Josh and the promise to fix the search engine was a balm to investors and the lawsuit was dropped.

One year later. Josh has cut personnel and has implemented sales strategies. But search is still broken.

Rather than fixing the search, or even outsourcing it to a better algorithm, Etsy staff is relying on a poorly written search algorithm to figure out what people are wanting to buy.

For example, I had a customer in my shop last month who had searched for “story book dolls”. That search brought them into my shop on a listing for large silver hoop earrings.

I hope any Etsy investors that read this will understand that Etsy has not even tried to fix the search algorithm. And while in the short term profits are up (because sellers are desperately trying all the new tools for sales) those lack of sales will mean a depreciation in your stock value as sellers get fed up. I really hope the investors will step in and get this mess fixed, as ultimately their profits are on the line!

Even now sellers are looking at greener pastures like Amazon, EBay, and Artya in higher numbers than I have even seen.

eBay’s pattern of increasingly frequent and prolific botching of “tests” and changes hasn’t gone unnoticed by employees, customers, and investors.

Though I can’t comment on either buying or selling on Etsy at this point, It sounds like Silverman’s got a more than a few lessons-learned on how NOT to do things and is trying to focus on the “right” things while applying lean principles (yes! Finally!) resulting is positive growth for Etsy.

Sounds like Devin could learn a lot from this guy.

Sneaky and corrupt search manipulation whereby if buyers choose a “ships in 3 or less days” filter it defaults to the buyers own country. This means buyers in USA – a market which many international sellers rely upon – dont ever get to see international listings. This is the hated localization by the back door and means that sellers in countries with a small population are being squeezed into purchasing “promoted listings” in order to be seen internationally.

Etsy has the cheek to advertise itself as a global site. However international sellers are getting a deal that is worse by the day. Yet they pay the same fees.

January thru March sales on Etsy were very good for me, but it’s like they shut the lights off in my shop on April 1st. Since then, I’ve not sold even $100 there!!! I have since listed things on eBay, but can’t say that stuff is selling very well there either. And H@A … fuggedaboutit!