The Reseller Witch Hunt Begins in Earnest

I blathered a little about this yesterday elsewhere. So, I'll elaborate just a tad. Feel free to Inquisitionize me if you wish.

The reseller frenzy on Etsy is peaking with a fever pitch. If you were to go off the Site Help section of the forums, reselling on Etsy might be a greater threat than climate change/global warming/global cooling/global whatever and that there terrorisms. Resellers will eat your children, set your house on fire, and replace the contents of your bank account with fake Gucci bags.

Before you consider me being a pro-reseller, I'm just going to tell you we two lovely ferrets do not support reselling. We don't condone the pushing of knock off junk on Etsy either. It's not good for anyone on Etsy.

With that pesky factoid out of the way, I'd also like to say we really don't give a flying squirrel about hunting them all down and bring them to e-justice either. Maybe we have better things to do. Maybe they haven't come to our door and forced us to buy knock offs yet. Maybe they haven't stole our hard earned money. Maybe I can spot a knock off merchant from 1000 yards away. Maybe we're just jaded.

It's not that these people shouldn't be reported. Go ahead and report Hello Kitty factory junk straight off the boat from China. Go ahead and report people selling Glade candles as handmade. That's the right thing to do.

However, my biggest problem is the people who spend most of their day bitching and whining about resellers in the forum. It's like they're just itching for some sort of crusade. You come into the forums, post page after page of how resellers hurt your business, and spend all day hunting them. It's not hard to see that it might not be the resellers hurting your business there, bucko. It's the fact that instead of working hard at your shop, you're off hunting straw men. You complain it's ruining Etsy's reputation. Maybe so. Frankly, I spend most of the day on my side and resold items barely register on my radar. You have to be looking pretty darn hard to find them. Etsy is NOT eBay yet, nor will it probably ever be. Stop thinking that a tiny handful of bad apples are singly going to ruin everything and leave us bankrupt. That's reactionary junk at it's finest.

So, now the completely competent at everything Etsy administration is asking for our help in fighting the reseller problem. How could that ever go wrong? It's not like history is not filled with activities like that which went horribly and fatally astray. Before I get reamed for comparing Etsy fighting resellers with the Holocaust and the US Communism episode, they're not completely comparable. There are small parallels, though.

Mark my words: This won't end where people want it to. As an amateur history buff, stuff like this always goes badly. Always. It won't be long before good, honest shops end up labeled as resellers. It won't be long before good vintage folk come under the long hard gaze of suspicion. It won't be long after that when all supply shops start receiving nasty glares.

The resellers need to be stopped, but having Etsy react the way they did is going to be a serious issue. If you see an resold item, report it. Report it twice. Whatever. That's noble and great. Seriously.

Just don't join the hysteria. Or do go ahead and join the hysteria. I can't force you to choose. Whatever you choose, when things go badly, remember that this little ferret tried to say something. And if I'm totally wrong, and this whole war against resellers succeeds, we all win.

So, to close all of this long winded junk up: Choose what you do wisely. Don't let the battle keep you from tending to your shop. Make sure not to hurt any innocent people. And, this is important, do not try and sell your baby on Etsy. That's the kind of stuff that brings bad attention. And a whole trainload of cheesy jokes.

Mark it 8, Dude
The Surly Ferret

Hi. I'm the cranky ferret. I'm writing this at gunpoint. Please send help.

Hi, you don't need to know my name. My job around here is doing stuff that's really uninteresting and tedious, like cleaning cat litter. I also mail packages, provide live entertainment, and scream at piles of beads. I guess I also do slightly more productive things, but it really doesn't matter. Point is, one of the stupid cats knocked my lamp over this morning, and now my foot is bleeding from broken light bulb shards.

Why am I writing on this?

I've been told people are interested in the things I have to say. I question the meal state of these people. I also question why people think I'm surly or cranky. It's not my fault this world is a ball of suck covered in crap, with a nice tidy bow of moronic tied across. I'm just the messenger, hombre. Don't shoot me.

Seriously, I guess I'm here to provide humorous levity and helpful tips. Since everyone on Etsy is in competition with us, I can guarantee that all of my helpful tips will be assured to make your shop fail in a glorious ball of fire.

My wife says that blogs need pictures. I assume this is because the average American is really an emotionally stunted 6 year old. I'll agree with her on this point. The last time I read a book with lots of pictures was probably 6 months ago. So, let me add some nice pictures to this blog.

Look at this damn thing. I mean, look at it. I bet the driver of this Amtrak had a few too many cocktails, don'tcha think?

See, when I was a child, I lived next to the train tracks. And while all of the other conductors were more than happy to let us in the cab to see everything, the Amtrak conductors were all assholes who wouldn't let us see jack. What harm is a 10 year old going to do to the thing? Probably a whole lot, but that's not the point. The most damage we could have done is run a train into a cow. That's all there were out there. Cows.

This is your average cow. Amtrak workers are afraid that your average ten year old will drive a train straight into these. Also, according to Amtrak, Antarctica isn't a continent. I don't know why the FBI isn't taking this seriously. I mean, ten year olds using trains to destroy the world is just as valid of a threat as any terror threat on the newsbox these days.

Look, the point is this: mass transit is a plague affecting everyone. I urge everyone to stop riding trains in order to preserve our cattle population. By doing this, we can all sleep easy knowing that our supply of delicious Filet Mignon will be safe from the hands of terrorists. And by terrorists, I mean inquisitive children.

Mark it 8, Dude,
The Cranky Ferret