Is Tindie being actively developed or is the platform on maintenance mode only?

The community forums here see very little traffic and there is no indication that this platform is under any kind of development whatsoever. There are threads going back 5 years about the API and suggestions made as recently as 2018 that new features were in the works coming soon.

Here we are in 2020, and I still have no way to mark an order shipped or provide tracking information. Is this platform under any development or are we in maintenance mode here? Are there developers working on Tindie today? Is there a roadmap?

More to the point - I’ve been waiting around for a couple years for these promised features, time I could have spent building up a store on a platform which is actually being developed.

Couple weeks with no response is the answer I had expected.

For any potential sellers: keep this in mind.

For my orders, I have the ability to add tracking numbers which then marks the order as shipped. In fact, only by doing so am I able to get paid for my orders. Is this not how Tindie works for you?

The key word here being “API”, meaning a way to do this programatically like every other online storefront site on the internet. Probably should have made that clearer in the title.

With the current Tindie API I can pull all my orders for day via a script. It will then use the Shipstation API to purchase and print postage for all the days shipments. The Shipstation API then allows me to export the resulting tracking numbers for each order. What we’re missing is a way for a script to take that information and send it back to Tindie, to mark each shipment as “shipped”, and to fill in the tracking info if available.

The current process is manual which is fine if you’re low-volume or not lazy. I’m not selling crazy amounts of stuff, but I’m super lazy, and clicking around in a web UI is driving me nuts. My code is currently at the state where paid postage labels print out of my printer automatically as orders come in. The last step is feeding that info back into Tindie and which would result in a fully hands-off process.

Ah, Yeah, sorry for the confusion. I saw API at the start of your post and then forgot about it by the end. I understand your frustration. I only have to deal with a handful of orders each week right now; so, the manual method isn’t TOO much work.

Hello @luma,

We have fallen behind with checking the forum, but will make a renewed effort to check it from now on. You’ll always get the fastest response if you email hello@tindie.com.

When Tindie was started, it was envisioned for small-batch indie electronics, so a lot of the functionality to sell at scale was not included. TBH - this lack of functionality has helped keep a lot of mass producers off the platform. However, we do realize that both e-commerce and manufacturing technology has moved on and we do need to up our game and make it a lot easier for sellers.

Tindie is still growing and is still the best place to find unique creator made electronics. You can, of course, make your own store, use eBay, amazon or crowdfund your products, but we are still easier and cheaper than many places for people to make the first steps in selling online. We do want to develop Tindie so that sellers don’t graduate off Tindie because of the manual admin overhead or any other reason.

We have one developer, so things do take time. If you would like to be one of the beta testers for the new API, please let me know and I will add you to the list.

Thanks for selling on Tindie and staying with us!

I’d like to echo the sentiment that Tindie has made it stupid simple for a basement hacker like myself to fire up an online presence and sell a few widgets. It’s for this reason that I’d prefer to stay on the platform, and I’m happy to hear that there is in fact work being done to close some of the gaps in API functionality.

Thanks @jasminebrackett!

I’m still getting this vibe that Tindie isn’t that important to the current owners. It’s totally the opposite of what I thought the platform would become after the acquisition. I look at comparable niche market places and just think how unfortunate it is that Tindie isn’t able to keep pace with the features and technology. I would have loved to see them partner with shipping services and fulfilment centers to really make it a contender. Our business got off the ground because of Tindie but the lack of features for sellers forced us to move to other markets and we now only do a fraction of the business we use to with Tindie. I hope you all find a second wind and do something with this unique website. COVID-19 has forced a change in buyer behavior and people are getting more and more comfortable buying from sites other than Amazon. Sellers are in tune with this fact and are looking harder at 3PLs for their own woocommerce and shopify stores and other non-amazon marketplaces. None of those markets are as niche as Tindie and so it feels like a massive missed opportunity to provide a feature rich one stop shop for all things DIY Electronics. I’d like to see more marketing / advertisement opportunities, shipping integration, 3PL integration and more social interactions with the sellers.

As a customer who has been browsing Tindie for a few years… I’ve definately seen people become successful and migrate to other places, while maintaining their Tindie store.

I guess this is one of the reasons why.

Sounds like you’re leaving money on the table Tindie.

Our dedicated team is small and we’re doing our best. I’m afraid we’re definitely unable to compare to woocommerce who has over 150 people, and Shopify which is worldwide and over 5000 people.

This year has been especially turbulent and we’ve had to make developments to handle unexpected behaviours. This especially has delayed work on the Order API, and updated Order Status information on Tindie. As well as Shipping Quote Integration, and Tax management.

If you’re thinking about leaving Tindie or have left, what is your biggest pain point?

For us the worst part of course is paypal-only restriction - it costs us a lot of money (we pay more than tindie fees on middleman services) and it makes impossible to do business legally if we’ll significantly increase sales, so we don’t really promote our devices until we can find a good alternative - and then we’ll promote them elsewhere.

Please let me know your preferred provider on this discussion (click on link to reply in that thread):

I’d like to get added to an api beta test, please.

Me too, but another year has gone by with no sign of any changes or development of the platform at all. I also requested beta access last year, never heard back.

Adjust expectations accordingly.

Ah, that’s a real shame.

I like Tindie a lot, but the processing of orders is pretty tedious at the moment. It could be so much smoother with some API tweaks, if Tindie’s limited development resource could add a couple of these small features like ‘mark as dispatched’, then someone in the community could make some tools that leverage the API and post them on github. I’d be happy to do this.

I hear that! That’s the specific feature I was looking for when I posted this thread last year. Maybe we get lucky in 2022

In additional to integrating Wise, we are also working on:

• new order API (with marked as shipped)
• showing order status to buyers and sellers
• shipping integration
• tax handling

Thanks!

I hope that international tax handling is the highest priority because things are coming to a head in the UK and EU for shippers from the USA. Currently, the UK seems to not be enforcing their new regulations but that will not last. EU has similar regulations coming on line in July 21. I’m USA based and fully half of my customers are international. Most of them are in the UK/EU. For the around 10% cut that Tindie takes, I’d really like to see some support here. I don’t mind dealing with the tax myself but there is currently no way to charge tax (or any other surcharge) based on buyer’s location.

They are certainly not leaving money on the table if they only have one developer!

Still no answer today for my many message to TINDIE service… as I have already my company website hosting, I am now looking to open my own shop with woocommerce. This DIY platform for electronics was a good idea, I do regret that they seem not be there to drive it anymore.