Copying on Etsy

Well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, and sure enough another Etsy seller has started copying my ideas. Part of the reason I left eBay was because so many sellers were copying my work (I got to 84 *Stick Stoats in 3 years before I gave up counting!) and I’m sad to see it starting to happen on Etsy as well. I’d imagined, naively I guess, that the people who make up the Etsy community wouldn’t stoop to steal ideas from one another, partly because there seemed to be such a strong community spirit and sense of honour there, and partly because they are mostly high quality artists, artisans and crafters who shouldn’t need to steal ideas. However, a seller calling themselves WoodenTreasures has started to sell pendants suspiciously similar to the ones I’ve been selling there for the last 7 months. One curious coincidence is that I sold my first pendant on Etsy on the 13th of January and they listed their first one (in the same style as mine) on the 13th of August… and as the number 13 is said to be lucky for Witches I'll take that as a good omen! ;-)

It’s the first time I’ve seen a direct rip off of my work on Etsy, and I have to say I’m disappointed. (There is a seller with rune dice roughly the same shape as mine, but they’re made from plastic and appear to have the symbols marked on in no particular order, so they don’t count as a copy.)

However, unlike some I’m not out of ideas of my own yet, and will shortly be presenting the wonderful world of Etsy with something new for your delectation and delight… made, of course, with my usual care and attention to detail, not to mention traditional methods, natural finish and all round eco-friendliness!

**So look out for my new range of hair sticks and shawl pins, all exclusive to me of course! ;-) Maybe I should also go into button production, doing the work with power tools would be both quick and easy so I’m sure I could offer them at a very reasonable price…

*Stick Stoats was a name I came up with to categorise the ever-growing band of folks who were directly copying almost everything I put up on eBay. It was a kind of club for people who, due to their almost total lack of any kind of original thought, felt themselves duty-bound to rip off any ideas of mine that appeared even remotely successful. At one point I actually included their names in several listings, but they showed themselves to be singularly lacking in a sense of humour and insisted that I remove them from public view. There were also sellers who were copying chunks from my listings straight into their own pages, or making their photos resemble mine, or wording their item titles in an exceedingly similar way. However, the title of Stick Stoat was solely confined to people attempting to craft wands, pendants, pentacle talismans and the rest to look virtually identical (at first glance, anyway) to the ones that I make. I think what I found the most insulting wasn't so much that people admired my work enough to want to emulate it, but that they all seemed to do it so badly! Not one of them appeared to have any kind of practical woodworking skill or talent, let alone any idea of genuine pagan spirituality, and I'm extremely glad to note that most of them seem to have failed dismally in their attempts to make a fast buck from the pagan community.

**That's a joke, I haven't the slightest inclination to copy anyone else's items, ideas, style, range or life. (Good grief, did you really think I would?)