Updates to the Homepage

Agree with those re: items from our favourite sellers - maybe that could be provided via a link to another page but I don’t need to see it every time I visit the FP. I also thought that there must be loads submitting pinterest boards especially as I submitted several but they never got used (I’m sure they weren’t that unexciting!)

I’m also not too keen to see my favourite sellers’ latest items on the front page. If they aren’t Plus sellers or don’t list often, you could be stuck with the same images for months on end.

With regards to Pinterest boards, they were my favourite section on the front page. I’m missing them already and don’t bother to look on the front page when I log in now.

I’m sure we could rally a number of volunteers to create a board say once a month. Taking into consideration that boards aren’t usually changed over the weekend, we wouldn’t need many more than say 25 people, even allowing for a spare board or two. As mentioned above, if I had known that there was a shortage, I could have happily spent an hour or two window shopping to create extra boards. :smile:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen something twice on that ‘newly listed’ bar … whether it’s a relist or not. I see things that are new to me every time I reload the page.

I have noticed though, that in some categories, actual new items are not listed very often. So if you visit the main page for that category you might see a ‘just listed’ item that is a few hours old. Not really that good of a look for what should be a busy selling website with thousands of shops. I’d rather see ever changing listings than the same ones half an hour later.

Given that the ‘newly listed’ bar is right at the bottom of the page it doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal whether it shows relists or actual new lists. At least it’s dynamic and varied. Even if it’s all one shop at any one point in time, if you reload it a few minutes later it’s more than likely going to be showing something different.

I do agree that if you click on the link to the pages of newly listed items seeing page after page of the same shop is a bit bland. I wonder how many people who are actually looking to buy something (not just sellers looking to see who the latest mass-relisting culprit is) look there anyway?

I personally like seeing new items from my favourite shops there because, although I’ve got them favourited, I don’t often get around to going back and having a browse … this way if I happen to look at the front page some of their things are there too, reminding me why I favourited their shop in the first place! :slight_smile:

The way the front page is now there are lots of access points for lots of different types of lookers. This is a good thing for a site with just as many types of shoppers as there are shops to buy from.

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The front page has meant nothing to me for so long that I now never see it - my bookmark goes straight to my own shop and I sign in from there. I wonder how many other shop owners do that?

I do technically see the signed out page, or at least the top screen’s worth, but by then I’m either heading for the kettle or off to another site. I wouldn’t bother to scroll down just to see what’s “new”.

For the page seen by visitors how about showing categories, with a chosen item from the category changed every day /week. That would be fair, and get away from the bulk relist issue completely.

Didn’t seem that frequent to me, but i guess I wasn’t paying that much attention!

Perhaps one of the problems is the existence of the Plus Listing option. If it were discontinued and people had to revert to paying for each listing, the problem with mass relisting would not exist. It works for Etsy…

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Don’t know if it is just my screen, but the refresh button seems to have disappeared from the front page.

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Nooooo…I love my plus account don’t suggest it goes!

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I have noticed that the Refresh Button has gone too. Can’t think of a reason to remove it!

I won’t miss the Pinterest Board, as I never looked at it and I am not on Pinterest.

The idea of discontinuing the Plus account is a very good idea, because it’s too easy to click and relist everything you have in your shop. I haven’t renewed my plus account and pay for any relists I make. But whatever I have listed gets lost in pages 4,5 etc when a plus account lists everything in their shop. When I go to individual categories, it’s the same there, but not as drastic, my items stay on the front page for a day or so then go further down. I think a customer searching will not go onto pages 4, 5, 6, etc. is there any proof that they do.

I listed two of my purses 5 days ago and they are now on the top of page 5, no-one is going to scroll that far down, so it’s been a waste of my funds.

I have found that the Forum is getting a bit stale lately, I think interest in Folksy Forum is in a dip, i.e. just as an example " Craftjuice April 2015". When I looked earlier today the last reply was 2 days ago. A few months ago there were regular visits to that particular forum.

Etsy also has a much better search system so it’s easier for people to find what they want. It’s not that effective here so listings get buried that much more easily.

I think Folksy listing is much more effective than E… when I list anything there I can never find it again.

