Tindie down?

[phil from seattle]

It appears that tindie is down.  Been that way for almost 24 hrs.  There is an error page with their logo that says they are doing scheduled maintenance but I didn't see any notification prior to them going down yesterday mid-morning. Internet searches turn up nothing recent and DownForEveryone reports them being down, too.

Hopefully they will come back up, they owe me money.

[phil from seattle]

Quick update.  I sent them a message yesterday and they finally got back with this message:

Please be patient, as we do not currently have an estimated timeframe to provide.

Needless to say, not the most reassuring...

[visrealm]

Whatever is going on hasn't been handled well at all. Luckily, I disbursed earlier this week, so I only have a couple of unpaid orders, but still... They just need to talk to us.

[phil from seattle]

Whatever is going on hasn't been handled well at all. Luckily, I disbursed earlier this week, so I only have a couple of unpaid orders, but still... They just need to talk to us.

Yeah, not well at all.  They've been slipping in the last year or so.  Orders showing up not notification, Later notification of orders (one popped up a week after the order date) and slow customer service replies.  I disbursed fairly recently and was sold out on my most popular product so not a huge sum. Still...

[liudr]

I have an order caught during this. Wondering if any official channel is saying anything or they all disappeared.

[liudr]

Oopsies, someone has noticed this.

[phil from seattle]

Oopsies, someone has noticed this.

Yeah, I got the same email.  They've been emailing me every 6 months or so for quite a while.

Tindie is still down, btw.

[aeg]

I get the impression that since the Siemens acquisition, Tindie has had a skeleton crew handling customer service and no technical staff at all. Maybe even before the Siemens acquisition.

I placed an order a week or two ago, and they seemed to be having infra problems at that time. Images not loading, multiple attempts required to add items to cart, two attempts needed to complete checkout.

Apparently Tindie was down for a while in mid December also.

They've been sending a tone-deaf, and probably AI generated, response to people who inquire by email:

Hi there!

Thanks so much for reaching out – we completely understand that seeing our "down for maintenance" page can be a bit of a surprise! We truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we work behind the scenes.

We know how important Tindie is to your work and we sincerely apologize for any disruption this downtime might be causing. Please know that this is maintenance that will benefit our sellers and buyers alike, and we're working incredibly hard to get Tindie back online as quickly as possible.

Think of this as a significant "spring cleaning" and a bit of a glow-up for Tindie! We're laying the groundwork for some really exciting improvements and enhancements that we believe will make your experience even better, more efficient, and more enjoyable in the long run.

While we can't share all the sparkling details just yet, we promise it's all in the spirit of making Tindie an even more incredible place for you to connect with customers and showcase your products.

We're just as eager as you are to unveil what's coming, so please check back soon for updates!
Thank you for being such a valued part of our community. Your support means the world to us!

Best,
David
Supplyframe Support

They've posted two updates on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/tindiecom/):

Tindie is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance as part of a platform transition. The team is working to bring the site back online as soon as possible. We appreciate the patience of our sellers, buyers, and community during this process.

The goal of the current maintenance is to fix a lot of long-standing issues with the site. The underlying infrastructure was getting very fragile as technical debt accumulated over time. A team is working very hard right now to make sure that once the site is back up, it's on much better footing and will be solid and reliable for the long term. Despite the unfortunate amount of time this is taking, it will be a major benefit to the site in the long run.
We want to offer a much better quality of service going foward. We understand that the lack of communication has been frustrating, and I have been closely watching social media and reporting the community's feelings up the chain, so your voices are being heard. The plan was not to have a long outage like this, but due to factors beyond the dev team's control, things have taken much longer than anticipated. Please be patient with us - I will keep updating here and on our other social media.

My impression is that the unannounced "scheduled maintenance" is a total lie. Probably the site stopped working and they don't have the capability to fix it, so they're trying to spin up a replacement.

Despite the negativity expressed above, I'd like to see them succeed.

[Nogtail]

I’ve been having issues with their site for months - images not loading, unable to edit product/store settings, spam on their forums being left up for weeks, etc. A couple of months ago, I finally decided to bite the bullet and move my products to a Shopify store. Tindie was honestly a better platform for where I am at the moment, but the constant issues and lack of communication forced me to go elsewhere, and the extended downtime certainly isn’t making me regret my decision.

[GregC]

I’ve been having issues with their site for months - images not loading, unable to edit product/store settings...

Yes, I noticed this too.  Particularly images constanty not loading, and time-outs whenever I tried to update a product.

