Folksy Vs Etsy - What do you think?

When I originally set up my shop I used Etsy - why? Well I was already a member and had brought things from the site. I like that its a global market place.


I had heard of Folksy and registered as a member and had a bit of a nose about and there is some inspiring stuff but it never grabbed me like Etsy. Around the time that I was considering setting up my shop was when the whole "assembled" alienation began - because apparently there is less creativity/skill I don't know what. There were lots of grumbles on twitter and I was put off.


Recently I wondered if maybe I am losing out on potential sales as some people maybe put off of Etsy and the USD. Now I have set my shop up using good old British Pounds Sterling, but as new visitor/user to Etsy I believe it defaults to displaying USD until you have fiddled with your account settings and said hello I am English pretty please can I see the prices in GBP (I still remember my early days on Etsy when you needed to have a currency converter open in another tab on your browser).


Well this is how my Etsy store looks like:

and you will notice that here on my blog there is a lovely little plug in page displaying my shop and I also have a lovely little plug in over on my Facebook its all so lovely when things play together with minimal effort. 


Recently I decided to open a Folksy shop. 
This is it

Now I do like the fresh modern feel of Folksy but so far I don't know if its working for me. I know, I know there are only three items in my shop. There is a reason for this I find the whole listing procedure clunky. It simply takes too long - not so bad if you only use one photo per listing but me no I like to ensure people get to see as much of an item as they can so I max out the picture limit per listing.


Now I have had a sale on Folksy but again this was all too annoying for me - disjointed - the item in question (a card) had a choice of badges, but when the order came through no note to tell me of the selection so delay as I contacted the customer. Then when it came to packing up the order - ummm where do I get the nice invoice (like in Etsy)? Oh there doesn't seem to be one (maybe there is and I haven't found it). Oh well paypal to the rescue (but a bit of faff).


But that got me to thinking - was there a comment box during checkout, did they miss it. What is it actually like to buy something on Folksy. So I hunted for some supplies (again I want to note that there are loads of lovely sellers I found lots of nice things).


Now searching seemed well a little bit clunky - I wanted to be able to break it down more and to change the view - for me I don't really like list view I prefer a nice grid (Etsy lets me choose depending on my mood) - maybe there is a setting somewhere and I havent found it yet. Anyway I found something that I wanted and Oh look I need to let the seller know my preference. Excellent a test.


Buy.


Check out - erm where do I let the seller know my preference? Couldn't find an option anywhere during checkout. So I had to contact the seller as a separate action to the check out procedure - madness.


Seller lovely, items arrived nicely package etc the little extra mile that keeps us all going back to independents. 


But the Folksy interface - clunky.


I also like that Etsy gives me stats, without me needing to sign up for something else, attempt to get it to work, get grumpy with it and annoyed that I have to go to another site.


So do I invest more time in it or close the Folksy shop?


If you sell/buy on Folksy how do you find the experience? Would you always check Folksy first because you know its a British selling platform? Or are you not bothered Etsy/Folksy doesnt matter its all down to the products!


Please let me know your views.