I have started to declutter my shop, one because have too much stock and two with a view to moving shop, either to my own website or another platform.
As businesses we need something that works and it is not working.
Please @Folksysupport tell us what is happening.
I was here as a buyer a few days ago. The item I was looking for was a specific theme but not a specific item (as I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted, I wanted to see things with a certain motif). Within the 7 pages of search items that I got shown, I didn’t quite find what I wanted but I did wonder if that elusive item could have been here but I had no way of knowing!
I did a few other searches for related terms but still didn’t find the thing I wanted.
I am ashamed to say that I found it on E___ instead! I did feel quite dirty afterwards. (I did come back and check that the seller of the item didn’t sell on Folksy first though, as that is where I would have preferred it from.
So as a buyer, I was looking for something that tickled my fancy as a gift for someone - I put in prompts, so that I could see if something jumped out at me.
Having been only shown 7 pages of items (lots from the same seller), I still wonder if I could have found something here if more searches had shown up. It annoyed me actually.
(This is coming from me who has always been a massive champion of Folksy, I actually hate to complain about it!)
I have never complained about Folksy either until now, but this isn’t how they usually deal with things, something just doesn’t add up to me.
You might have been better putting your search term into Google followed by the word Folksy. Having said that knowing that is no help whatsoever to our customers and it does also depend on whether your search term went anywhere near a Folksy gift guide or category.
PS I just searched
gift sea lover
A sort of general search for someone who lives near the sea, as my sister does.
Try it, you will be surprised (Not) at how many totally unrelated sea themed things appear but i did see elephants and dogs ! Not putting a laughing emoji as it is not remotely funny.
I have just been on the search and once again typed ‘rabbit’ in…
They are doing something but no idea what because there are now only 2 pages showing in the results primarily pendants !!!
However…if I type ‘rabbits’ (plural) we are back to 7 pages with a lot of cards and aceo’s.
Don’t tell me we are going to get very different results if we use singular or plural words !!
James is tech support i think as well @JOYSofGLASS
I think the lack of an update is very worrying.
The lack of any update is also worrying.
The last monthly update was October
Why has James decided to abandon them ? If we’d received regular updates we would have at least known what changes were planned.
How were Christmas sales?
How well did the seconds weekend event go?
How are all the Folksy team?
How do they feel about the new search? after all the effort put in to the ‘How to get seen in search results’ event and blog. So many questions I think we are well overdue an update from James
Well to be fair if there has been something major in the system they should have got someone in to help sort it because clearly they arn’t getting anywhere and this is an online site, 2 weeks is too long. In my last job if I couldn’t sort issues that arose we called on an engineer from a local computer company that we hired for that purpose.
@ChristineJonesPrintmaker I agree, we need an update on everything, we certainly meed to kmow what is going on with this situation
An update on search – and a thank you for your feedback
We wanted to give you a quick update and let you know that we’ve been listening closely to your feedback – both here and via the search results page – and reviewing how people have been using search over the past couple of weeks. Thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to share their thoughts and experiences with us.
We know some of you are concerned about how these changes might be affecting your shop’s visibility and sales. That’s completely understandable – and we want to reassure you that we’re taking your concerns seriously. We’ve been monitoring buyer behaviour and sales closely, and the data shows that people are still finding things they want via search and buying those things, with conversion (to buy from search) rates tracking very similarly to the previous version.
That said, we also know that if you’re not seeing the results you’d expect, it won’t feel that way – and that’s why we’ll be making some further changes to the search page over the coming week to address the key issues you’ve raised.
It’s important to remember that improving search is an ongoing process. Testing and iteration are a crucial part of how we learn what’s working and what’s not. Every change gives us more insight into how buyers are using the site – and helps us build a better experience for everyone in the long run.
We really appreciate your patience and continued feedback while we work through this. Thank you for being part of this journey with us.
