I’ve just looked through the add that came up on my fb - one item is a sweatshirt with a picture printed on it - am I been a bit harsh from the handmade prospective.
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Ooh not seen that one. Did find some woolly hot water bottle covers 
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That is allowed as it is very obviously designed by the seller. 
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@CrochetandI You’ve got some lovely photos, they are good enough for Folksy to feature and you can tell that as you’ve got items selected for the gift guides.
There are thousands and thousands of items on Folksy (actually it’s thousands just of sellers), what’s on the ads is a very small selection. As mentioned, not being selected doesn’t mean your photos or items aren’t good, it’s just not realistic to expect every single seller would be featured, and no one would expect an ad for any company to feature everything they have. They just show a few highlights that are good examples of the sorts of things you can find to increase brand awareness. Which then leads to more people clicking through to the site in general, recognising the name and remembering to look for it when they want to buy, and that leads to more people finding all sellers, not just those that were in the adverts.
As Folksy is a site for original design and artwork as well as handmade, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a printed sweatshirt and it’s a good example of some of the things that can be found here (remember it’s not in the supportive spirit of Folksy to publicly call out specific sellers/items you don’t think should be allowed).
@JOYSofGLASS Photos not being cropped doesn’t necessarily mean they’re perfectly square, more that it’s not cropped in a way that drastically cuts off parts of the item, such as when animals have heads missing and necklaces have the pendant chopped off.
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I’m just feeling a bit miffed really today. I’d only recently started putting a bit of effort into my shop again, and checking in on the forums as I’d got very disillusioned after putting months of effort in for very little return. I had started to really question my ability to make it work.
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Kim I know what you are saying about being cropped i am just pointing out that one of the ad pictures does actually chop off the bottom of a bird so maybe not a good argument to use for not choosing pictures… .
Don’t worry. I am at the moment totally unable to work out if and when i will sell anything on here and even more confusing, what it will be that I will sell
. I can go a week, 10 days and zilch and then I have so many sales in 2 days I hit the BS list running.
I continually put effort into my shop, I list something nearly every day, I pinterest each listing, Tweet it and flag Folksy and FB /IG sometimes too.
Makes not a lot of difference if my customers are not shopping that day
…
@konyskiw I have noticed some of my items been added to gift guides which I do appreciate.
I totally understand about requiring good photos for advertising and getting people to click on the adverts. So far the adverts I have seen all include very similar items and none of the items fall into the category that I create.
Hopefully my shop stats will show a different story.
If I get 2 sales a month on here I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot!!
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I had a sale on here this month, my last one was during the seconds Sunday event back in February! That’s why I primarily post the ‘other’ shop on my SM as even sending all links here, I sell more there. I used to do OK when I started here back in 2012, I didn’t even have the other one. It’s such a shame because I do love it here.
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I would rather support a UK based platform, but needs the sales to go with it. My E shop runs quite nicely with little effort.
Hopefully the advertising brings sales for us all
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Absolutely. I would love to be in a position where I close the other side. There is so much I hate about it.
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@CrochetandI I guess you’re not likely to buy the same sort of items as you make though? So that’s a good thing. You need to think of it from the buyer perspective rather than as a seller.
If you look at the link to the ad info that Joy posted, you can see they’re dynamic ads with multiple versions. That means Facebook/Meta have different versions with different products, and they decide which to show someone based on which they think will perform best.
Obviously it’s not always going to get it right, we all know algorithms don’t always work well for showing what we actually want to see, but hopefully whatever it is showing you is something you’re more likely to want to buy yourself than items that are similar to your own.
I got stuck with the woolly selection for a while. I don’t know exactly what data they use to determine what to show you (who knows how much information Facebook have on us all), but as my most recent Folksy Friday was on all the cosy things, I can’t really blame them 
It’s exactly the sort of items I’d recently been searching for.
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Kim Exactly, I had the same problem with the Woolly but I really really have not looked for woolly anything and I have never bought or would consider buying handknitted woolly socks nor gloves for that matter… Bamboo socks in our household all the way and hands go in pockets not gloves. 
Ha ha Just spotted a Happy Sock ad pop up on my FB page. You see Meta even reads my posts on here
I just had socks and gloves. So seen it too. Also the blue mug. I see the mug a lot on the front page too. It’s getting a lot of sharing. 
I don’t have a hot water bottle, did away with those about 40 years ago so don’t know why they keep offereing me the knitted woolly hot water bottle covers ?
I don’t buy mugs… my own daughter is a potter so wouldn’t dare
Life and these ads are a mystery .
Not helping me sell anything here though… been well over a week and should have orders every day this time of year…
Never mind my other shops are busy enough fortunately
But I keep seeing the same potter! Another thing. When I go to the front page search, I see the same makers! Yesterday someone renewed, on newly listed, and I gave up, same shops again. I do relist, but a few at a time. I guess if someone is opting out of the plus account, I can understand them relisting to get a longer date on their items tho.
For me the ads have been the same items in a different order, and then the same items on the front page when I log into Folksy. None of which are things I’m interested in.
I do hope they mix and change items that are included in the ads so it appeals to more people.
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