Updated 9/15 - How we’re building a more trusted and transparent marketplace

[AliceW]

My name is Alice Wu, and I’m Etsy’s head of Trust & Safety. My team is responsible for enforcing Etsy’s policies so our marketplace can continue to be the home for creativity, where your special items shine.

We’re always listening to our community, and we’ve heard you want more transparency around policy enforcement on Etsy. That’s why I’m excited to share a new resource designed to give you more clarity and confidence: our Ultimate Guide to Policy, live today in the Seller Handbook. This guide was created to help you:

• Understand our most important policies in plain language; 
• Navigate common policy issues; and 
• Comply with confidence, knowing what’s expected and why. 

Whether you’re new to selling or have been here for years, this guide is meant to give you greater visibility into how our policies work–and what to do when something goes wrong. 

We’re also expanding our account appeals process to give you new ways to take action. Later this year, we’ll begin rolling out a listing-level appeals experience so you can more easily tell us when you think we’ve made a mistake.

Finally, later today my colleague Sophie Duba, Etsy’s head of Policy, and I will sit down for a fireside chat. We’ll have a candid conversation about how our policies are created and how enforcement decisions are made, giving you more insight into how our teams work to keep our marketplace safe every day. Tune in here at 1 p.m. ET. 

You can dig deeper into our annual Transparency Report, which we published today, and read about what’s next in my latest blog post. 

Thanks for being here – and for continuing to make Etsy the creative, vibrant community we all love.

[AliceW]

In case you missed it, following up with the replay of today’s fireside chat focused on how we’re keeping Etsy safe and special. I sat down with Sophie Duba, our head of Policy, for a discussion about how we craft policies, how we enforce them, and what we’re most excited about for the year to come. 

[AliceW]

Hi all, 

I’m happy to be back with an update on our commitment to provide more transparency around policy enforcement on Etsy. 

Today, we’re introducing a new Policy violations page, which helps you keep track of removed listings and more easily access resources to help you understand what may have gone wrong. You’ll also get notifications when a listing is removed, so it’s easier to stay on top of your account health. This will take a few days to fully launch, so if you don’t see it in your Shop Manager right now, you’ll have access soon.

Additionally, I’m excited to share that we’re beginning to pilot a new listing appeals process, which offers a more streamlined way to let us know if you think we’ve made a mistake. We’re rolling this out gradually so we can gather feedback and make improvements before bringing it to more sellers. For now, sellers who are part of the pilot will only be able to appeal listings that were removed for not meeting our Creativity Standards, and we’ll add more violation types over time. 

This is just the beginning – we’ll continue to invest in both of these initiatives over time, adding even more detail to the Policy violations page and expanding access to our listing appeals pilot in the coming months. 

You can learn more about these updates in our Seller Handbook here. Thank you for being such an important part of our efforts to keep Etsy safe and special.