You may remember my post bitching about the problems with mintd. That was three months ago and the cause for my bitchiness has none subsided. I guess I’m posting about this again because I’m flat out surprised that something like this could survive. Every time I go to the site I’m either lucky enough to get access to a few pages or unlucky enough to get to the home page and have a little hope. It’s just another thing on my list of things I can’t believe still exist. The funny part is that I don’t here much bitching from anyone else. Whenever mintd posts a blog post, especially one about downtime or errors, everyone is so positive & forgiving I feel like I’m part of a selling support group. I love positive vibes, to be sure, and I don’t enjoy being a bitchy asshole but come on… this site is unusable. Maybe I’m just being fuckd with.
I haven’t had much to say lately because I haven’t had much to do. I made some new wrist cuffs & set them up in Subdivision & I’ve got some good designs for two smaller projects & one larger project. The two smaller projects are simple things that, even in their simplicity I have managed to draw out way too long. I’m also starting designs on the first ish backpack which really is a big project. The designs are good but I haven’t had any studio time lately and my supplies & money are running on low right now. I expect to get back into it pretty hardcore in a couple weeks.
Overall everything’s going pretty smoothly, but I do wish that whenever my business enterprises took a bad turn that someone would take a picture of me looking distressed, concerned and/or displeased & with my hand on my head. They do it for wall street traders, why not the rest of us?
Oh wait… I guess it’s because my entire life isn’t dependent on a whole bunch of numbers.
actual picture of v.5 charcoal
(notice how different is looks from the photoshop recreation below… it really was false advertising… sorry about that)
I was able to borrow my friend’s camera & take some shots of the newest member of family v.5. Just as soon as they arrive, I try to rid of them, of course, so go to mintd and buy it (if you don’t get an internal server error).
Yes, that was a bit of a petulant dig on mintd. mintd, if you don’t already know, is a hipper, younger version of etsy. I’m currently in the middle of a love/tolerate/hate relationship with it. Let me explain. The good parts include, but are not limited to:
Its hipper-than-etsy-ness
The ability to have different shops with completely different feels for different kinds of products.
Lookbooks… customers who have bought a certain product can take pictures of it being used & upload it to the site. Visitors to the site can then see the products used in real-world applications & in a different style than maybe the seller intended. Plus, if another of that product sells, the person who took the pictures gets a cut.
Bad things:
I get internal server errors all the time. Maybe it’s because mintd is young, maybe it’s because every time I want to check the site it’s the same time when the folks in Australia (where mintd is based) are having national mintd parties… I have no idea, but it happens waaaaaaaay too often. They posted a blog entry about this problem two weeks ago saying “you guys deserve better,” but it hasn’t gotten any better. The site is often really sluggish when I can get through… growing pains, I guess… maybe they should hire Alan Thicke as their spokesperson.
Site navigation kinda sucks. My first time at the site almost made me go away & never come back. I still find myself getting lost sometimes in the mintd jungle
I obviously don’t get any of their numbers, but I don’t see many indications that anyone actually sells anything. Very few other “mintizens” that I’ve come across have ratings for other products or have had their products rated. Is mintd just a big show & tell social networking site?
The prices default to Australian dollars, so when I put up a bag for $90USD, it shows up as $109.80 or around there. I definitely wish that the site would recognize where you’re browsing from and adjust the currency appropriately. There is definitely a big psychological difference between $109 and $90 that could cause potential buyers to not investigate the product further. So should I lower my mintd prices to help that? I already get 7.5% taken out of the final sale by mintd (the commission gows down if you become a paying member) as opposed to etsy’s $.20 & 3.5%. I get less money, mintd gets less money…
All in all, I love being part of a newer community, but I’m quickly tired of how little infrastructure they’ve built to deal with their admittedly newfound popularity.
