I ain't gonna work on Josh's farm no more - Etsy's Fake Free Shipping is a farce

A waning half moon provides an appropriate time to say that I think my days of selling lampwork bead sets on Etsy may be coming to an end.  

At the end of July, Etsy management are threatening to prioritise in their search engine only sellers offering free shipping to US customers.

If we don't want to absorb the cost ourselves, we have to roll it into the price of our items which is problematic for a number of reasons that are being pointed out to management and they aren't taking any notice.

What it boils down to for my shop is this. If I increase my cost per item to cover "free" shipping, it isn't free and it isn't fair to customers who buy multiple items and customers whose countries are cheaper to ship to than the USA. 

This is FAKE FREE SHIPPING.

Here's a link to a YouTube video which covers the things that have been making me angry for days now and it isn't lessening the more I think about it, I'm gnashing my teeth about being coerced into running my business in a different way by people who I PAY. If I added up all the fees Etsy have charged me over the last eight years I would probably have a heart attack and now they're trying to push ME around! Shouldn't I be the boss of them if I'm paying for the privilege of selling my items on their platform?

The New Moon is on 1 August and as that's the day I will find out if Etsy carry out their threat, this is the Universe telling me it's a good time to start doing something else, I know this seems like I'm cutting my nose off to spite my face because Josh Silverman won't even notice I'm gone but I have to protest. I have told him what I think in the Etsy survey and in the Etsy forums but I'm sure he's still going to do it. 

I want to leave right now but MTM has persuaded me to wait and see if it happens first of all and then take time to see what impact it has on my business.

But this is a pattern with me, I did it years ago, quit a job I liked that was well paid for a super boss because of an unfairness over bonus payments.

In the short term I regretted it, it felt reckless, daft and short sighted, but in the end it led me to going back to college. I retrained and had a whole other career in IT for a while that paid even better. But again, I had to leave because things outside of my control dictated who I worked for and I had no respect for my new boss.

Ultimately, that's how I ended up doing what I do now, leading a creative life which I love (it's unfortunately NOT very well paid!) but that's what I do ...I leave things I love behind and I cannot stop myself, I know if Etsy carry out their threat to send my shop into search obscurity, I will do it and there's not a damn thing anyone can say to dissuade me. 

If the pattern continues, it will lead to something even better next and I can't wait to find out what that is!

(Almost) a lifetime with a Knit Knax vase

I have placed this vase amongst some of my precious objects: my moon gazing hare (a 50th birthday present from my family), a photograph of our late dog, Guinness who died in 2005 and a pair of hand crafted blue tits bought for me by MTM from a gallery in Cambridge. 

At the other end of this window cill are two empty boxes which used to contain champagne. They were birthday presents from a previous boss, Graham (who I am very fond of). The mock Art Deco tin contains incense sticks which I burn from time to time to mask doggy farts from our current four legged friend, Missy. The carved wooden hands hold juggling balls which one day I am sworn to learn how .... they came with an instruction manual!

But anyway, I have known this orange glass vase for nearly as long as I can remember. My sister, Sandy is two years younger than myself. We lived in a house in a village called Buckden, there used to be a shop there which sold craft stuffs, confectionary and gift items called Knit Knax. We used to be sent there (with a permission note) to buy fags (ten Number 6, please) for my mum and we were sometimes allowed to spend the change on sweeties (on top of our pocket money) as a reward for going. 

On a cold day in the winter of 1971/72. this vase in Knit Knax took our fancy. Sandy and I decided it would make a lovely Mothers Day present. It was seventy nine new pence; we didn't have anywhere near enough money to buy it. The lovely shop owner said she would "put it by for us" and we could pay it off bit by bit. Every week, we would put a few pennies towards it, it took weeks, nay MONTHS, for it to finally be paid off. Every penny of our pocket money and the fag money change was precious because paying for the vase meant fewer sweets for us ... but our mum was worth it. 

The day we took it home and wrapped it up was very special. It has lived in the family home ever since and consequently, I have known it nearly all of my life. Even many years after I left the family home in Buckden, on every visit back to see mum and dad, it made me smile.

