How to navigate Etsy now?

I've had luck by filtering "shop location: Europe". It seems there's fewer resellers based here, for some reason. Of course that's not much help if you're not located in Europe yourself

EDIT: I just checked, and filtering by "shop location: United States" did help a bit too.

Another tip is to use price filtering. Drop-shipped items tend to be cheaper than genuinely handmade, so you can exclude some resellers that way.

 

Sometimes searching by material helps. Yarn wigs are certainly not drop shipped, many natural fiber wigs either.

 

When I see something on Etsy that I like, I usually try and look for the seller/store on SNS (instagram mostly) to see if they have any at all, or even if they have maybe some creative progress posted. The location filter seems to help a bit too.

 

When I see something I like, I screenshot it and image search for it on TaoBao and buy it from the maker.

 

I still shop Etsy all the time, but I take my time and use it as an enjoyable experience (window shopping should be fun.) I keep a list of favorite sellers I know and trust, but if I’m starting off a new search cold, I simply type in exactly what I’m looking for and take my time scanning the possibilities. Obviously anything overpriced or questionable in the least is bypassed. I also pay attention to the readily available seller reviews. No resellers for me, thank you. It’s a wonderful place to find handmade items and crafting supplies. In fact, I collect amazing hats for my SD girls by a very talented hatmaker there. They’re so unique and wonderful! I just search very carefully.

 

i didn't realize filtering by location was an option thank you so much for this tip!!

 

While we're talking about Etsy, is there a trick to searching? It seems like no matter how specific I get in my key words, I get hundreds of results that aren't even close: clothes for humans, home decor, Barbie clothes, Minifee clothes when I searched for SD or 1/3, and other random stuff. Is there any possible way to narrow down a search? I am not going to scan through 1300+ results on the off chance I might find something I like.

 

you can search with categories too. it's a little fiddly to get there now..... send your search terms in the search bar, click on categories next to the search bar and it will give you some suggestions like dolls & action figures.... it will bring you to the generic category page type your search terms in the search bar again and wait... you'll see suggestion underneath "in dolls & action figures (or whatever category that you're in) it will cut down a lot of the products that's totally irrelevant, but you'll still have the sponsored posts.

 

Keeping a list of which stores aren't dropshippers and major resellers is the best I've got, as many of them will say they're based in the US but the package will arrive with China postmarks. -.- (I don't know if any of them pull this kind of thing in EU or Auz/Pacific or elsewhere, I just live in the US.)

 

I add "bjd" to every search and only get relevant doll stuff.

 

I really wanted to like Etsy but I gave up. Almost everything I had bookmarked back in December, when I was starting to look for clothes, I found later on a dealer's site at 1/4th of the price. I feel like too many stores over there are marking things up like crazy with the excuse of "handmade goods". The whole website is also filled with recasts and I wouldn't want to accidentally give a penny to people who also sell recasts in case I don't check their whole catalogue. For the time being I am just shopping from dealers and company sites.
I've found that legit sellers who have an Etsy page usually have a dedicated website as well.

 

It definitely helps to develop an eye for spotting resellers. There's things you can do to filter them out of your search results, but at the end of the day, it comes down to being able to tell if a seller is legit or not.

Often it's necessary to click through to the store page, and look at things such as:
- do the products they're selling have a consistent aesthetic, or is it a hodge-podge of styles?
- do the product photos look consistent, with the same lighting, the same dolls used as models, the same backdrops, etc.? (if not, the photos are likely stolen)
- are the photos cropped weirdly, or blurred in odd places (to remove the original brand's logo)
- do they sell an amount of products that a single artisan could reasonably produce, or do they have hundreds (if not thousands) of products?
- are they moving product at an unreasonable pace (look at their sales history and review history: no one-person business is going accumulate 2k positive reviews or 10k sales over just 1 year)
- can you request a custom product, or do listed products have customization options? (not all genuine shops do, but resellers hardly ever do)
- do they have links to social media where they show process pictures, or show process pictures on their shop page itself?
- are they using specific bjd terms, such as listing which specific sculpts will or will not fit their product, or are their descriptions just a list of general buzzwords and the most popular brand names?

I could go on, but I think that covers most of the ground. It seems like a lot, but once you develop an eye for it, you really can spot resellers in a single glance.

 

Oh...I already do that and have bad luck. Like I just searched for "BJD Iplehouse SID dress" and there are 1000+ results, the top four ads are sneakers in all sizes, a punk outfit for Blythe, SD13 boy t-shirt and lingerie for MSD. Below the ads, there's a lot of 70cm male suits, corsets, minifee dresses and boots with a few actual SID dresses sprinkled in. I have this same problem on AliExpress, only it's even worse there. I'm kind of at a point of just buying from shops I already know and like, though that does mean I'll miss out on some truly good newer ones. Thank you for the suggestion, though!

 

@CloakedSchemer Have you tried letting google do better search for you?

Try this on google.

site:etsy.com BJD Iplehouse SID dress

 

I haven't tried that, but thank you! I'll give it a try.

 

I don't know if Etsy uses a similar algorithm but AliExpress will show you stuff they think you'd like based on the listings you've browsed and that messes up the search terribly - it does get somewhat better after cleaning your browser's cookies and cache regularly, though. Maybe also something to try

 

The way I use Etsy isn't browsing directly on Etsy but most times it is just Etsy sellers I have found through Instagram, that is a pretty good way to make sure I am not buying from overpriced drop shippers. I also look through the profiles/storefronts of the seller to check for background or some sort of identifying consistency to ensure that it is a legit seller.
I would mostly suggest just taking your time wen shopping and give a thorough check to whoever it is you are buying from, filtering by price might also help.