"If you are thinking of opening a Etsy shop, DO NOT. Avoid them at all costs. I run a shop on Etsy that has done tremendously well. They have run out of ways to grow their business without taking revenue from their shopkeepers. Read that again. They do not have your best interests in mind and their business goals are in direct conflict with yours. If you play that out, you have no leverage and will lose. This results in you giving them more money, more of your time, and leaves a feeling similar to working for a boss you don't like.
I have invested all of my marketing into a store elsewhere on my own domain and am now just counting down the days for when I finally shut it off if they don't do it beforehand. I have made 10x as much by NOT USING etsy. Do yourself a favor by not falling for the Etsy trap.
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"I have been selling on Etsy for over 4 years. We had thousands of orders. The customers were quite happy, the score of our shop was about 4.7 out of 5 !!! All the reviews were very positive, except for a few reviews for which we delivered the wrong items or for which the transporters lost the parcel or have delayed the delivery (nobody is perfect, we as a small workshop and company, do also mistakes and we always pro-actively compensate or refund customers whenever such issue happened). In 4 years, we had 4 disputes with customers (out of thousands of orders). All those disputes were due to the transporter's fault (shipping delays). Of course some customers are not willing to understand that WE ARE NOT working for the transporter, and that this situation annoys us as much as them... Regardless, Etsy BANNED US from selling on their store, despite us having a very good rating with our customers, and always trying to find solutions to please them. Etsy did not allow us to make any appeal or whatsoever. I woke up a morning reading an email saying that our store was banned, that I will never be able to open a store anymore on Etsy, and that they would not reply any of my emails after that. I find this treatment really not fair, respectful nor professional for a company listed on the NYSE ! After discussing with few other Etsy sellers, I realized that I was not the same in this case, and that Etsy's treatment to its sellers was quite unfair as MANY complained about similar issues, and about the fact to not be protected by Etsy. Some of the sellers on Etsy have been scammed by Etsy customers (received the product but also got their money back for invalid reasons), and Etsy did nothing about it. This is a shame for such company, and that clearly show how those big corporation really treat people. Etsy pretend to help small artisans and artists to develop their business, while the only thing they care about is their own profit and stock prices. Shame on Etsy, I will never sell nor buy anything from them again. "
"I purchased Personalised Birthday Card for £34.95 .I been told will be arrive in few day but amore than 2 weeks passed, I never received the item , They don't reply or respond any messages . I am contacting PayPal to get refund and it takes up to two weeks and lots of hassle to get my refund. Please don't waste your time and your money here . It is absolutely rubbish website and they have most poor customer Service ."
"I had started an Etsy shop back in 2011, and things were great until a few years back. Since then, Etsy has become increasingly not worth it, and sales from even the highest performing sister shops have dwindled. They have shamelessly increased fees at the cost of the sellers.
How many of these sellers are actually benefiting from these site wide changes? I will be looking into avenues that are more willing to listen to their sellers, and in the meantime selling on Instagram."
"They doesn't respect Sellers who paid for services, they suggest and force to add shipping costs to products, to add fees to product's price, they impact on sales as well on purchases - because there is no any support from Etsy side. They claim there is 24/7 support which is auto-reply in practice and if something was wrong you can do anything. From the moment when Etsy is corporation instead of hand made website it's going down.
Majority of products there is cheap stock from China, dropshipping from Aliexpress. You never know what you get; and you are unable to get your money back."
"I buy exclusively from amazon.com and eBay because I feel safe doing so. Both make sure my purchases are protected. Recently, I made a foray into Etsy. An item was broken on arrival, I asked for return postage. Seller coldly refused. Amazon.com and eBay sellers would do it when item arrived broken. I filed a case with Etsy, escalated it. The response was, ......from Etsy's Dispute Resolution team.
It seems that the order may have been damaged during shipment. As Etsy does not hold sellers responsible for orders that were damaged by the shipping carrier, we have closed this case.
Amazon.com and eBay would never have closed a case that way. I am going back to them, no more Etsy for me. I am a seller at amazon.com. Recently, an item I sent did not show delivery. I refund in full, product and shipping."
"I had someone impersonate me on ETSY.com(never found out who, think it was the seller, closed their seller store as soon as the transaction finished and they were paid) to purchase a (very cheaply made and obvious fake) Chanel Bag on Etsy.com. I had not used my account on there in years. Not only did I catch the charges immediately on this December night on Paypal, because I get immediate notifications from them on my phone, but my bank also, so I put in a case immediate. The issue, both institutions closed, it was nighttime. The fraudulent user had the item shipped to an unknown address(to me anyways), and then the seller closed the ETSY shop within an hour of doing the deed of accepting the funds $208. I mean how does any of this crap actually happen, and how did ETSY allow this to happen. And why didn't ETSY investigate their seller EVER and why didn't they reply to my emails to them, or to my account messages from my online account to them, not one single response EVER.
That is not acceptable at all.
I think the fraud of the $208.00 may have all been done by the Seller.
Anyways, I attempted to open cases with both Paypal and my banking institution. Paypal rejected my case, and stated since it came via email account and had a valid delivery address , that the case could although disputed was not able to be won by me, so I lost my funds,and the credit card bank did not get reimbursed, although they did a three month investigation. Etsy did absolutely ZERO. They did not reply to any of my or the banking institution emails at all. Nor did not mediate with the closed seller's store. It was almost like they are setup for fraudulent behavior of this type to happen. They would not even communicate with me at all.
