Yes I go straight to images too. Hardly ever use the main page or shopping
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I never use paid for ads at the top of a Google search page either.
I can 100% confirm that Google merchant is not a paid service, I run more than 3 websites ( 2 Shopify, wix etc) I have a google merchant center account for each website, and I don’t pay for any of it. The only time we have to pay is if/when you want to run an ad. I have also attached a screenshot from google support websites dated today (18th Feb 2023)
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Thanks for that . I will look into Google Merchant.
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Looking into google merchant as its free and should direct customers to folksy and hence my humble shop, Started the process of registering using folksy as the web address ( I do not have a web site) how ever it requires the htmp code for the folksy website and I’m not sure how to get that, after that it seems as simple as I am !
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Can’t do it via your Folksy shop as that is claimed at top Folksy level already presumably by Folksy. I have my own website but I don’t sell on it, just a shop front to the platforms I do sell on. So until I add shopping to my Joysofglass site (which I will need to unless Folksy views pick up) I can’t use the Google Merchant facility. I have signed for it using my own website but it will just sit there for now.
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Thanks, didn’t think it would be that easy so either create a website or sit and wait for Folksy to sort it out
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Indeed… I Am getting ‘sales’ but whereas a year ago it was 4 to 1 new customers / repeat customers now it is more like 1 to 1… which was a bit of an eye opener when I analysed what was happening. I was pretty astonished to find myself at no. 32 Best Seller a couple of days ago with a ‘not very big’ 7 day sales figure 
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I think something is seriously wrong Joy if you are struggling for sales/views. You’ve always been very pro folksy and you’ve always done well here. Let’s hope folksy can get it sorted quickly.
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Yes, sorry - I checked with him indoors and I think I misunderstood him - he was saying you had to pay to appear at the top on the Shopping tab. The rest of it became free in 2020 and works the same way as all the other Google tabs i.e. “search relevancy”. I guess that the search relevancy on Folksy is what’s letting us down though as Folksy listings aren’t appearing much on the general tab and rarely on the Images tab, so we’re back to the bigger question of the Folksy site map that Google crawls.
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I just Googled a couple of my items, I searched on the image tab, on the 1st couple of pages, a couple of my items on my website came up and also a couple on my Folksy shop showed up, quiet pleased with that, but could do better 
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The problem is not finding individual items if you use a search close to your listing title. The problem is the lack of results for general, non specific terms. Such as, as has been mentioned before.
Mother’s Day gift, golden wedding .
Searches which, if they worked, would lead new customers to Folksy.
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I was over on Etsy from the start and they were indeed small and pretty basic back then. And although they’ve gone down the more commercial route with appalling customer service and crammed full of mass imports, I don’t believe that’s an inevitable pathway. If the mindset of a company or business is to think small then it will never grow, and stagnation isn’t good for any of us. I think Folksy is capable of thinking bigger and being a force to be reckoned with. They just need to do something about it.
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Hello Joy, I am not sure how the message system works here, so I direct messaged you on Instagram. Hope that’s alright. 
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Thanks Ed. Found it
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Have we heard anything back from Folksy?
Thank you for your input. At long last someone has explained what i have been thinking and trying to explain previously on the forum.
It’s what i have suspected, it’s down to Folksy to sort it out before things will improve. We can social media until we are blue in the face! If seerch engines are not finding sellers products on basis search engine word requests which also link to tags we are wasting our time. Folksy must surely know they have a major problem!
I love Folksy, but paying more in fees for being loyal is no longer financially viable for me and i will have to reconsider my options before my annual fees are up for renewal in June or unless sales improve to what they used to be before they made charges on their system. Unless they already know they have a costly problem so our fees suddenly had to increase on the promise we would be getting better advertising etc!
We can’t stand back and say it’s because of the economic climate sales are poor anymore when the British Public have raised a staggering amount of money for the recent earthquake fund; and quite rightly so. It proves a point money is still being spent in one way or another.
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My mind kept going around this over the weekend - if many sellers are finding a drop in sales (presumably affected by this search issue), then I’d have thought Folksy themselves have also experienced a drop in turnover as they’re not receiving as much in the way of commission. Have they noticed that at their end?
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Does anyone use instagram? I’ve just started using it and don’t really have a clue what I’m doing. The hashtags I have looked at there is a folksy person but hashtags Etsy also. They may have Etsy shop also but wondered if that was a back door in or would I be in trouble for trying this?
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It’s FOLKSYHQ you need to use. Not Folksy as that is something else entirely.
(PS: Folksy has Nothing to do with E*** and convention is that we don’t mention it with its full spelling.
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