The struggle is real: a rant

So you decide to start a business! What is your first step? You make a website! Only it's really hard to get people to your website without spending a lot of time becoming a marketing wizard and mastering adwords and SEO *shudder*.

You don't want to deal with that ballache, so you make a Facebook/Twitter page to try and drive traffic but these platforms are drama-filled and not really photo-centric as is best for marketing your wares.

So you find yourself on Instagram plugging away.  The problem is; even though you're gaining followers not many people are making it to your website (which is costing you like £20 a month to maintain). Plus constantly promoting yourself on social media is killing your creativity, stealing time meant for making and doesn't appear to be translating into sales, huh.

You try and sell on Ebay but there is so much nonsense on there. People misrepresent their wares to gain reach and your items easily get lost in a sea of shit. Not to mention they charge you for posting an item, selling an item and even getting paid for an item and don't do it all at once so a month after you sold a thing you get an invoice.  Fuck. That. Noise.

Why not try Etsy? They have such a great rep as being THE ONE for indie makers. They  see a lot of traffic and their fees aren't too terrible either. Only there is so much on there it is really hard to stand out and get your stuff seen unless you're a dab hand at tagging and search terms BUT WAIT that's why we went to Etsy because those things are harddd and life is hard enough.

So you think 'I'll try Depop' because it looks like Instagram, how hard can it be. It could be great, only it's basically an online carboot sale full of kids with no money. Despite branding promoting their art-kid aesthetic, it is resale and cheap Chinese knock off focused. Because of this and perhaps, because of the younger user base, the mindset doesn't seem geared towards making sure creatives get paid fairly. Everyone wants something for nothing but has no clue how bartering works (cue inbox full of 'what's the lowest you'll go for this?' and 'Will you take £2' on an item up for £25).

Plus IMO the Depop UI sucks. You can't even do something as simple as list an item as unisex *eye-roll* ... So you have to post an item twice so it can reach its largest available audience ONLY THAT IS AGAINST THE RULES AND CAN GET YOU BANNED.  Oh and their recognised brand list is pretty small, with no option to add a custom entry. So you'll also have to pad out your description to maximise reach. Only be careful when mentioning similar brands or inspos because that will potentially get your item removed (although this does not appear to be strictly enforced when it comes to their more popular sellers). When you email customer service to enquire about said item - removed without warning - you're met with a robotic response that ignores all questions and simply restates the supposed infraction. Despite this apparent heavy hand, it appears scammers are rife and the resolution process seems mostly - well - unresolved. It is handed off to Paypal as they are responsible for the financial transaction.  

Another comparatively minor gripe is that absolutely everything you post is treated like a product. So even promo posts - like advertising a sale - must have a category and price or they'll be rejected. 'Top rated' or more popular sellers seem to have the ability to apply discounts or offers to their whole store but it reeks of elitism. You could argue they are using popular accounts to beta test features but as a general user who is struggling, it sucks to see people who already doing well getting a extra helping hand that could make a valuable difference to you.

Woes aside, if you make it through the marathon listing process, infantile questions and do manage to sell something, Depop it seems, take their cut out of the price of the item plus postage. Yeah. So the money you were going to use to pack and send the item? You're lucky if you see 12p of it. The actual cost of postage is more likely to come out of your profit which is already minuscule because GUESS WHAT selling fees worked out as a % make it not worth selling high value items. Fantastic.  Oh and hiking costs up to cover fees and postage puts off buyers, who knew (P.s you're stilling paying for your website that no-one is visiting). For added shits and giggles their fees as shown in the app never match the transaction in Paypal sooo have fun doing your tax return... I mean... u_u

But you haven't given up. There are still apps to try like Mercari. That's huge in Asia so it must be good because they have got their shit together over there only, you're wrong.

Even with Mercari, you still can't list something as unisex. Their system also means someone can buy something off you and you won't catch a whiff of the cash until they say they got it and they're happy with it.

If they're unhappy guess what?! They can agree a return directly with Mercari without even talking to you. JOYOUS. If you do try and exchange messages with the buyer, you are hogtied by Mercari's machine learning algorithms! They so desperately want to avoid people making deals off site that messages cannot mention or promote your social accounts or even use words like 'measurements' 'postage reflects' and 'packaging' apparently.

Still, no worries! When you do complete a fuss-free sale, even if the buyer doesn't bother to review you, it's fiiiiiine! Mercari will do it!  Except they don't seem to score you - so you're still ratingless despite a problem free-transaction - they just approve you to get paid. Sort of. Finally, around 10 days after you mailed the thing you sold you get 'credit' added to your account, which you have to request to withdraw and they want your bank details and it takes 4 days...

While Depop may be super lax in their approach to regulating the sales process, Mercari have gone too far the other way. They clearly don't trust people to sell responsibly and make it as painful as humanly possible while buyers can be arseholes with practically no repercussions. You try to contact customer services only for your missive to be rejected because you've exceeded a character limit in the complaints form by an undisclosed number of characters. You have no clue by how many characters because there is no indication of the form being ANYTHING OTHER THAN FREE TEXT.

When you've had just about enough and try to leave, you can't. Apparently a notification you received less than two weeks ago counts as valid activity and - even though you have deleted every listing and have zero pending transactions - valid activity means you can't delete your account... URGH (btw you're still paying for your website) so you have to contact customer services again just to close out your account.

Meanwhile you're finally killing it with your Instagram following. Conducting business via Insta DMs and Paypal so you decide its time to finally mark yourself as a business. Hello new fancy stats and GOODBYE REACH. You now reach a fraction of your following (thaaanks Facebook < WTF was wrong with a chronological feed?!) unless you decide to pay for ads. Yup. Pay to show stuff to the people who already choose to follow you... ffs.

But wait, there's more? Yeah! For extra spice we have shadow bans. MAGIC! If anything you make or post could potentially put off a big brand advertiser then Instagram has gotta get rid of it! Only they can't legitimately remove it because you're not technically breaking any of their T&Cs and taking it down completely may lose them users! Ohnoes! That won't look too good when they have to report to the board sooo shadow bans! All the perks of being banned without actually being removed from the platform.

When users search for you, even if they already follow your account, even if they TYPE IN YOUR HANDLE EXACTLY, your account will appear last in search results... Your images are hidden from hashtags #EVEN-if-you-started-the-hashtag-originally-what-the-actual-fuuu ...

There are also some very nasty instances of accounts being removed without just cause, provocation or even so much as an explanation.

This is the gentrification of social media. Just like the real world, the artists and makers move in and build something from the ground up, giving a place its personality and its edge and it's WORTH. Only for the big dogs to move in, jaws snapping to gobble up the profits. Slowly but surely they corner the content creators - the value makers - and by aping their aesthetics and hiking up rent they price them out of their own market. Once they own the joint, they kick the 'undesirables' to the curb. What's worse, is the big dogs all play together and move in packs. Piss off one  and they close ranks.

I have had enough. We deserve better. I want to make it better. I waited 10+ years before taking the leap to make art and it has been a struggle. I wasted 10+ years of my life believing my dream was unattainable. I've spent a  further 3/4 years trying to crack the magic code only to see people - some far more successful than I - are now suffering due to this shift in social media. Livelihoods are being lost, dreams are being crushed. Even if I make it on my own terms, I feel like I'll have to become a corporate behemoth to stand any chance of succeeding in this current digital climate. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em right?

WRONG.

If you can't beat them at their own game. Fuck them. Play a new game. We shall call the game Konbini and you can read about it here.