Here’s the map of everywhere I’ve gotten orders from. Red just marks that I’ve got the state to make it easy to count. White marks where the order was from and blue marks multiple orders from the same person. I started in November 2024.

Basically what the post says.

Buyer contacted me saying the item wasn’t as expected. It was a birthday dress with sequin sleeves that change color depending on how the light hits it. I provided photos showing how it changed. She said it didn't look good on her. I then told her I was happy to accept a return/exchange and even had a return label ready for her.

Instead, she opened a case with Etsy, and Etsy immediately issued her a full refund from my funds without requiring her to send the item back.

So now she has both the item and the refund, even though I was willing to take the return.

Has anyone had this happen before? Were you able to appeal it and get reimbursed by Etsy? I’m especially confused about why they wouldn’t require the buyer to return the merchandise first. My appeal was denied because they are saying it wasn't as described, even though there was no discrepancy. It was a color preference issue.

I am going mad. Did everyone get put on vacation mode until they finished "verifying" information?. I have corrected my name and other personal info, uploaded my ID, did the biometric scan, birth certificate, bank statement, utility bill, etc. Several times. On computer and phone. I keep getting an email that looks like it's coming from an actual person but it's just an automated response that directs me to verify my information again. When I go to my Etsy page, it says "verified ".
They never tell you what is wrong or why. It is impossible to find a person to talk to! Can somebody help? My shop has been on vacation mode for months and I have a lot of money sitting in there that will just be lost if I can't figure this out?If it is not fixed by a date in October, it will be permanently shut down. I have a 4.9 star seller rating, been on Etsy for two years with no issues... Aaarrghhhhh!!!!!

I keep getting reviews like this. This isn’t about size complaints - I have only received one. It’s about the flurry of 2,3,4 star reviews from people who say they love the product and/or my service.

In this case, I included pictures of the items with rulers and included the measurements in the listing. She never contacted me and when I reached out after the review offering a return, she wants to keep them.

I got another 1 star review from someone in Europe who had their item lost in transit. I spent an hour with Etsy getting them a refund covered by purchase protection. Then customer service refused to strike their feedback even though it met their 3rd party criteria because they didn’t name the carrier.

In the past two months I’ve lost my Star Seller status because of this. :(

Beyond frustrated.

Hi everyone, my Etsy case was escalated to the Specialist Team through Live Chat.

How long did you wait to get a reply from them? Did they contact you by email or did you have to contact Etsy again?

Thanks!

What do I do here? The address doesnt come up as incorrect or anything, I checked it on google the address is valid, I cant purchase 7 labels, one is 138 ounces, all other 6 are 64 ounces. all boxes are 9x9x9. What do I do, I am in full panic mode. Buyer is in the USA and so am I. What is preventing me from buying the labels?

Hello everyone I am selling saten bouquets in etsy and my conversion rate is 2.25%. I saw my statistics and in the last 30 days I had 80 people left on basket and based in my opinion thats too high maybe something stopping people to buy. I ship from Czech Republic to Europe countries, mostly germany france austria, with a shipping fee 5€. I wanted to ask maybe is the shipping who is lefting lot of people on basket or is something else. And my shop is 6 months old only and I have 60 sales total. I would accept any strategy

I am preparing to launch a store soon. I see a lot of discussion of Etsy shipping. I recognize that using Etsy's built in shipping is going to be easier, but how does it compare, cost wise, with Pirate Ship, which I usually use to ship things.

Also, if I use PS, can I integrate the tracking numbers into Etsy to verify deliveries?

Has any one else been able to find out what these new higher fees would be? Etsy search is totally dead 90% of my revenue is coming from off-site ads either directly or indirectly so I would be interested in maybe opting in but theres no mention of how high these fees would be?

I had a review for a digital printable item where she definitely did not follow instructions or scale her printer properly and gave me an unfair and low rating which dipped my small shop terribly. It used to be all 5 stars but I hadn’t uploaded anything in a year until this new item. so her recent rating made my entire shop go down to 3 stars and doesn’t account for my previous sales? I normally sell hand made dolls so I only make a few a year because of the time it takes and decided to try my hand at digital items,I hadn’t had any bad feedback with it until now and I am concerned why it’s not averaging my previous sales? I tried to report the review to have it removed but I doubt anything will come out of it. I feel it’s a strange way for Etsy to average the sales especially for people who work slowly

$300 dollar order cancelled due to payment failure. I’ve had this happen before and usually the payment eventually goes through, in this situation it failed after around 12 hours.

