Having personally spoken to James via a live online invited meeting with some other sellers in January I think he will be taking this matter seriously. He does care about Folksy and would love to see it become more known by the general public. I am beginning to think the new search facility is a bigger problem to rectify. Even the bulk edit postage function is now broken and the daily stats has been very hit and miss over the past six months. I think the actual operating system probably needs upgrading. The operating system upgrade for the system i worked in my old job was over ÂŁ50,000. The system used by Folksy i would imagine would cost considerably more as itâs a much bigger system at the back end. I think perhaps they have inadvertently overloaded itâs running capabilities since they changed the search criteria part of it. Perhaps someone with a better I.T knowledge than myself can think of something different.
The silence from Folksy H.Q leaves a lot of frustration and anxiety for all sellers. Letâs only hope after Easter they will come clean and tell us what on earth is going on and what they intend todo in the near future as a matter of urgency.
I would strongly suspect the basic software is so old and outdated, given the ever changing technical and digital world, that it is quite simply past sticking plasters, bostik and rubber bands and its sell by date.
Maybe if, from 18 years ago when it was born, it had been built and developed and supported with a proper enthusiasm and not what reads as something of a vanity project just to prove it could be done. .Maybe it would now be the British Etsy, worth millions, instead of a slowly sinking shopping platform few have heard of despite it being around almost as long as Etsy.
Theyâre not just failing to take this seriously - theyâre actively insulting everyone affected. The staggering delay, the complete radio silence, the eventual admission that theyâve done absolutely nothing to address all the issues, and the absurd fixation on âwaiting for buyer feedbackâ on a broken search function - itâs all incompetence and indifference.
Letâs be honest - they have no idea what theyâre doing. Theyâve seen the avalanche of seller feedback making it clear this is a catastrophic failure, and theyâre still paralysed. Not because theyâre formulating a solution - but because they donât have one. If they did, it would have been implemented already. Instead, theyâre stringing us along while they flounder behind the scenes, completely out of their depth.
Thatâs pretty much what I had written in a previous post and then decided not to publish. Theyâre just a group of people who thought it would be a fun idea to clone Etsy without having a clue how to do it. Such a shame.
Perhaps you could be right Gail and if so I would welcome an honest reply by Folksy because it would be better than leaving us thinking they donât care about the sellers. If as speculated this was the reason Iâm sure sellers would have been far more understanding over the past 2 weeks but the way things have gone itâs hugely frustrating.
Iâve also spoken in person with James and he was very interested in my ideas and concerns over Folksy and to be honest itâs partly why Iâm struggling to understand the past few weeks and lack of interest in what we the sellers have to say. None of it is making much sense at the minute and i just feel as though we are not beĂŹng listened to and are not a priority.
Itâs really sad to hear sellers who have been on Folksy since day one are very very unhappy. I donât know much about technology, I donât even have a smart phone, but others on here know how tests should be performed before going live. I am wondering if something really serious has happened, a serious bug, or someone trying to take over the site.
Or are all you Folksy sellers just getting the mushroom treatment?
I have wondered the same Marg and mentioned perhaps thereâs a bug in the system but then the last response from Folksy implied that they havnât been working on the search facility so my opinion changed again back to being furious and fed up that they donât think it should be a priority.
I dont know what mushroom treatment is lol
Have zero belief this is a bug. Just awful design for the page appearance and a non working algorithm which has rather obviously had no testing before rollout.
I must admit i was wondering if the design was approved by a wooden penguin or a dog with a hat !
Seems a good description of the current state of play. Im really sad that this might just end my folksy trip. I dont want it to, but at some point i guess itll be inevitable, as other sellers sadly leave. No point rattling around in an empty ship.
I suppose i had hoped it was something that had gone wrong rather than what Folksy had done and hoped they were working on it to put the enormous error right but after the last update I am just left pissed off that we are not a priority here and as first thought it was planned as they wanted buyer feedback,. A bit naive perhaps on my part thinking that this was for our good, we live and learn. I have lost all confidence now and just feel totally miffed that another week will pass while they decide whether or not this is important enough to look into. Yep i think they will lose a few sellers here.. About time they read all these replies and took stock of the situation or there wonât be a Folksy.
Ha ha love it, I will no doubt use that phrase myself from now on. Not rude at all Marg, i might not be quite as polite in my description when someone asks me the same question in the future
Something else I absolutely hate, if I click on something as an example Debbys beautiful doll, that shows in my ânew items from sellers you followâ bit, because itâs sold why is it showing me four other shops with âhereâs others you may likeâ or words to that effect, directly above the listing, didnât it used to show other items from the same shop? I think thatâs disgusting actually, promoting other shops as a link from someone elseâs itemâŚ.
Iâve kept out of this thread because there are people already commenting on exactly how I feel but much more eloquently however, Iâm going to say this, Folksy it feels to me, in trying to compete with others is very quickly losing its beautiful artisan feel and fast becoming everything it professes it doesnât want to be, I am a cynic, canât help feeling that as long as folksy get their fees, they donât actually give a cr** about their actual customers (us) Iâm sure they started with good intentions and I used to love the folksy ethos but not any more.
Folksy feels âtackyâ now, the search is awful and those orange price tags look like temu or Ali express and as for everything else thatâs wrong with the search 100% agree with all thatâs already been said.
Youre right, i get other shops items recommended. Im guessing its those that share some of the tags?
I wonder if it should be showing the shop name (for the item you originally clicked on) with a wee âliked this? Heres more from the same creatorâ message.
You are right and this is new. It previously showed a line of similar things from the same shop but I just got this.
A set of Folksy curated gift guide links instead . Is this one of the âbugâ fixes they did ???
.
If I am admiring something which is sold in a sellers shop when I have specifically visiting the sellerâs shop I absolutely do Not want to see the things which Folksy have chosen as my taste and theirs rarely agree.
I am rainbow to their beige
Ps also disturbishingly random. I just retried that listing and got first two times as a display of alternatives from the same seller, 3rd time just said it was out of stock and 4th click Gift guides. You can tell I am a very experienced Computer System Tester. One click is never enough !
How horrifying to discover something else which has been introduced so quietly and which is so totally inappropriate by taking Our Customers who 90% of the time get to Our shops by Our promotion ( never Folksyâs) away from Our shops.
