Indecision.....

Been a little worried about some of the goings-on over at Etsy lately. I can't lie, it's making me nervous. Even back this summer people were wondering what Etsy would do to make the Holiday shopping season more complicated for its sellers, and they've delivered, not once but twice! A "Continue Shopping" button that first was sending people not to the shop to Continue Shopping but off to the Etsy Forums - so rather than fix it, they just made it go away so now buyers had no way to Continue Shopping and sellers were losing their minds trying to sort shipping for multiple items that had to be purchased singly. Then the coupon codes sellers have been asking for for YEARS now, there they are, handy-dandy - but only semi-functional. And not rolled out with time before holiday shopping to work out the bugs and features, but Thanksgiving Week, pretty much. I mean, really, come ON!

I passed when Artfire had their super-duper $6 a month Pro Shop deal and now I feel like an idiot. Now it's about $10 a month, but only thru the end of the calendar year, when it goes up to $16. Thing is, I don't think I can DO enough tie-dye any more, not with all the health stuff and the part-time employment and the one kid's medical screenings I've been trying to get her for the last 4 years (she'll be almost 9-1/2 before she gets the screening she should've had at 5! :-(), to make even $10 a month worthwhile. I'm trying to get my teaching certification renewed in an effort to contribute more fully to depleted family finances, and if I get that full-time teaching job, the dyeing is likely to go out the window pretty much, except maybe for summer shows.

But.....if I snag the $10 a month deal and it doesn't pan out, I can go to a Basic free account, but if things pick up and I want to go back to Pro, that becomes $16 a month, not the $10 that's possibly not worth it as it is. Just taking pictures and listing stuff is a huge hassle for me - I'm a mediocre photographer at best, and getting good pics takes literally hours of my time (see posts from way back in time and realize that I've not gotten much better :-(), so I've been avoiding it by doing mostly craft shows, which also hasn't been panning out all that well. I'd like to NOT flush away any more money on dyeing stuff. I'd like IT to start paying ME, but I don't have the time or money to make that initial investment, and my the time I do, the investment will cost me nearly double and will be again out of reach.

So Plan C is to investigate other selling options, but Artfire seems to be by far the best one out there for buyers and sellers. I just can't afford the shiny functional version, and I can't seem to find squat information on the basic plan so I have no clue if it would suit my needs or not. It does bother me that they seem to be hiding that information. :-(

My head hurts....