We lost dad earlier this year, mum is finding it very hard to live on her own in the old family home, she really misses having company. Her eyesight isn't good enough to occupy herself with reading or doing craft work so she spends the majority of time listening to the radio and trying to watch TV. She lives for phone calls and visits from us, neighbours and friends. Sometimes she has little holidays for a few days at a time at Sandy and Sharon (my other sister)'s houses and she goes out for meals and days out with my sisters and my brother as and when time and weather allow. 

Mum has decided she would prefer to live somewhere smaller in sheltered accommodation, where there are shared facilities like a common room where she can go if she wants company. I am relieved about this as a smaller, more modern flat will have fewer hazards for a partially sighted lady of senior years. In preparation for downsizing, she's sorting out all the things she wants to take with her and giving away some of the others. I was delighted when she gave me the vase (with Sandy's permission) to look after for her. 

As I gaze at it filled with chrysanthemums picked from my garden, I ponder the connections I can make to this vase, there are many. 

It is made from glass very similar to that which I now use to make the glass beads I sell in my Etsy shop. Here's a recent set of my orange renegade beads (now sold). 

It forms a bond with my sister Sandy, she is the sibling I am closest in age to. My brother, David is nine years older and my other sister Sharon is nine years younger so Sandy is the one I shared (and fought) with most. 

It is the same colour as these darker orange pots which my mum also gave me (but some time earlier) which belonged to her mother, my maternal grandmother. My mum can remember these sitting on Big Gran's* dressing table when she was a little girl. These days, they live on my mantlepiece. A love of orange glass obviously runs in the family but Sandy and I had no idea of this when we purchased the vase all those years ago!

*We had two grans, one Big Gran and one Little Gran (our paternal grandmother).

The memory of Knit Knax takes me right back to my childhood and my teenage years, growing up travelling to school on the bus with my friends, Cathy Burton and Lauren Crow, going to their houses to play records, going to the Youth Club and school discos with and generally hanging out as friends do. Their parents are gone now but I remember them very fondly as surrogate aunties and uncles. 

My dad used to hand out the pocket money, I used to get half a crown a week (or two and six). After decimalisation, some of the old coins were still in circulation, I still got half a crown a week but instead of being worth 2 shillings and 6d, it was now twelve a half new pence. 

So this vase embodies a huge chunk of my growing up and also foretells of my future in glass. Is it odd that I think it's a little big magic? 

On the run and nowhere to go - renegade beads

These beads don't fit in anywhere, they're either left over from sets (where I made too many, they were too big or too small) or they're experiments I decided not to go ahead and make more of. Either way, individually, they're renegades and pretty wild. Six of them teamed up on my bead table pretty peacefully as they seemed to like each other. However, since the blue ones got together with two of my bombay sapphire recycled beads, and the golden ones got hold of one of my Talisker whiskey bottle beads, I'm worried they're going to start causing some trouble! Please buy these beads from my Etsy shop (before they wreck my studio!) If you put them to work with some calming influences, I can see them leading a long and happy life in some wonderful jewellery created by you!

PS Please note, these bead sets have now been sold, thanks!

Lampwork beads for sale

For the first time since I started making lampwork beads, I am currently making more beads than I can actually use in my own jewellery business and so I'm making a small selection available to purchase in a separate Etsy shop called Sooz Beads.

I'm not selling seconds, I am only selling beads that I would be happy to make jewellery with myself. When things get moving again in Spring, there probably won't be many left over, so snap them up whilst they're available!

Wedding jewellery

My heart confetti arrived through the post this morning and so I've been photographing the jewellery I made with the recycled Rosé bottle beads.

These have all been listed in my Etsy shop. The plan is to be back at my stall at Cambridge's Art & Craft market from next Saturday onwards (if the weather forecast is dodgy though, I probably won't be there until February) and so I'll have them with me there too.

I celebrated my first Etsy sale yesterday! I changed my shop over to dollars and also introduced free worldwide shipping, I'm not sure which of the two things tipped my luck but I'm glad whichever it was! A lovely jewellery designer in the USA purchased a set of etched Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry beads. We both think that these will look great with the seaglass that she mainly works with. This is a market I wouldn't have reached but for Etsy so I'm hap-hap-happy! I have missed the buzz of making sales on my stall and am also looking forward to being back out there amongst my customers.