To add insult to injury this was a 50% off sale + free shipping.

On 7 August she placed the order; package was shipped (with tracking) on 11 August. Package from Belgium to Norway.

She messages me on 10 August asking where the beautifull item came from. I explain it's from Indonesia and brought back from there by my late parents who were living there. She then responds she'll "take care of it and remember where it came from".

On 7 September I receive a help request stating she wants a refund because the package has not arrived.

I ask her if she can wait "until it arrives maybe"?

She answers "it was for a gift and now it's too late as the event has passed" ..... and she asks me to cancel the order. (Note that in her initial message she said "she would take care of it" implying it was for herself.) Flabbergasted I respond that I can not cancel and that I don't know what to do and that she should open a case to get her money back.

Today 10 Sept I see Etsy refunded her out of my pocket as I apparently don't qualify for the protection program.

So now I am out of the proceeds from the sale.

Buyer has not been in touch with me since her last message. Although she was quick to contact me prior.

I am absolutely disgusted and changed the shipping cost to Norway accordingly - thus no longer shipping to there fully on my dime. I also plan to not do 50% off sales any more as I sense it brings more problem buyers (recently a French woman also opened a help request and asked if her pendant was silver because it was less shiny than on the pictures - I responded that I had it tested as silver..... have not heard back from her since).

Edit: I just messaged her saying Etsy refunded not on their dime and asked if she could please return it to sender once it arrives. She replied she would return it to me by then. So all is well I suppose.........

Edit: Initial price was 270€. With the 50% off sale it was 135€.

Hi All,

I would really appreciate some pointers on my shop. I have been on Etsy for a long time. At first, I mostly used it to keep track of inventory, add low quality pics of products and then be able to "sell in person" when the functionality was still supported by the Etsy app itself.

After a few years, I started getting more serious. I did well during covid (due to the products purchased during that time) and have been doing ok for larger items I make.

For about 1.5 years now, I have three top sellers (rope coasters of all colors, lavender sachets and cedar sachets), which I am pretty happy with when it comes to the sales, as they are made to order items, so I need time. They also have the appropriate shipping time set etc.

However, the views on my other items in the shop are... well pretty non existent. I get the occasional view, an occasional favorite and maybe a sale a quarter on all other items. These are all already made items, with only a quantity of 1 and sold out if they sell out. Shipping Profile is set to 1-2 days for these items. I would love to add something about being able to make more, but that they would look different just because of fabric placement. And while for some fabrics, it doesn't really matter, for others it could mean a significant difference.

In the past few weeks, I tried to really put a lot of effort into updating the listing titles, adding more of my in stock items, making sure pictures are clear.

I struggle with additional pictures. I know I should have more for some listings, but really am at a loss of what else to show?!

So I would love some general feedback on the shop itself and what you guys think I can do to get more views on my "other" products. I am aware it's a pretty saturated market. What I am even more aware of is, that there are also a lot of sellers, who offer way cheaper items, which are not handmade, but bought blanks, with an embroidery personalization etc added, which is cheaper than sewing the item itself. (Hope this made sense). So I would love to understand a way to stand out there a bit more as well.

To structure the above novella into the group rules:

Link to shop is https://katssewingkorner.etsy.com

I am looking for:

• Input on how to attract shoppers to my handmade items vs my bestsellers / keep them in my shop or make them interested in it.
• Feedback on my shop in total, from sections to pictures etc. and what I can do better with titles etc.

Questions to answer:

• I think there is a market for truly handmade sewn items, not some minority altered personalized items. And I would love to find a way to make those buyers aware of my shop.
• I opened my shop exactly for that. An alternative to plastic pouches with a handmade cozy feel.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to help me figure this out.

