Today I am off work! YAY! I haven't really done anything today- just rested and chilled in the Florida heat. I have done a few small things. Lite a candle for my business/ Lakshmi, Ishtar and St Claire (3 seperate candles!). Worked on a Smokey Quartz necklace for a friend and had some cookies. I have been watching a BNR (Buy ~N~ Replace) board on Etsy today. A fellow estian's(Treasure Kelly) son was in an oil rig explosion and was badly burned and flown to the Minnesota Burn Unit. These wonderful people put this BNR together in hopes of raising money to help Kelly be able to fly out and be with her son. The son is in an induced coma currently and I can NOT imagine the horror that Kelly must be going through. In 3 hours they have had 34 sales, raising at least $170.00. Several people did not buy in, but did make a donation. How wonderful to know that people out there still care! They are continuing to plan out other ways to help this wonderful person who has helped so many of us.
~EDIT~ As of 08/22/12 $1000.00 has been raised to aid Kelly and her son!
There has been a lot of issues for me going on dealing with Etsy and their new guidelines. I understand that these guidelines are coming from the FDA,but the way that Etsy has handled it is what upsets me. It affects a lot of people on there and they don't seem to give a hoot about that fact. Many herbalist, pagans, bath and body, free loving spirits, and anybody else that would use a medical term are now having to change their listings (some have 100's of items). Disclaimers are still allowed, but do not affect the fact that medical terms are no longer allowed to be used. For example- acne, insomnia, headache, rash, depression- are words no longer allowed to be used in descriptions. For some this would hardly seem a horrible thing, but to those that make or sale items for these types of things- it hurts.I recently bought a organic lotion for problematic skin that works wonder. But the owner will have to edit the listing since it has the word acne in it. And I can't help but notice that Etsy is looking to become public with the stock, instantly making a lot of employees very rich. While good for them, how many new rules with there be placed on sellers. Etsy is not a new form of Ebay and sellers don't want it to be. Etsy has been a great venue for me to start out and I would seriously hate to leave (at this point I am in compliance with the new rules), but if the rules get in tighter, I will have to leave. Is this the start to a modern day witch hunt? Or maybe the government just wants us to have no free will? Or do you think it simply boils down to making Etsy employees/ owners instant millionaires?
I have been looking at ArtFire and I do know that they have been contacted about the new guidelines on Etsy and to see what their stance is on the matter. They have agreed to look into it and I know that several shops are considering ArtFire as a possible new venue. I just do not know if ArtFire has enough traffic to help these sellers actually sell their items.
Ok, so maybe I should have reversed the two topics to end on a positive note!
New Guidelines
Questions about new guidelines
More info on the new Laws
Article of Taking Etsy Public
These articles are just a few, if you want to know more feel free to look us up on Yahoo chat groups were there is much debate about what is going on Herbal Sales Team .
Welcome to my world of Crystals, crafting, and general day to day life.
It's so lovely that people are willing to give and help each other :)
ReplyDeleteAs for Etsy it's a sad thing that a lot of herb sellers are leaving!!! but I can see why! who wants to buy a salve or any other herbal product when they don't know what it does.