Received a 'gift' pattern via Ravelry today? Let me explain...

Since I stopped using Ravelry’s cart on this website and switched to Payhip, whilst we wait for the new website build, one thing I’ve been keen to do is merge my 2 Ravelry stores. I’ve managed to do that today, albeit not in the most straightforward way, by gifting your purchases from one Ravelry Pro account to another.

Before I go any further, let me provide a bit of background information.

I used to have a Ravelry shopping cart on this website, but I removed it when they launched their new site which caused migraines, seizures and more for many users. The current cart runs alongside my Payhip store but that’ll eventually be replaced when the new site is ready.

When I used the Ravelry cart, and because I wanted to sell in €€ on this site and $$ on Ravelry, I needed to create a 2nd Ravelry Pro account - what’s known as a ‘publisher account’. I really didn’t need most of it’s features but it allowed me to offer 2 different currencies which was mighty helpful to a lot of folks, although it wasn’t without it’s issues.

These 2 Ravelry Pro accounts - what essentially is my designer account and my publisher account - are not connected at all. They’re entirely separate back-end. Which has meant 2 lots of uploads for me, 2 lots of coupon codes, 2 lots of fees, 2 lots of updates and more. It was worth it to maintain the option of an alternative currency but that 2nd account is now completely redundant.

Fast forward to now, with me having reformatted all of my single patterns in their shiny new layout with their fancy new ISBNS, I’m needing to merge these 2 accounts before I start updating all the files. This is often talked about on the Ravelry forums and designers are advised to email staff to request a merge. Except when I emailed in I was told it simply wasn’t possible and forum users were misinformed.

Which is a shame, as I didn’t want folks who’d purchased through that account to miss out on the new pattern versions, or any updates for that matter.

Logistically, I can’t maintain both stores. Our internet isn’t great at the best of times and I’m one of the folks affected by Ravelry’s new site. I’m not affected as badly as others and yes I use some of the free skins that generous coders have created, but none of the options - whether they be Ravelry’s native options or the skins or browser plug-ins - do much for the Pro area. And the Pro area is where I spend most of my time when I’m on Ravelry.

And briefly to pre-empt any questions: yes the accessibility issue is real, no Ravelry haven’t fixed it, yes I’ve tried all the options and no we’re not Maga Trolls. There’s a lot been written about this already by many folks more knowledgeable than me :)

And so the only way for me to realistically manage this - to ensure customers who purchased through the old €€ account get their updates - is to manually transfer all of the purchases with Ravelry usernames to my main $$ store. It’s a big task, but much much easier than trying to maintain 2 stores in the long run.

I’m only doing this for active Ravelry accounts as these transferred purchases appear as gifts from me and I don’t want to be sending download emails to folks who’ve closed their accounts because they no longer can use the site. Many folks may have purchased via the old cart without using a Ravelry username but unfortunately there’s no way for me to know the difference, and so I’m being cautious and only transferring and sending updates to active Ravelry accounts, not email addresses.

I’m able to send an item to many recipients at once although the system is a little slow when there’s hundreds of purchases for one pattern. And it’s likely that you may receive several gift notifications but I’ve no real other way, besides posting here and in my Ravelry group, of letting everyone know what’s going on with their Ravelry purchases. Please accept my apologies for the extra emails or any concern!

If you’ve received a download email and you don’t remember purchasing the pattern, it’s possible you used one of the newsletter coupon codes that gave you a free pattern of mine. Or maybe a friend bought it for you as a gift. Or maybe you purchased it a long time ago and don’t really remember. Unfortunately I can’t help with any of that, but I can assure you that that pattern or eBook was already attached to your Ravelry username. All that’s happening here is that the pattern, that you already have in your Ravelry library, is being transferred from one Ravelry store to the other to ensure you get the latest updates. It’ll appear as a duplicate in your library and you’ll likely get a fresh download email but you won’t have been charged anything extra :)

eta/ I’m looking at options for folks who can no longer use Ravelry, or didn’t have active accounts when they purchased, to receive the patterns and therefore updates they’re entitled to. I haven’t forgotten you at all, I promise!

That’ll take a little more work and it’s not something I can really do until I’ve got the new website functioning properly. Once that’s in place, we may set up a google form or something so that you can tell us how you’d like me to proceed. Everyone who purchases a pattern through the Ravelry system signs up for updates via the Ravelry system, so this was easier to do on that front.

I do hope this is all clear, my eyes are mighty sore already from doing so much back-end on Ravelry today!

eta2/ I’ve updated this post to re-iterate that no-one’s getting charged anything extra for this. I appreciate this has concerned a few folks and I am very sorry about that! But the download email is showing “you’ve received a pattern from Woolly Wormhead” and not “you’ve purchased a pattern from Woolly Wormhead”.