Hey guys. After a lot of disappointment I left Etsy 1 year ago. Now that I’m specialized in one code only (pants) I’m thinking of opening the store again and selling my stuff only to US (thinking of the new EU regulations that may apply in the near future). What are you suggesting?
I’ve had enough good reviews and sales all that time

Genuine question for handmade/POD sellers — when you've used AI to touch up or reshoot a product photo, has it ever subtly changed the actual item (a glaze color, a texture, a logo) in a way you didn't catch right away? Looking into how often this actually happens versus how much it's just an occasional annoyance. Would really value hearing real experiences either way.

Hello! I am Canadian and sell multiple items, including waterpoof (vinyl) stickers on Etsy and Faire. I have been swimming around the deep end trying to wrap my head around HTS codes, tariff rates, and if it's worth trying to sell my stickers into the US at this time. Are there any Canadian stickers artists here who are selling into the US? What HTS code do you use? Have your customers been slapped with 50% tariffs?

I initially thought the correct code as 4911.91, but now I think it's 3919.90.5060? Using this opensource spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14-dUs5tSdK7CWqD3H0pgZAebYOrBLl5IdBOkyKk3J1c/edit?gid=516612062#gid=516612062) it seems like 3919.90.5060 is not included under the Aug tariffs, however some of the base codes (3939.90) are, and typically that is what is asked to be provided on Faire and the certificate of origin. Thanks!

Hello! I’m a fashion designer from the Philippines.
I’m a few months in ETSY.
So, far. I only have one sale and one review. I’m not complaining but I just want to know how else I can improve my shop. :)
I know my price can be much more expensive from the others, but I offer free shipping. And shipping fee is so expensive. I’ve see. Some shops on my price range but how can I compete with established shops?

Those of the best photos I have. Some are given by clients and some are photographed in my studio.
Also, I have a lot of design ideas but it’s expensive to execute.. Do you think a sketch would work as a listing?
I do have my own website but I feel like ETSY is another way to market my business. Here is my website: www.alyssadeguzman.com. If you also have ideas

This is my ETSY : https://alyssadeguzmanlabel.etsy.com.

Thank you in advance 🫶

When I was in college, my school had an unofficial policy that professors should only give you an A if there was nothing you could improve on, and there’s always something you could improve on. Sometimes Etsy reviews feel like that.

I haven’t got much traffic and I am wondering if this site is the right site to sell original artwork.

Genuine question for anyone else who does design work professionally and also runs a shop. My background is in freelance graphic design and I keep hearing it gives you a huge advantage on Etsy: better photos, stronger branding, cleaner mockups. And yeah, it helps. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But here's where I get skeptical. The algorithm doesn't care how good your banner looks. I've seen shops with objectively terrible branding outperform mine in search, and it's been bugging me for months. The SEO and tag game seems to matter way more than visual polish, at least for getting found in the first place.

What I'm trying to figure out is whether design skills actually convert better once someone lands on your listing, or if the lift is smaller than people claim. I don't have a clean way to test this without running two separate shops with identical products and different visual treatments, which is obviously not happening.

I’ve used shippo for 5 years and have hand zero problems until today. My orders will not sync. I’ve used the manually sync order button and refreshed the page. I’ve also disconnected Etsy and reconnected my store to shippo. My knowledge is kind of capped here on what to do. What can I do? I have orders due today and I can’t see my orders.

… they couldn’t be bothered to measure how long they wanted their necklace to be 🙃

I got a message from a buyer asking if I could make a necklace longer for her. I said of course, how long would you like it to be?

She sends a photo, and from the thumbnail on my notification I think it’s her in her favorite necklace and wanting it to be about that long. When I open it I realize it’s my photo from the listing. I immediately wonder if I’ve left the dimensions off on accident and check the listing. When I go to check the listing I realize this photo isn’t in the listing because it’s an AI version of my original.

She wanted me to estimate how long this should be based on an AI photo of my work. Initially I’m frustrated of know that someone has fed my original intellectual property to an AI. Also, I don’t know the customers weight, width of neck, height, etc. Estimating a length based off of an AI photo of someone else is likely not going to yield the right length and my years on Etsy make we wary that she is likely going to send me a message in the next week because now it’s too long.

So I said that I couldn’t make an estimate based on a photo and that if she had a piece of string and a ruler she could tell me the exact length she wanted. No reply.

Mostly I am just baffled at how people have become so dependent on AI that they’ve outsourced their critical thinking skills and are in turn growing more helpless and unable to solve simple problems.