Thanks for the update Kim @kimfolksy, is there any timescale for an improvement?
Folksy have now replied on another thread and would like all comments regarding the search on this one so they can work there way through them, as i have commented a lot here there and everywhere I thought it would be easier to make a list of how it affects me.
- Search for rabbits…none of mine appear in search results. There are pages from the same few sellers selling the same things in different colourways. Lots of cards and aceo’s,
- More importantly…still under the search for rabbit, there are over 20 items from one shop that has been on holiday mode for the past few years.
- Apparantly if I search for ‘rabbit doll’ or ‘stuffed rabbit’ some of mine appear. The problem with this is most people would just search for ‘rabbit’. Also someone mentioned the search for rabbit doll also brought up one of my foxes the only mention of a rabbit in that listing will be in the description where it says there are foxes, owls and bears in the collection also. if is that sensitive that it brought up a fox from a word in the description how did it not bring up a rabbit when the word rabbit is in the title, description and tags.
- Going back to holiday mode… it is very unfair that some sellers items show up in searches when their shop is on holiday when the rest of us go completly invisible. I would like to see all shops items still active in search results whether they are away or not if this is not possible then nobodys should appear, there has to be one rule for everyone.
- My shop has gone invisible, no bears, no dolls, no rabbits when a simple search is done using those words.
- key words are not being picked up.
- The ad in the middle of the page of the searches looks awful and if i were a customer at that point i would think that was the end of the results.
- The shop names need to be put back on, it now looks like everything is from Folksy not individual artists and makers. By removing our names people are less likely to remember our products and who they are from.
- Bearlescent is not an easy name to remember, searches for my shop name last night found that misspellings did not bring it up, but it wasn’t consistent, some searches i,e bearl might work but bearle won’t. When i look at my stats there are always searches for part of my name, this has now made me invisible again. So far my items do not appear in searches but neither does my name.
- 7 pages cap on searches… some 6000 sellers on Folksy which means most of our items will not show in searches because there is not room so it doesn’t matter whether you make teddy bears you will be drowned out by 4 or 5 pages of cards an be lucky if you make an appearance on page 7, this is not a fair search return, we all pay the same fees.
- Search for pincushions under the shop search brought zero results but search pin cushions and they show. I have both spellings in my titles, tags and descriptions.
- Shop search mode… 3 of the items i make brought my shop up, the others didn’t.
- Shop search…seems to be just giving us one page of sellers.
I am sure there is more i have discussed on the thread, my understanding is that the searches are not looking at the title which has always been the first place it looks, not looking at the tags and keywords because Teddy bear are the first two words in some of my listing titles. The whole way we have been told to write our listings and make use of titles and keywords amd seo seems no longer apllicable but we havn’t been told what or how to write to enable our items to appear in searches.
Being told that this is the first edition to improve searches hasn’t really helped as judging by the sheer amount of comments from other sellers in the same position it clearly wasn’t tested beforehand.
A lot of sellers are clearly frustrated and fed up, for shops to become completely invisible overnight whilst others have their whole shop displayed is unfair but it not a criticism against those shops as it is not their doing. I have seen negative comments from people who do not normally complain on the forum as this is affecting a huge percent of sellers. When can we expect our items to be visible to potential customers again.
Folksy have mentioned wanting feedback from customers as well as sellers, we are all customers on here and joe bloggs public is not likely to send feedback they will just walk away and shop elsewhere as the items they are looking for may not appear anywhere on the Folksy site.
There may have been issues with the search facility before but these changes are detrimental to shops which in return means no customers and no income for sellers or Folksy.
Idon’t think anyone is being unfair or trying to belittle or intentionally upset Folksy staff this has all come about because we were asked to give feedback and the results were shocking.
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Thank you for putting that so perfectly.
I should just add that the signifance of being unable to find anything you are looking for with this new ‘search’ is doubly compounded by the usual invisibility of Folksy listings via Google search. Put the two together and we might as well all shut up shop, here at least !
As an example, I have three types of horsey things in my shop. Google finds none of them but it does find them quite happily in my other shops. So that is of course why my customers are going there to purchase their horse things and not on Folksy though they are avaiable for sale on Folksy for exactly the same price.
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Very well put… on everything!
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I have already provided comprehensive feedback but I’ll restate it.
Only seven pages of results = only 336 items being returned. Search needs to return ALL results, not just 336. I strongly suggest using Lazy Loading for an increase in speed without restricting the number of results.
Search query processing returns completely irrelevant results.
The Pinterest-style layout is chaotic and cybersickness-inducing. It is not appropriate for ecommerce.
Image containers need to be consistent in size and uniform in layout.
On all of the search results pages there are three empty containers where listings should be. These empty containers are directly above the big gift guide ad, making it look like the page of results ends there.
The big advert for the gift guide is in the middle of every page of results. This needs to go.
To search for shops, a buyer needs to click on “Searching for shops? Click here” which is a link underneath the search box. Clicking on this link brings up a list of only 48 shops, making it look like those are the only shops on the site. The search bar on this “shops page” invites customers to search those shops. This is misleading customers into thinking there are only 48 shops on this site.
I strongly suggest that clicking on “Searching for shops? Click here” takes customers to an alphabetical shop index listing ALL shops with shop names as a clickable link direct to that shop.
Listings no longer have their shop names so now it looks like Folksy is the seller. Shop names need to be reinstated.
The red price label is a jarring warning sign. Green and blue are the best colours for CTA buttons and price labels. But price label overlays look cheap so I strongly recommend going back to the price being underneath the image container.
The item titles are restricted to only 23 characters including spaces, so you don’t know what the item is. Item titles need to be longer.
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There are so many serious problems with this change, surely they were evident in your sandbox?
You do have a sandbox, don’t you?
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I wondered when I saw shop names had vanished if they were removed so the dreadful clumping was not quite as obvious !
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I have put forward some comments previously on this thread as Kim Folksy requested. I agree with all the points put forward so far by others. As I have a hospital appointment tomorrow I have put my shop on holiday and won’t be able to contribute further for a while, but would like to add that I don’t feel that ‘Searching for shops’ is a particularly customer friendly phrase. It could mean searching for a shop by name of maker, or by shop name or shops by type of goods sold, such as ‘butchers, bakers, candlestick makers’. Does the search cover all these variables? When I tried it, it didn’t seem to do so. Is there a better way to direct people to either shops by name of maker, name of shop, or type of things sold? Thanks.
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Maybe that’s what they were thinking, but when a shop has a very identifiable range of products and near identical photos it’s easy to see that the listings are from the same shop! 
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Yes.. 
precisely that 
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Another point not yet mentioned I think except by Kim in telling us the feedback from Buyers ( our customers that is not Folksy’s… that is us !,) is that innocuous Feedback button.
I shop online. All the time. Big shops, little shops, old shops, new shops.
Never ever had any professional E-commerce shopping site asked me to help with feedback on their search facility. Looks totally amateurish and really very astonishing from an established 17 year old sales platform. Not much younger in fact than the dreaded E***. Bet they have never asked customers for advice on how to design their shopping platform 
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Oh it was still obvious Joy when you get 2 pages of the exact same item but in a different shade then another 2 of similar cards they are definitely from the same sellers…and anyway I slog my guts out to bring a new item to the table every week so when I do I want people to know that I have made it… same goes for everyone else, I am sure every seller feels the same.
I’m not looking for anything on Folksy, the only way we know who has made it is to click on the item to go to their shop..and that’s possibly why it’s been done that way, to get more clicks to shop fronts, I personally don’t care how many clicks there are to my shop if they arn’t buying and anyway how are they going to do that if our items don’t show in searches in the first place.
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Actually I am on the consumer marketing panels of John Lewis, Specsavers, Coventry Building Society, Skipton Building Society and other retailers, who each regularly canvas customer opinions of the efficacy of their websites in great detail. So it does happen!
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I was staggered to read that too. It’s another signpost to the real problem with this site…
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Consumer marketing panels and focus groups are not the same as asking a completely random person who stumbles across a website to voluntarily provide feedback on a particular area of its functionality.
If Folksy wants non-seller customers to provide feedback on functionality, or anything else for that matter, they need to employ formal channels such as CSATs or VoC.
Having said that, sellers are Folksy’s actual customers, and I think they would be too scared to run a CSAT or VoC with us.
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It looks like they need to employ YOU, Poppy!
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Snap I am on John Lewis and the Waitrose panels.
They definitely need professional guidance. I’ve given them a considerable amount of free advice through these forums over the years which in my day job would amount to a six-figure fee, but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference.
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Judy Yes I get emails from sites like that i have been on and understand that but I’ve never been presented with a button on the site itself. I really do not do pushy and that is pushy.
They would do well to !