Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A Sweater is Still a Sweater

I sell on Etsy. I also do a lot of market research there. Today was one of those days.

I came across something that perturbed me a little. Then I imagined I was the buyer doing the searching, and realized it would annoy the heck out of me in that case.

Sweatshirts, jackets, windbreakers, t-shirts, and the like are NOT sweaters.

According to Merriam-Webster a sweater is a knitted or crocheted jacket or pullover. KNITTED or CROCHETED. OR a heavy jersey worn in ice hockey. But in this case these sellers were not talking about ice hockey. :-)

I'm even taking into account the International translations for items. Sweaters are referred to as jumpers in many cases, for instance. I get that. These were NOT International sellers however:

I came across several jersey knit tops that were labeled as sweaters. Location? USA

It was clearly sellers who were guilty of tagging abuse, keyword spamming...it has many different name.

For all the buyers who anguish over this faux pas on Etsy when they shop, I am sincerely sorry you have to weed through the bad to get to the good.

For the bad, bad sellers who are mistagging in order to mislead people, and direct traffic to your falsely advertised item...shame on you.

No comments: