, so they’ll use the categories (so the categories need to be really good - and once you’re in a section you need to be able to filter - see NOTHS for example) - but those that do have an idea will use the search function, and that is letting the site down at the moment as we know. If the search function is seriously hard to sort out (as Folksy seem to be saying), then can we not in the interim/instead have MUCH better categories and filters and encourage shoppers to use those by having them spot on?

Photography: it has got to be better, this isn’t Ebay - the dodgy photos taken on bedspreads or with the telly or washing in the background don’t cut it: in fact I seriously believe they harm the site BIG time! I’m not suggesting it has to be professionally shot photos of course, but when I compare my shopping experience with when I shop on Etsy, this site can feel like a strange mix of professional and carboot. Sorry if I’m offending anyone here, but some images are truly awful and it doesn’t matter how lovely an item is, if the photography is dire people won’t buy it (or will expect it to be cheap) and it reflects on everyone here and their impression of the site. I think the bad photography also makes the site feel fuddy-duddy - rather than fresh, modern and stylish.

Marketing and Promotion: No, the site doesn’t have the budget of the big guys, and yes, I know a lot is done already. But it could be better, and not necessarily expensive. Etsy for example, I often see where they’ve got a celebrity or influencer picking items (or in some cases, actually creating a line to sell on the site) - which creates a buzz that this is a stylish and interesting place to shop. Colabs with bloggers, getting into the press, being included when something like ‘This Morning’ (or whoever) does a feature on what to buy your husband this Christmas (or whatever)! Even little things like having discount offers from time to time or being included on the cashback sites like Quidco (I know this might be seen as a bit low-rent, but I personally have bought something from a seller’s Etsy shop rather than their Folksy shop because I know I can get 5% back - in this day and age, every little helps!) The site has such a great USP that should in theory overshadow Etsy here in the UK, and that needs to be shouted from the rooftops! We’re not a site that allows fakes or mass-production (E, E, NOTHS), and we’re a site that’s true to the values that it’s always had - and that should bring shoppers who want to buy mindfully and creatively knocking at our door. Us as sellers, individually telling our friends and hairdressers about the site isn’t enough. Us as sellers, creating our Folksy Friday boards and doing what we can on social media, isn’t enough. We almost need to do more pooling of ideas/resources or something. But Folksy need to be driving this from the front. Somebody (I think @JudyAdams) suggested vetting shops before they’re allowed to join: yes! this! (And that would also give Folksy an opportunity to weed out the dodgy ‘excuse the dog/husband/washing in the background’ type photography). Make it curated, make it so that it’s featuring the best and therefore THE site to come for shoppers. The things that make Etsy weaker (the mass produced, the fakes, the fact anyone can join and list their dodgy-doings, the sheer size of it) could all be things that Folksy become known as being awesome at. Oh, and better SEO for the site - make sure it’s always on page one for more search results.

Personally, I also hate the new photo layout on listings - it looks clunky and it feels clunky (scroll down to see more pictures, pick one, scroll back up the screen to look at it…) - it’s bonkers! It also feels as though making them bigger has ruined the quality too somehow and quite often they look too low-res? The site refresh should make things better, not more clunky.

I do find myself wondering about the ‘no one has heard of Folksy’ thing - how, how can that be? It’s been around for years, it’s established, so what’s going on? I honestly think people do find the site but they get overwhelmed by the easy choice of ‘go to Etsy’ - they might come here, have a brief scroll around, and then leave for a site they feel familiar with (and can actually find things on) and which feels more modern - and which is a site they’re constantly being reminded about by promotion so stays in their mind. I think the key thing here is the site needs investment (time, experience and financial) to bring it up. It either wallows and bumps along, or it competes. :muscle:

At the end of the day, more sales is better for us but also better for Folksy - more to spend on promotion, more to spend on staff to help with promotion!

Oh, and if you’re still reading my essay (sorry), I would like to thank Folksy for asking us and being open to our ideas :slight_smile:

19 Likes
101

Upload multiple images for listings in one go. On the other platform i can highlight 10 images and then upload them all at once , I can’t do that here and its taking me ages to list all my items .

Andy

3 Likes