I have just noticed that a fellow Folksy seller has put up a listing titled ‘Buy me a coffee’. Basically they are asking people to send them £1 to sponsor/support them to continue creating and doing what they love. I am curious as to what other Folksy sellers think about this? Would you consider doing this for your own shop? Would you give money in this way? Do you think this is appropriate for Folksy? Should we all be doing it?
This sort of thing goes against the Folksy T&Cs and there are other sites set up specifically for raising support in this manner (Patreon or Ko-Fi for example) that don’t have the listing fees or commission like Folksy does. No I wouldn’t do it for my shop.
No, I don’t think it is allowed, I’d report it and let admin decide.
Wow, what on earth will people think of next? I’m aware of fundraising sites which I think are OK if used appropriately but have not see it before on a site like this. No, I wouldn’t do it.
There is an actual site that this is for called ‘Buy me a coffee’ (a patreon type site). The person would be better to have some kind of link to this maybe? But usually it’s for people producing free stuff at point of consumption (like a podcast).
No free stuff offered (other than gratitude!!) and surely it would be better to put it on Instagram (for example) with a link to Patreon, rather than as a listing on a selling platform like Folksy?
yep, and potentially as others have mentioned it would be dodgy under distance selling regs (as you’re not actually buying a product)?
Out of curiosity I did a search to look at this listing, but it’s been deleted. I’ve heard of this before, and I think such things are becoming more commonplace and quite a nice way for people to sponsor craftspeople, so I am always interested to see actual examples.
What I wasn’t expecting to see however was one of my own listings appearing in the search results. And appearing pretty high up the search results (4) I might add - for my mixed set of zoo animal cards…??? As far as I can see, there are no references to coffee in my listing (which I took to be the key word) and just one reference to ‘buy’ so I have no idea why that appeared, but thought it might make you chuckle to learn of that… Apparently I must be better at SEO than I thought
It definitely wasn’t you Heidi but it hasn’t been deleted, it’s still there. I think the nicest way to sponsor crafts people is to buy something they’ve made!
Just my opinion.
I have seen these links on people’s own blogs and websites, which is perfectly fine, and an interesting way of ‘sponsoring’ a maker if you love their work but maybe even can’t afford it right now. It gives a vital bit of encouragement. As a Folksy listing of course, it would attract commission and fees on each ‘sale’ so probably not sensible here from that point of view either.
I don’t think this is acceptable on folksy.
It’s now been removed. The seller is a wonderful maker and has very good sales so perhaps they decided they didn’t need it!!