I finally decided to bite the bullet and move my products to a Shopify store. Tindie was honestly a better platform for where I am at the moment, but the constant issues and lack of communication forced me to go elsewhere, and the extended downtime certainly isn’t making me regret my decision.

I'm really interested in how this is going for you?

I've considered the same several times, but I'm mostly concerned about the loss of traffic!
i.e. Although financially, it might seem to make sense (Shopify versus Tindie fees), if you significantly drop sales due to loosing the Tindie enthusiast traffic, then you are kindof stuck with Tindie.

I previously had eBay listings, but after they dropped PayPal support and made fursther changes, I worked out my fees were approaching almost 50%!!!
Well, enough to make it non-justifiable.  I'd either have to price myself out of the market, or, just slave away for free with any profit going to eBay.

I've also looked at Lectronz, but thay seem to have very little traffic (one seller I bought from 4 years ago, is now only showing 2 sales, in total!).
Although, I imagine the current Tindie situation is seeing a lot of sellers (and buyers), head over to Lectronz!
Also, I understand they don't support PayPal?

[L1L1]

I've also looked at Lectronz, but thay seem to have very little traffic (one seller I bought from 4 years ago, is now only showing 2 sales, in total!).
Although, I imagine the current Tindie situation is seeing a lot of sellers (and buyers), head over to Lectronz!
Also, I understand they don't support PayPal?

Lectronz traffic is very much seller-specific, especially for sellers that are on both platforms (Tindie and Lectronz). Some sellers remain identified as "Tindie Sellers" and get most of their traffic from Tindie, while others have become more identified as "Lectronz Sellers" over time and get bigger sales from Lectronz.

Lectronz currently does not support PayPal and instead relies on Stripe. This has several advantages: for example, sellers can get daily disbursement if they wish, and they can control precisely which payment methods they accept (GooglePay, ApplePay, iDEAL, etc.).

[phil from seattle]

I don't think much of my sales come from Tindie itself.  I market on social media in enthusiast groups and it works ok. Doing any kind of search on my products brings up my pages well before the Tindie ones. When (er, if) then come back, I will sell on both Tindie and through my shopify store I'm setting up now.  All my web pages and promotion will point to the Shopify site so we will see just how many come from Tindie alone. One big advantage of moving to Shopify is that I can control my shipping rates way better - Tindie's are utterly crude. Also, Tindie doesn't handle US sales tax at all and I've gotten to the point where I need to start dealing with that.

As to why they are down.  Planned maintenance is such a blatant lie - there was zero notification.  If I had to point to a reason, I'd put money on they got massively hacked. And a new version coming - utterly lame. Any even vaguely competent organization would do a new version in parallel with a planned switch over process.  AND plenty of warning about it happening.

Also, given that they are dependent on their sellers, the lack of any communication process is utterly maddening.

I’ve been having issues with their site for months - images not loading, unable to edit product/store settings...

Yes, I noticed this too.  Particularly images constanty not loading, and time-outs whenever I tried to update a product.

I finally decided to bite the bullet and move my products to a Shopify store. Tindie was honestly a better platform for where I am at the moment, but the constant issues and lack of communication forced me to go elsewhere, and the extended downtime certainly isn’t making me regret my decision.

I'm really interested in how this is going for you?

I've considered the same several times, but I'm mostly concerned about the loss of traffic!
i.e. Although financially, it might seem to make sense (Shopify versus Tindie fees), if you significantly drop sales due to loosing the Tindie enthusiast traffic, then you are kindof stuck with Tindie.

I previously had eBay listings, but after they dropped PayPal support and made fursther changes, I worked out my fees were approaching almost 50%!!!
Well, enough to make it non-justifiable.  I'd either have to price myself out of the market, or, just slave away for free with any profit going to eBay.

I've also looked at Lectronz, but thay seem to have very little traffic (one seller I bought from 4 years ago, is now only showing 2 sales, in total!).
Although, I imagine the current Tindie situation is seeing a lot of sellers (and buyers), head over to Lectronz!
Also, I understand they don't support PayPal?

[5U4GB]

Oopsies, someone has noticed this.

Interesting, I wasn't aware that Elecrow was doing a Tindie-style marketplace.  Has anyone used it to buy or sell?  How does it compare to Tindie?

[universal-solder]

We gave Elecrow a try already 2 years ago, and it is a streamlined, simple process. We had them manufacture a few hundred pieces of one of our products and let them keem half of them to sell through their own platform. It's a no-brainer. But you need to let them take care of production.