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I must admit I like my Plus account…being able to list as often as I like is great…but when I re list I do it in blocks of about 8 spread throughout the day. I think that’s a better way of doing it anyway as it means a few of my items appear on the recently listed 4 or 5 times a day…more chances my shop will be seen.
I would agree with a limit being put on how many items can be re listed at any one time…I don’t like scrolling through pages and pages from the same shop and I agree that visitors probably lose interest after the first couple of pages of the same sort of stuff.

I would agree with limiting the number of relists at one time - personally I only re-list 5-10 items at a time as re listing my whole shop would mean I was visible for about 2 mins and then disappear as others do the same. Re listing a few at a time throughout the day would give best exposure for the shop.

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I also relist about 20 items at a time in various categories throughout the day. I have 200 items or so in my shop but would never list them all in one go - as Roz says, what would be the point. I love the plus account and would certainly not want it to be abolished.

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I do have a Plus account- I got it mainly to keep my work near the top in the category searches. Now that newly listed are appearing on the front page, I’ve been limiting myself as to how many I list at a time as I don’t think it’s a good look to have loads of the same style of things showing in one go- it would be much nicer if there were a variety. If Admin can make it so that there’s a daily limit on relisting, or a few at a time, or only genuine new listings, I think everyone should be happy with that. But if that’s not possible, I think discontinuing Plus accounts could be considered…

Maybe there is a way to limit the number of free re lists on a plus account to maybe a 100, 200 or whatever is fair, a month…a bit like the free minutes you get on your mobile…any over that figure and you pay for them. This may encourage others to spread their re listing a bit.

That’s not really fair though, to people who do this full time for their living and have to have hundreds of items in their shops. And not all of us with the Plus account do constant re-listing anyway, so why should we be penalised because of the few that do?

I’m sure most people who come onto sites like this mostly come to search for a specific type of item. If all sellers used titles correctly and made sure they used key words within their descriptions, then their items will be found, and no need for the constant re-listing by people to try and keep to the top.

The Plus account is available to anybody, so why there is always this discrimination against those who pay for it is beyond me. It costs no more than a craft fair table or two, but gives you a chance to be open 24/7, every day of the year. The Plus account is also better for the Folksy team as it encourages people to list more, therefore giving a wider variety of items available on the site, which I’m sure must lead to more sales. They have to make a profit to be able to keep this site running.

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I had never looked through the recently listed pages until I started reading this thread (I rarely looked at the signed in or out pages either). When I have been looking to buy something (whether it be on here, amazon, etsy or ebay) I use the search function as I have an idea of what I want, the search function here is frustrating but I can normally whittle it down so that I only have a page or two to look through and then go based on photos and price rather than where a listing is on the page. Only the folksy bods know how customers navigate round this site whether they start at the home page and head for the recently listed items, work their way through the categories to whittle it down to what they want, if they use the search function or if they come to a specific page via a google search/ social media. The pinterest boards have gone because they weren’t generating sales and I’m sure other features (like recently listed) might go the same way if they aren’t generating sales regardless of whether we (sellers) like them or not.
I have a plus account because I have 300+ listings and it makes financial sense I just have to relist everthing once and it has paid for its self. I don’t use it to relist everything every day - I can’t be bothered with that - but every couple of months I go through and relist things in batches of 20- 40 so that I can eventually group all of the favourited items together to allow me to see if there are any trends (it takes me a couple of weeks to do this because of the numbers). I do this early in the morning so that it is done and out of the way so that I can do any fresh listings during the day. I don’t want them to get rid of the plus account or see any restrictions put on it but have no problems with them limiting the number of relists per day or how much time has to pass before an item can be relisted. I know that a listing lasts for 4 months (unless sold) but does anyone know what the median listing duration is? A week? A month? Maybe rather than categories or search results being listed newest first they should be randomised then there is equal representation of the older listings and new listings and no point in relisting an item until its expiry date. The recently listed could be done away with and a completely random (computer selected, no people invovled at all) selection of items could be put there instead

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It would be unfair to limit how often you can list items when you have the plus account. I agree with Dandelion’s Gallery, most of us with the plus account limit the items we list in one session but if some wish to list all their items - then frankly they are entitled to.

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