Product Listing Policy v3
This policy outlines the rules and best practices for listing products on the Artisans Cooperative marketplace. This policy is appended to the Handmade Policy, and by extension the Mature Content / NSFW Policy.
Additional details, best practices, and guidance are included in the How to Add and Edit Products Guide.
This policy will be revised and improved from time to time. The version history is recorded at the bottom of this document.
The purpose of this policy is to ensure an accurate and high-quality shopping experience for buyers on the marketplace through:
If we all cooperate in accomplishing these goals, it will lift up all artisans on the marketplace by providing a better experience for customers, which ensures repeat purchases.
In most marketplaces, it is common to try to “game” the system to promote one’s own products above everyone else’s, and at the expense of others. While all artisans must of course advocate for themselves, we will not allow self-promotion that infringes on other artisans or the marketplace as a whole.
As a cooperative we encourage cooperation among all to create a better experience for customers. This will ensure our collective competitiveness in the world. It is up to the artisan to list their own products in keeping with this policy. If an artisan’s products are not meeting this policy, Artisans Cooperative will provide guidance to the artisan, and reserves the right to disapprove listings or make minor edits to listings to be in compliance, such as with search-related fields like categories and tags.
In extreme cases, if an artisan is unwilling to meet the requirements of this policy after repeat violations, Artisans Cooperative reserves the right to suspend the artisan’s store until an agreement can be reached. If no agreement can be reached, then the store may be removed from the marketplace.
Specific rules and best practices for product listing fields are provided below.
The purpose of the Product Description area is for providing details about the product for sale. As a best practice, make product descriptions professional, detailed, and courteous so customers have confidence in their purchases. Details about the product, how it was made, and its care and use are appropriate.
As a rule, the product listing space is not a place to share anything else off-topic from the product: airing grievances, making speeches, or promoting sales and products off-site (as described further below).
Product descriptions must be kept “Safe for Work,” unless labeled, titled, and marked as described in the Mature Content / NSFW Policy.
Promoting artisans is our goal. When an artisan promotes Artisans Co-op, that helps all of us. For this reason, we limit links in certain situations:
As a rule, product names must be kept “Safe for Work,” unless labeled, titled, and marked as described in the Mature Content / NSFW Policy. This includes no profane language in the name.
As a best practice, use plain language product titles written for the customer, not keyword-rich titles written for an algorithm.
Artisans Cooperative takes a commission on the product price but not on the cost of shipping. Artisans are welcome to add shipping and handling fees into their shipping prices to account for their costs, but attempts to “get around” Artisans Cooperative commissions by pricing the product artificially low and the shipping artificially high (such as a $1 product with $100 in shipping) are unacceptable.
As a best practice, price your products and shipping rates in line with Artisan Cooperative values of honesty, transparency, and cooperation. Prices should adequately cover your cost of time and materials and provide enough profit to keep your business operating as a matter of dignity, practicality, and cooperation.
As a cooperative best practice, we encourage artisans to use our Variants feature as much as possible in order to avoid flooding the marketplace with near-identical items. The Variants field should be used when an item is available in different sizes, colors, etc.
There are four reasons why it is in everyone’s best interest to do so:
As a best practice in cooperation, exercise restraint in only selecting the product tags that are highly relevant for customers searching for your product. This is to prevent collections from being flooded with off-topic items. We expect in most cases this is likely only 1 or 2 high-level categories in addition to sub-categories.
At the bottom of each listing are “Custom Fields.” They provide important search/filter data to help customers find what they’re looking for. We require accuracy and a good faith effort at truthfulness in filling out these additional qualifiers. Further details about each of these are in the How to Add and Edit Products Guide.