This reviewer is starting to have ETSY rage

I have been a seller on ETSY since the month they opened back in 2005, and I use the term seller very loosely. I would go into the forums and ask for assistance on how to sell. Only 17 items of mine have sold since I joined to this point right now. They tell me "You don't have enough listing, and or choices." "You should list a lot more items!"

Umm, seriously? So the solution to making sales for your dying shop is to spend more money on listings that may not sell as well? Is ETSY paying these people to say this?

At the time I had questioned this I had over 60 listings in my shop, and tried advertising in "Promotions", and we all know what a waste of time that is.
My jewelry is not a mass produced item, so it's not that easy to keep over 100 listings up like people that do prints. For one, prints are easy to list, 1 picture, and it's already ON your computer. Easy to make duplicates of that. Second, why throw more money at the problem? They take a percentage of my sale, they charge for the listing, and paypal gets a cut as well. In the end I'd have to charge way more for my item just to turn a profit. The result? Lack of sales.

ETSY has claimed devotion to their sellers. Yeah, to THEIR sellers, the ones THEY like. They claim they don't have "favorites", but anyone who has been on ETSY long enough knows that is not the case. They feature sellers that are already quite popular. Not only that but on many occasions I see the featured seller make the front page treasury several times during their "feature time".

How many times to we see sellers featured for knitting scarves, cowls, and making practically unwearable jewelry in a months time? Quite a bit.
I wish ETSY would get off their high horse and feature people who have good items, and haven't made many sales. I think a lot of the reason for the lack of exposure is their lack of true devotion to everyone on there, and their impossible searching, and blatant mis-tagging.

When I mention the repetition of the "featured" people on the front page in the forums I get hammered on by big name sellers saying that it's completely fair. Sure it is Hun, oh, right, is that you on the front page again? Shocking. No wonder you think it's fair. Your junky crocheted chap stick holders are selling like hotcakes. Oh and your friends ugly ceramic "urchins" are on the front page again, wow.

To test this theory I nabbed 2 treasuries. 1 of them under one of my shop names, and the other one was under my other shops name.

1 treasury was full of the "usual suspects"
1 treasury was full of "under appreciated" or "unknowns" if you will.

Can you imagine my surprise when my treasury made it to the front page?! Can you imagine my lack of surprise that it was the "usual suspects" treasury I had created?

I did it to prove a point, or to be proven wrong. I proved my point. Sadly. I so badly wanted to be proven wrong on this, I really did.

Today I stumbled upon the "ETSY Bitch" blog on here, and it re lit the fire up under my ass. ETSY has mismanaged, and mistreated their sellers for so long. It's time to talk back. So I'm using this as my outlet.