Somehow these Etsy sellers have missed the gradual change during the past decade where the published guidelines for sellers actually allow new items to be sold as Vintage.
Examples:
- Downloads of digital files. Only in the Etsyverse is that what is meant by a "vintage print".
- Reproductions. On Etsy, you can date and price a brand new, Asian import, vintage-style item as if it was old -- even antique.
- Rocks and minerals. Sellers import pounds of these from Asia, recently mined and processed. That is not what vintage means or is. And finished products made from minerals (pyramids, spheres, columns, coasters) are brand new, mass manufactured, products from Chinese factories -- not Vintage outside the Etsyverse.
- Major brand overstocks of discontinued or seasonal items that are just a few seasons old. These have been allowed by Etsy's Marketplace Integrity Team as "vintage" since 2012.
- Products made by the sellers from destroyed Vintage items. Like "ephemera packs" that include pages removed from books and magazines in random or themed assortments. Confetti stamped from vintage paper items. Stacks of covers removed from Vintage books.
Check out the listings of the top 100 most relevant Vintage (?) listings at the Vintage promotional link at the top right of every Etsy site page to see what I mean. As I type there are
- 13 listings for mineral specimens
- 4 digital downloads or new printings of digitized "vintage" images
- 3 reproductions/newly made vintage style products
- 7 listings for altered, formerly vintage, items including clothing, furniture, confetti, and ephemera packs
- 2 listings for new native craft products made in a traditional style
- 4 "u pick" clothing assortments where no items are shown in detail. Used? Probably. Vintage? Who knows.
So there's the consistent percentage of non-vintage listings in all Vintage "promotions" on the site: 31 items (above) out of 98 (first 2 pages) most relevant listings = 32% or 1/3.
The problem is not a matter of inadequate "policing" to enforce the rules. The rules actually allow these items to be listed on Etsy as "vintage".
Update: some comments in response to inaccuracies in posts in the Forums thread linked above.
Page 1 "a real person has to go over every report". Nope. Etsy has programmed AI code to review all flags/reports, to select which ones should be reviewed by a human. The majority of reports are discarded before being read. This is why reporting/flagging no longer works to remove shops and/or items that are clearly in violation. While there is no information from Etsy about what reports are retained for human review, I am guessing that they concern items whose presence on Etsy might get the corporation in some kind of legal trouble.
Page 1 (bottom) "they remove things right away when the obvious are pointed out -collectible dated 2004, dvds that were releases in 2010.. things like that." Nope. This hasn't been the case since the introduction of the (now defunct) Browse sections. Items curated into the Vintage Browse section that showed a date (such as 2004) on the item, clearly visible in the curated-in thumbnail were not removed, but promoted. See this post dated May 2015 from my companion blog Fake Shaming Etsy. The third item shown in the post has a clearly visible 2004 on it, but it was curated into Vintage Browse by Etsy staff. In November-December 2015, Etsy was promoting "vintage" STAR WARS collectibles in anticipation of the release of THE FORCE AWAKENS in Dec. 2015. Somehow Etsy staff considered collectibles related to a yet unreleased film to be "vintage" -- see this post from early December 2015 in my companion blog about non-vintage items included in a "Vintage" STAR WARS promotion.
Page 2 "Etsy has never claimed to be a curated site". Not the site as a whole, but all promotions are curated. Etsy staff used to curate ALL the front page collections at the start, changing over to a shared curation with community created "treasuries". Promotions curated by Etsy staff, in 2007 through today in 2018, have always included reseller items pretending to be "handmade" or "vintage", or contemporary handmade items the seller decided (for visibility) to list as "vintage". Again, take a look at my companion blog Fake Shaming Etsy for many posts about the items featured in Etsy staff CURATED promotions.
Update: some comments in response to inaccuracies in posts in the Forums thread linked above.
Page 1 "a real person has to go over every report". Nope. Etsy has programmed AI code to review all flags/reports, to select which ones should be reviewed by a human. The majority of reports are discarded before being read. This is why reporting/flagging no longer works to remove shops and/or items that are clearly in violation. While there is no information from Etsy about what reports are retained for human review, I am guessing that they concern items whose presence on Etsy might get the corporation in some kind of legal trouble.
Page 1 (bottom) "they remove things right away when the obvious are pointed out -collectible dated 2004, dvds that were releases in 2010.. things like that." Nope. This hasn't been the case since the introduction of the (now defunct) Browse sections. Items curated into the Vintage Browse section that showed a date (such as 2004) on the item, clearly visible in the curated-in thumbnail were not removed, but promoted. See this post dated May 2015 from my companion blog Fake Shaming Etsy. The third item shown in the post has a clearly visible 2004 on it, but it was curated into Vintage Browse by Etsy staff. In November-December 2015, Etsy was promoting "vintage" STAR WARS collectibles in anticipation of the release of THE FORCE AWAKENS in Dec. 2015. Somehow Etsy staff considered collectibles related to a yet unreleased film to be "vintage" -- see this post from early December 2015 in my companion blog about non-vintage items included in a "Vintage" STAR WARS promotion.
Page 2 "Etsy has never claimed to be a curated site". Not the site as a whole, but all promotions are curated. Etsy staff used to curate ALL the front page collections at the start, changing over to a shared curation with community created "treasuries". Promotions curated by Etsy staff, in 2007 through today in 2018, have always included reseller items pretending to be "handmade" or "vintage", or contemporary handmade items the seller decided (for visibility) to list as "vintage". Again, take a look at my companion blog Fake Shaming Etsy for many posts about the items featured in Etsy staff CURATED promotions.
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