They are absolutely useless.
Stay away from Etsy, they are not in the business of customer service or helping when a fraud is out to steal your hard earned dollars.
Please have my loss be your gain, I don't want anyone else to be taken advantage of the way I was, I am out $208.00 from ETSY and from PAYPAL. I have closed both accounts. Take my word for it, if there is a way to be taken advantage of by a fraudster, they will. Do not use ETSY, maybe and I say maybe, buy those throw away prepaid cards , don't attach any banking cards or Paypal to any online shopping platforms or any reputable online reseller that has a valid customer service department that is reputable! This is an example of what customer services isn't and ETSY has ZERO.
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"No way to contact the company. They suspend accounts after just a minute of activity. This is the culm of unserious companies in the internet that has grown to large for their own good.
Stay away if you care about your business."
"Avoid selling on this platform. This is the last straw for me, I am running an online boutique and I sell untreated Jade for example and have to compete with sellers lying that their jade is untreated and that is not right.
I sell other small goods and boutique gifts and some customers do not aknowledge a tracking number and begin extortion and sending threats of it if I do not do as they tell me.
The last instance is a customer in the USA, I sent them tracking number and they ignored me and wrote in another seperate message asking where it was more than once and then began sending me threats, they were trying to get the item free by pretending to not know what was going on, they left a 1 star review claiming the item was not at their house when tracking shows it was and a note was left and Etsy says that does not violate their policies.
This has happened more than once.
Etsy will leave you feeling bad as no matter how you try they will allow buyers to do this, add to that the amount of fakes, clear fakes one competes with it is not fit for use.
I will now have to leave after everything I have done on Etsy I am leaving and I reccommend others do too."
"Don't skip this review, I never left a negative in my life, but Etsy truly deserves a 0
I've been on Etsy for over 8 years. Over the 8 years. sold over 20,000 items, with 99.8% positive review score and was in the top 1% of sellers. In October of 2019, I've gotten my first negative review after 7 years, as the customer did not properly use it, guess what? Etsy threatened to close my store, FIRST NEGATIVE, not 20th, not 30th, but first. I told them ok, I will improve and try to make sure this doesn't happen. Hundreds of positive reviews later, someone calculated the size of the item wrongfully, contacted Etsy support and my shop got closed ???
You've got to be kidding me, not only that, they closed my family friends accounts as well, JUST BECAUSE they were somehow linked together. People that are completely irrelavent to my business, had their large businesses taken out because we were linked together. I finally reached Etsy on the phone, (once), and they told me that if I contact them again after this, they will report me to authorities and dropped the phone with no explanations. This is the saddest thing I've heard in my life, and I genuinely genuinely suggest for current sellers or future sellers to take their business elsewhere, since not only you will have 0 support (no seriously, its 0), but if by any chance someone will not be satisfied by your item / shipping time / delivery, Etsy will simply take you down. From what i see, Etsy only support Aliexpress or Alibaba resale Chinese accounts!!"
"Word of warning from an experienced Etsy Seller... I hired a VA from Upwork... Please take the time to read: Unfortunately Etsy privately punishes those of us who use VAs... I'm living proof. My VA had a little digital shop, completely harmless. However, Etsy suspended her shop and also suspended 5 of her employers. This happened to me last Friday. Etsy did not send me an email with an explanation from their legal department. All they do is apply a notice in your shop with a frowny face emoji telling you that your shop has been suspended. So I sent a total of 3 emails asking for an explanation. After all... we live in the USA and do have due process rights that are inherent. Still, no replies. I called and two people read from a script telling me to never contact Etsy again -- that they are severing ties. My sales brought my shop into the top 2% of all sellers and I had perfect feedback, no copyright infringements, no complaints. I learned about the other shops being suspended because I posted in a private Etsy Seller group and someone came forward and told me that she had been on Etsy for 13 years and had sold almost 50,000 items! She was treated the same way. So, I'm BEGGING any seller to stay away from VA's -- unless you want to risk losing your hard earned business. Better to hire someone from the USA that has no interest in selling on Etsy."
"Do not buy from them they will not refund, slap additional delivery charges despite paying for delivery already and worst no customer services number to contact and their team won't help.Simply avoid."
"To simply put it, selling is expensive. Etsy makes much of its money from failed sales attempts. I'm no marketing expert, but if you are on any kind of budget stay away from selling on Etsy. By the time you have adequate selling experience, you'll find much more lucrative platforms to sell on elsewhere. When it comes to buying, it's ok at best. You know what they say; "One man's trash is another man's treasure.""
"Etsy customer support is non existent for both buyers and sellers. No general support email. There are probably about three people handling tickets. There are numerous fraudulent buyers on the site that use the review system to target sellers and extort. Etsy does nothing about it. Don't bother buying or selling on this site. They then have the nerve to talk about the customer service of the sellers who CHOOSE to be on their site. Etsy would be nothing without sellers. They'll be a thing of the past if they don't correct their poor customer service and make their sellers a priority. Head to Amazon and Ebay, much better selling and buying platforms."
"First of all I am a seller and want to reopen my shop. No links work on their site to do that. I try to contact, site just gives you the run around. I try again to open my shop it tells me I have to be a seller, which I am. This site may be great if you buy something but it is the worst if you are a seller and need help. As far as reopening my vintage shop.......will never happen. I will not purchase anymore from Etsy either. Businesses really need to put their customers first and this business could care less. "