[phil from seattle]

We gave Elecrow a try already 2 years ago, and it is a streamlined, simple process. We had them manufacture a few hundred pieces of one of our products and let them keem half of them to sell through their own platform. It's a no-brainer. But you need to let them take care of production.

What are their costs like? My product has several kits for additional features - do they have that capability?

[Nogtail]

I'm really interested in how this is going for you?

I've considered the same several times, but I'm mostly concerned about the loss of traffic!
i.e. Although financially, it might seem to make sense (Shopify versus Tindie fees), if you significantly drop sales due to loosing the Tindie enthusiast traffic, then you are kindof stuck with Tindie.

I previously had eBay listings, but after they dropped PayPal support and made fursther changes, I worked out my fees were approaching almost 50%!!!
Well, enough to make it non-justifiable.  I'd either have to price myself out of the market, or, just slave away for free with any profit going to eBay.

I've also looked at Lectronz, but thay seem to have very little traffic (one seller I bought from 4 years ago, is now only showing 2 sales, in total!).
Although, I imagine the current Tindie situation is seeing a lot of sellers (and buyers), head over to Lectronz!
Also, I understand they don't support PayPal?

At the volume I’m dealing with, Shopify and Tindie fees are pretty similar. I actually suspect Shopify is a bit more expensive for me. Tindie takes a higher percentage of each sale, but you’d have to sell a decent amount to offset Shopify’s monthly fees.

Shopify gives much more control over shipping rates and can automatically collect taxes/tariffs. My workaround with Tindie was to have a higher shipping rate for the U.S. to cover the tariffs. The only major issue I’ve had with Shopify so far is them pushing out an update that broke my store. Updating my theme fixed the issue, but introduced more problems in the process. I ended up having to write a bunch of CSS to patch things up until they released another fix.

I think a decent portion of my traffic came from within Tindie. I’m not very good at marketing, so the sales boost that came from Tindie’s front page or their blog posts was really helpful. I’ve tried making YouTube videos featuring my products, but I haven’t had much success in getting sales from them.

I’ve also considered creating a Lectronz store. From what I’ve seen, they handle taxes/tariffs way better than Tindie does (did?)

[5U4GB]

I’ve also considered creating a Lectronz store. From what I’ve seen, they handle taxes/tariffs way better than Tindie does (did?)

Just been looking there myself, they've got a pretty good selection.  Does anyone know how they order their product listings, or whether there's any way to order by date?  ATM it's just 50 pages of random stuff in (presumably) random order.

Updated to answer my own question: Use https://lectronz.com/products?o=newest

[phil from seattle]

I think a decent portion of my traffic came from within Tindie. I’m not very good at marketing, so the sales boost that came from Tindie’s front page or their blog posts was really helpful. I’ve tried making YouTube videos featuring my products, but I haven’t had much success in getting sales from them.

Are there any social media sites that have people who might be customers?  I've had excellent results from a couple of facebook groups related to my products.  I don't advertise, per se, but rather respond to questions or problems that might benefit from my products.  I also spend more than a couple of hours a week on these groups being helpful to people interested in the area.  Established myself as someone knowledgeable and helpful. I keep looking at Reddit as another place to focus on but need to get a store back in order.

Phil

[booscrawl]

Almost definitely ransomware. Cost of doing business at a common watering hole; sometimes it fills with alligators.

[djos]

This is pretty frustrating, I'd ben considering moving to Lectronz for a while but hadn't out of laziness. Now I wish I'd at least backed up my product listing etc. 

My sales volumes don't justify a Shopify store, and my products aren't really suitable for selling via Elecrow.

[L1L1]

This is pretty frustrating, I'd ben considering moving to Lectronz for a while but hadn't out of laziness. Now I wish I'd at least backed up my product listing etc. 

You can use https://web.archive.org/ to find older versions of Tindie and retrieve product descriptions you lost.

[djos]

Thanks, I didn’t even consider trying that.

[epitaxial]

Has anyone purchased from Tindie? Once in a while I see something I like and it's always out of stock and never coming back.

[djos]

I have and have never had a bad experience.

I’ve also sold several thousand items over the years with no issues.

[phil from seattle]

Has anyone purchased from Tindie? Once in a while I see something I like and it's always out of stock and never coming back.

It's kind of a love-hate thing for me.  Sold a lot of stuff through them. They've been "choppy" lately even before the recent "maintenance" thing.