Wearing the PPS Shawl.
A lot has happened over the last few weeks. The sudden upgrade of Ravelry and the attendant concern and dismay over it’s continued inaccessibility to many have continued apace, and despite some blog posts and half-apologies from Jess and the team there has been very little meaningful progress.
Many people can no longer use the site and this is, put simply not acceptable.
I have talked about this a lot on Twitter and in other social media but I realised that I haven’t stated my position plainly here, in black and white, for posterity.
As things stand at the moment I cannot support Ravelry, nor the decisions taken by the management team. Repeated attempts to engage with them at all levels have failed and it is clear at this point that no amount of ‘people expressing disappointment’ will shake their firm conviction to proceed with their new look.
With this in mind the only option left to me is not to support them financially. I can’t afford to close my pro account - my pattern sales are still significant there and I am a business at the end of the day. As soon as there is a viable alternative I will move but for now I will continue to push sales on my Payhip platform as hard as I can and to continue to pay the (hopefully small) Ravelry sales invoice.
In addition I will not purchase any patterns from the site. If I find a pattern I like and the designer doesn’t appear to have an alternative platform available then I will ask them if they will sell it to me via Paypal.
I haven’t advertised on the site for several years now so this bit isn’t relevant to me but I notice that many designers have withheld their advertising budget - and also the coveted September slots which used to sell out in record time are still currently showing as half-filled. Advertising revenue accounts for 50% of Ravelry’s income so this is the most effective way of attracting their attention.
If you haven’t tried Payhip before, please don’t be put off. It’s a simple Paypal transaction just like you would do with Ravelry. The only difference is that the pattern PDF is emailed to you rather than going into your Ravelry library. But in any case, in order to be sure you can access your purchases it’s always good practice to keep a copy of your PDF - either paper or digitally - after all, if Ravelry were to be unavailable to you then you wouldn’t be able to access the patterns you have paid for. If having the pattern in your library is important to you however, please do let me know after your purchase and I’ll happily gift it to you.
In order to tempt you to try it out I am having a Payhip sale from now until the end of August. Please just use the code PAYHIP50 on any of my patterns for 50% off