Not sure if I mentioned this to you before, but I use Create.net for my website. They have great customer service, and a built in shop with all the tools you need. £220 a year. If you do a search on google for Violet Flame Glass Art you can see what my website looks like.
Thank you for the update, Kim.
@ChristineJonesPrintmaker We shared the update for October - December in our stories on the new Folksy Sellers Instagram page. If you check the Insights highlight you’ll be able to find them - Insights = @folksysellers
The update for January - March should be coming soon.
@Folksyadmin
That all sounds really positive however, there are still only 7 pages maximum of results for each search even though every seller has mentioned this.
The advert in the middle of the page is still there, no idea why that could not have been removed before now.
Searching for items has been diabolical and many shops are invisible.
Although we all welcome changes that will improve the site and expect a little disruption whilst making the changes, this has been a little more than that. I don’t understand how a further week is needed to test the changes, every piece of feedback on here has been negative and there havn’t been any improvements that we can see over the past week. It is very frustrating and we still arn’t getting a real answer as to why it is taking so long to put right, especially as the feedback from this week has been the same as it was from the week previous.
It’s good to hear some items are still being found via search but I think it is apparant from reading all the replies on this thread that not all searches are working or bringing the results they should and a lot of shops are still invisible whilst others are heavily promoted by taking up the majority of space on the 7 page search results.
It honestly doesn’t feel like any progress has been made.
@VioletFlameGlassArt thank you, I do remember you sharing it with me some time ago, I will have a look, I think a website is the way forward x
So, from what I can see from Folksy’s update, buyers are still finding something to buy using search so the buyer is happy, and Folksy are probably happy because of the sale.
I just did 4 searches using the terms: cat, cats, cat gift and cat lover. I sell 17 items that are cat related yet not 1 single item came up in any of those searches. So someone searching for a cat related item using those terms will get 7 pages of results with many items from the same few shops, and they may well buy something but that isn’t much help to me when nothing of mine will show in the results, so they don’t get the option to buy from me. We need search to show all the results, not just 7 pages, and we need the information on how to show up on the first few pages because clearly the previous guidence concerning ‘title, description and tags’ isn’t working anymore.
I’m feeling very depressed about it all to be honest…seriously thinking of giving up.
Hi @kimfolksy , it might be worth mentioning that a lot of sellers aren’t on Instagram, or aren’t very active there, so they’ll have missed that info. I didn’t notice it because I rarely look at the stories. Maybe an email as well as a story would be a good idea 
What was itthat we have missed ?
@KBCreations that is exactly how i feel, it is ok for Folksy as they are still getting sales but for those of us who are not showing up in searches we are not getting any sales…it is not fair at all to sellers and the update actually tells us nothing. It is the same as the last one but there are no details of what they are doing other than collecting data from buyers. As a buyer myself I will be looking elsewhere because I am not prepared to search within one or two shops that are appearing in the results. 2 weeks and no further on is how i see it.
A last minute update before a 4 day holiday was timed well.
The shop names are still missing from searches because the clumping of shops would be too obvious if we could see who the items were from, instead of telling us this so called change is for our benefit they need to be admitting this is not acceptable and is a complete hash up.
I wonder how on earth we were supposed to guess an update had beed issued at some point and where to find it and put your glasses on as you need to speed read. I’m fast but not that fast . No problem nothing to see, no idea why they bothered.
Oh and are the figures just for an unspecified Xmas period or the full three months. Do I care. 
Are you referring to a Folksy website in a parallel universe? Because you couldn’t possibly be referring to this one.
How are buyers finding and buying items they are searching for when the search results are filled with irrelevant items, slams the door after a measly seven pages, and is displayed in a layout so chaotic it makes your eyes want to flee in terror?
I notice that if you get onto Folksy via a Google search, you get the old search, and it is still current and running as newly listed first. I checked.
So it should be possible to reinstate it surely.
Thanks Kim@folksy ill try and find it. I usually read it in the Folksy Blog.