Modified photography set up

I've added to the photography set up I wrote about last year. I've been reasonably happy with the photographs I was taking with it but even so, they were still much better if I opened the studio door and let in some natural light. I really wanted something that was independent of the time of day or weather. Hence I've invested in another OTT light and a softbox to replace the amateurish piece of paper. I've also purchased some different coloured card backgrounds cut to fit the softbox.

I think my jewellery photography is improving; I'm really pleased with this photograph of a recycled beer bottle and copper necklace, taken today (flat, dull, very overcast and breezy). The necklace will be on sale in my Etsy shop this afternoon!

Etsy shop

Opening up an Etsy shop was going to be one of my New Year resolutions so I feel extremely organised to have accomplished this feat before 2011 has even started.

Due to the craft market cancellation today, I have gained a day this week. I was tempted to get on with all of the jobs I need to get done before the 25th but as today was going to be dedicated to my business, selling jewellery in Cambridge I decided there's still plenty of time for all the Christmas preparations (breathe slowly and deeply ....) I have instead earmarked Wednesday and Thursday for list-busting and so the time was re-allocated to creating the Sooz Jewels Etsy shop.

For the time being, I'm concentrating on my recycled/upcycled glass jewellery. I only have three items in there at the moment, the majority of the recycled range were photographed before I got my new photography set up so I'll be adding to the listings as soon as I get some nice new photographs of the stock.

My New Year's resolution has changed from "Create an Etsy shop" to "Stock my Etsy shop". All the hard work has been done now and the rest should be easy (she says).

Protx / Sage Pay possible fraud

I am writing to let my blog readers know that I have reason to believe that Protx / Sage Pay, one of the credit card processing companies for on-line businesses, is selling debit and credit card details to criminals.

My reason is that I ordered items with the Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd on 22 June 2009. I don't use them very often as they're a little on the expensive side but my usual supplier did not have the colour of swarovski crystals I wanted. The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd use Sage Pay / Protx as a credit card processing company for their website. When I placed the order, I hadn't actually come across Sage Pay /Protx before but after doing some research on the internet, it seemed a legitimate company and I have been into the Bead Shop (Nottingham)'s retail outlet in Nottingham on several occasions. Believing them to be a reputable company, I went ahead with entering my details into the Sage Pay / Protx system. Just a few days after that order, my bank informed me of fraudulent transactions on my debit card. I had to cancel my debit card and they issued me with a new one. The bank were unable to tell me where my card details had been stolen, and I was unable to link it to the Bead Shop (Nottingham) as I had placed several other on-line orders in the time leading up to the fraud. It was really inconvenient as I use that debit card for many regular routine payments on-line and so I had to go through all of them changing my details (Love Film for my monthly DVD usage, my web hosting provider, Amazon, etc). A right beeping pain!

Anyway, the next time I dealt with the Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd and Sage Pay / Protx was to place an order with them on 14 December and guess what? Just four days later, I have today had a conversation with my bank when they informed me that fraudulent transactions have again occurred on my card and I have had to go to the inconvenience of cancelling my debit card again. Someone has bought a mobile phone at the Car Phone Warehouse and tried to top up another mobile phone using my card. (I won't have to pay for those I have been assured!)

So, I have spent time this evening going through my bank account with a fine tooth comb and the ONLY organization I placed orders with a few days before the bank contacted me on both occasions is The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Limited.

Coincidence??! I think not. I do not use my debit card in shops or ATMs ever. I pay utility bills using direct debit or I pay my landlady direct using cash or a cheque. My business is largely cash based and therefore I tend to also pay for things in shops using cash. Most of my shopping is done on-line anyway because I don't like shopping that much and as I don't have a car, the only time I tend to do any shopping at all is in Cambridge on a Saturday when I am usually cash-rich (ish!) I cannot recall the last time I used my debit card in a shop and I haven't used one in an ATM for at least three years.

I have e-mailed the Bead Shop (Nottingham) to tell them I will NOT be placing any further orders with them in the future unless they offer PayPal as an alternative means of payment. Plus I will never ever use any website that uses Sage Pay / Protx as a credit card processing company either. I have to say, the Bead Shop (Nottingham) is the only one I deal with that does use them anyway.

I am awaiting comment from the Bead Shop (Nottingham) before reporting them to any authorities that take an interest in this kind of fraud though it probably happens so regularly, I am doubtful anything will be done.