But I am selling very very happily in my other online shop. The problem appears to be here on Folksy not with customers. And my problem here is lack of visitors and no visitors = no customers.
PS I was at a Xmas market at the weekend. Two sellers I spoke to had had shops on Folksy but no longer as they were not selling anyhing.
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Hence why I will no longer be paying for a year up front on renewal but month by month.
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I am at my wits end trying to understand why for one, Folksy is not yet a household name when social media is bombarded by sellers every day and secondly, why have our sales and views suddenly dropped into the deep ocean. Other sellers are selling well with other platforms so it’s got to be down to something Folksy is doing or has stopped doing recently.
They concentrate on getting money in by having more sellers, but what about keeping them once signed up even if it’s by the month or yearly subscription.
Folksy please tell us what on earth is or has gone wrong. We are at least genuine handmade craft people. The dark side’s t.v advertising compain still claims to be unique and handmade! Come on, let’s show the British public what genuine handmade is, other than doing social media to death! The amount that’s done every single day by Folksy sellers we should be world wide known by now. Not ‘never heard of Folksy’ over ten years later.
Sorry, but our concerns for our futures selling with Folksy are genuine. We all want Folksy to be well known and we all need our sales and views to go back to what they were or even better than before. I love Folksy, but something needs to be done before long standing quality sellers leave in their droves.
Like other sellers I don’t buy it’s all down to the economy anymore. Handmade craft is in demand, it’s all down to hitting the right market other than just social media which is clearly no longer working.
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Social media will never bring customers. The only thing that will bring customers is Folksy putting their money where their mouth is and investing in radio and tv adverts. Sadly they won’t, therefore this platform will forever remain invisible and unknown in the cyber abyss.
You are right that Folksy concentrates on generating their revenue through signing up sellers. It’s a minimum effort / maximum return business model for them.
People say a lot of bad things about both the E sites, but it can’t be denied that they invest in making sure they are household names, which Folksy stubbornly refuses to do.
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I so agree with what you say here. It makes me cross when Folksy keep telling us to promote, how do this and do that to get seen, yet they have been going for years and are clearly not ‘seen’ themselves because no one has heard of them!
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Quite soul destroying really. I try not to let it get to me but when I look at my superb Folksy sales records over previous years and compare them to the rapidly and continually dimishing figures here, now and over last 2 years… its hard not to wonder if I need to start proactively looking for another platform in case…
I can remember getting quite excited as I closely approached 4000 sales and was selling so fast i thought i might miss the exciting exact 4000 figure. And then everything sort of stalled, went on a go slow… and its taken ages and ages to get to my current 4354…
Off now to find the post i remember making about that magic 4000 to see how long ago that was as that marks the start of the decline.
I really think that this decline started at the same time as the photo format was completely rebuilt… I am sure someone will correct me if i am wrong…
As well as going .jpg to .avif didn’t we also lose our carefully chosen descriptive photo names to be replaced by unidentified flying objects ?
PS Found it… I have an excellent memory 
April 2022… 4th to be precise. I only had 4 more Folksy sales all that month.
So from May 2022 to now I have an average of 11 Folksy sales per month.
But note that over the 13 years from when i started very slowly to April 2022 when I had sold almost 4000… I sold more than double that with an average of 25 per month… As I said rapid and continuous drop in sales since then…
…
PPS I see that we were first made aware of the change to .avif in March 2023 not 2022.
.
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I am also actively looking for another platform. Agree changing the photo format has not helped.
I have even resurrected my mothballed shop on E…y. Did not want to be concerned whether Folksy will be here in a years time.
The odd thing is plugging away for new sellers may bring in a burst of revenue but a lot of younger sellers are more savvy and will not stay around if they do not sell well in the first few months.
An unsuitable seller had their shop closed but no refund of their fee. They left a bad review on trust pilot, I think, which does not look good for buyers checking reviews. Had the shop been vetted before going live, that review would not have happened.
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I can understand why many are considering another platform or having their own website. I have been promoting Folksy left right and center, however the effort I have been putting in promoting is not reflect in sales. If you are putting in a lot of time and effort in promoting and not seeing the required results then it is going to make you wonder if that effort wouldn’t be better placed elsewhere.
I am not yet ready to throw in the towel as it hasn’t been a year since I started my folksy shop, however if after a year things have not improved then I too will have to rethink my choices.
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I have been here over 10 years now, did mothball my shop for a while as had my own website. That then got problematical and costs just ridiculous, hence came back to Folksy. Took about 5 months for my first sale, and now have regular repeat customers, other Folksy sellers but very few new customers as no one knows about them.
Watching something last night and E appeared in an ad again!
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I think this says it all really. Clearly, social media can only do so much and it’s not working for Folksy. It needs advertising and they won’t do it. Surely to God, Folksy admin can see how much unrest there is on here regarding diabolical sales. I don’t struggle elsewhere either. And my own websites are getting sales despite the fact that I rarely use social media to promote them so something needs to be seriously addressed by Folksy. This is a company that’s been around for a long time and yet still has a low profile and a rep for bad sales. I’m sure most of us are hanging by a fingernail on here hoping against hope it will get better. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve asked for a video facility on here because it generates something like an 80 percent increase in sales.
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I asked for a time scale on the video, answer? Could be years I feel. Also said could we have a YouTube button but F are not happy could direct to dodgy videos. When I post a video to sm get a lot of views as enables a customer to see detail that is often missing in images.
Dare I say that while Folksy keep getting new sellers feel that they are not so bothered with us being disgruntled.
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Well, at long last others are thinking the same as me and willing to say so. I honestly think new sellers are under the impression Folksy is well known and they will sell well without the higher commission charges the dark side take. Little do they know until they start trying to sell with Folksy just how hard it’s going to be to make a sale due to a lack of meaningful advertising investment. I will probably stop selling with Folksy once my yearly plus subscription ends in June next year. I am not willing to go over to a monthly payment plan because the same situation applies. Perhaps paying higher charges elsewhere without paying a yearly or monthly subscription will actually be more fruitful in sales making it financially viable.
I agree, I can’t see Folksy being around for much longer if things continue as they are. I could lose all or part of my yearly subscription if they go under, or they just pull the plug on us without any notice.
They keep tinkering with the platform which doesn’t help. Perhaps the the tinkering has done something and it’s not been noticed by Folksy. That’s what happened before. I kept saying on the forum something was wrong and I was right; it was something to do with the Google connection whicn had not been reinstated!
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Liz Truss is what happened in 2022. Wrecking the UK economy & sending interest rates through the roof.
I feel a major issue is keeping up with technology. I’m not even clear how many actual teckies they have in the team now. Did they get the one James was advertising for on Linkedin months ago ? The team details in the blog posts are cetainly not up to date.
. If not it may be that Doug is working teckiewise all on his ownsome… which is obviously not ideal and certainly not the best way for anyone, however dedicated and hard working as i know Doug is, to keep fully up with the continual massive advantages in technology… I’m not aware of any other named teckie on the team recently.
For example Google changes its SEO rules on a continous basis. If the sales platforms don’t keep up with them then the sales platform visibiltiy is sure to suffer and an invisible sales platform will get reducing sales. And the Folksy platform software must now be over 15 years old.
In my own teckie days it was most unusual for any computer system not to be ‘rewritten’ every 5 years or so and technological advantages since then have been on a momentous scale.
Just my thoughts.
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Sorry …Not true and I really don’t think this is the forum for political discussion ?
Is it allowed within the forum rules ??? Ah yes I checked and not excluded but probably not recommended.
PS My sales elsewhere are and have been fine !
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I agree politics has not place on the forum. I keep y political views to myself. The blame lies with Folksy, nothing to do with the government that no one knows about them
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I always think that this kind of thing affects spending until I go out and see the shops rammed, and the cafe’s, bars and restaurants rammed too. So I’m not sure how this affects the buying of gifts. It might impact on buying a house or a car, or other major financial commitments…but gifting? Those little luxuries people love? That’s a no from me.
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If you look at the post that started this thread, you will see that I was asking for ideas to improve ONLINE sales. This wasn’t political and the economy in general hasn’t affected my craft fair or gallery sales, I’m doing as well as I ever have in the last 16 years (and even better in the galleries actually). Because of my change of circumstances I need to change to a more online direction. The general consensus on this thread so far is that Folksy isn’t keeping up with technology and needs to improve how they publicise; there is obviously alot of discontent from crafters who have been on this platform a long time, some even longer than my 12 years. Any constructive ideas are always welcome and perhaps some feedback from Folksy too - it sounds like there alot of very patient longstanding and loyal members that are looking to leave. New maybe younger people are joining up, perhaps because it is UK based, or that the fees are better than etsy, but is that enough to sustain their interest for as long as we have?
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I was not making a political statement. I was replying to the question being asked - “What happened in 2022?”
Liz Truss became PM of UK & introduced a mini budget that did wreck the economy & send interest rates through the roof.
Russia also invaded Ukraine which had an effect on the fuel & food prices around the world.
These are facts not political views.
I think you have made a valid point Joy and it would answer our question ‘why have views dropped and sales declined’.
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