Ripstitcher's Letter Re: Craftsy Status December 29th, 2018

Update July, 2021:  This email was sent on December 29, 2018.   We ran this 88c special right up until we upgraded our membership platform again in May, 2021.  

We truly appreciate all of our members & customers through the years.  

We hope you enjoy our new goodies - especially the new Snazzy Slider Tote - that works with your beloved Bionic Gear Bags that many of you already have made.

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Hi!

You are receiving this email because you have been a customer* of Sally Thompson aka RipStitcher on Craftsy.   

 

This is an important update that affects everyone (except my VIPs ) as it relates to patterns they bought on Craftsy.

In case you don’t know, Craftsy sent out an email to thousands of us (sellers) - just before Christmas - stating that they were closing our stores on Craftsy on the 28th - yesterday.    This was a not-a-very-nice move on their part to only give us about 8 days notice and 4 of those days were not available for major damage control as our development team was off for the weekend/holiday.  Buggers.

I am grateful for the Craftsy that existed when I first launched Bionic Gear Bag in 2014.  Much has changed.  But, all along, from the very beginning on that very first day, I have always maintained a website that I could “fall back on” if needed.  

In the last 24 months, if you are not aware, I have built a strong team and we have focused on building sewlikearockstar.com  - to house my patterns as well as video tutorials.   We just want a great place to offer videos and build a community of sewing folks that can appreciate each other and have fun together.   That’s happening in a big way with us… and I’m very proud of where we are.

This “exit strategy” that Craftsy implemented this week is not fair to the designers, in my opinion.  There are so many misleading ideas going on out there on social media! 

It is totally fair that Craftsy changes - that’s their right.   It’s also their right to do it like they did - even if we don’t like it.     We have been guests on their site for the last 5 years - and now they have decided to change and we are no longer “guests”.   That’s all good.

For starters, the whole “lifetime” access for the Marketplace was not something, as far as I know, ever part of their terms of service with us publishing on their site.   There was a press release done on May 10th of 2017 when Craftsy was being sold that reiterates this.   Thier TOS also emphasizes how Craftsy is not responsible for sellers or buyers in the Marketplace.  

So then it only follows that if Craftsy has clearly acknowledged that all designers are independent, then how can they mandate what product we are required to leave behind when they terminate our stores?  

What Craftsy is expecting of us (sellers) is just outrageous... think about it... what an exit strategy! Kick us out at the most inconvenient time of the year on short notice (which is fine) , but then think they get to keep our product to distribute in any way they see fit... without any security controls, reports, nor allowing us any access to our own product - NOR OUR CUSTOMERS. (but hey, communication has always been bad over there)

Before my store was shut down on the 28th, we changed out our PDFs to reflect the pattern - but we admittedly “gutted” them and put a letter on them so that our customers can find where to download their patterns in the future and also receive any other updates or free goodies we may offer.  

This is not something I signed up for. Also, it is not something that Craftsy, to the best of my knowledge, ever promoted to its membership: that any pattern uploaded to the Marketplace must be permanent. Just read their TOS to see how they are NOT responsible for the interaction between seller and buyer in the Marketplace. Google it. The May 10th, 2017 press release is interesting on that front, too. I digress.

My team and I were thrown a real curveball here - because we truly want to take care of OUR customers going forward. Clearly Craftsy is not capable of doing that well, nor fairly. 

 

So we created a custom "pop up" of sorts to "plug in" to our existing custom site to help guide at least 25,000 customers that might not even know about sewlikearockstar.com (SLARS).

We have tiers of access: "visitor" , "free/registered", and "paid" general levels as well as permissions based on purchases and subscriptions on SLARS. The "paid" one is necessary to access PDFs on the site. ANY purchase made on the site qualifies the account. We obviously didn't have the time, nor would it make sense to trash our whole system because of this event with Craftsy. So we made a fix by creating an 88c product to automate this transition for thousands of people.

It's easy:

 

1. A person just needs to log in (or register) on the site. Everyone, other than our VIPs (because they already have full access to EVERYTHING right now) will have a special welcome page pop up to guide them.

 

2. If a person has already bought something on sewlikearockstar.com(SLARS), their migration service is free... because they already have an activated account with proper permissions!!!! Yay! Remember, any purchase works for this.

 

3. If a person has not done any transactions on SLARS, they will be presented with the 88c check out - which activates the proper permissions for this automatic system on the site to work - their patterns will automatically be in their member area in early January. This also includes giving them access to the entire Basics Collection (over 3.5 hours of videos done on tips, tricks, etc) and various other places on the site.

 

4. BONUS: Everyone gets access to the 3.5+ hours of Basics videos (tips, tricks, general stuff) with more being added every month - a $75 value.
 

 

 

Currently, everyone that has made ANY purchase on sewlikearockstar.com has access to the Basics Collection - a group of videos that focus on tips, tricks and useful sewing elements.  There are currently over 3.5 hours of videos - a $75 value - that all paid members have access to.   If you are new to SLARS, and you use the migrate service to get access to your patterns previously on Craftsy, you will have access to SLARS like all other members that have bought any product  - for only 88c. 

 

Sorry if this sounds complicated.. but this has been a tremendous amount of work to create and implement in less than 3 days. It's working now.. but it's not "pretty". lol

Thanks for being with us! We hope you enjoy your time with us. Any questions?
Please visit our facebook groups: facebook.com/groups/sewlikearockstar or  facebook.com/groups/sewmuchnicer

We know you’ll find many things to enjoy on our site…

Thanks again,

Sally and her Rock Star Team.
 

 

The NEW Bonza!

 

*customer = either from Craftsy, Etsy, Sew Like a Rock Star or Sew Much Nicer - or you have opted in.