Email Managment

[Former_Member]

Hi Guys,
Wondering what you do about your email storage.

I get about 4 emails every time someone orders something from my shop.
1. One email every time someone orders something
2. An email if someone pays vial PayPal
3. A label every time I create a shipping label
4. Shipping Notification (a copy of what goes to the customer).


I realize I can choose to stop receiving a copy of the shipping notification sent to myself.

My question is do you keep any of the other emails in your email box? Is there a need for it? Or should I delete them?

I keep physical copies of the order but I don't keep physical copies of the shipping notifications or even PayPal. (Should I keep PayPal Receipts???? I guess I should print those out...)

Just curious as to what everyone else does.

Thank you,
Deanna

[PaperBoundLove]

Hi Deanna,
I just leave them in my mailbox, and haven't bothered to delete them.
Is your inbox running out of space?

My PayPal emails go to different email from shop email, so I just keep them there too. I don't create shipping label.

I think you can delete the emails because you can still retrieve the records from PayPal website and the sale records are on Etsy orders page anyway!

I've never had a need to refer to the emails so far. I just keep them cos I haven't bothered to delete them, hehe.

Hope that helps!

- Khin

[fishcouple]

I don't keep any hard copy. Everything is available on line in my account.

Hope this helps!

[RomaMiaTradingCo]

I personally save all those emails just in case cause, a) i'm paranoid, and b) gmail gives me a decent amount of space for free anyhow and those emails don't take up too much space.

[ByTheBayBeads]

Gmail has folders so I made an Etsy folder and dump everything in there. :)

[maydaylabels]

We delete all of that. Etsy and paypal keep records for us that we can download at the end of the year or when we're ready to do taxes.

[SilviaMaciasDesigns]

I save the emails, labels, receipts and tracking/delivery confirmations as pdfs in folders on a hard drive.

[MobileSuncatchers]

I keep them. Once I've had to forward them on to the customer when they left a mean review accusing me of not sending them any communications. They then changed their review.

[maydaylabels]

We keep emails that go back and forth between customers, or things that customers send us or we send them.

We don't keep the autogenerated emails by Etsy and paypal that just say "you made a sale" or "you shipped something."

[Former_Member]

I keep them for tax reasons.

"We delete all of that. Etsy and paypal keep records for us that we can download at the end of the year or when we're ready to do taxes."

Oh really??? Matthew and Sara, tell me more!

[LeedsRadio]

I keep everything. Storage is so cheap. It makes a crude but easy to use, searchable data base. Last week I wanted to send an old customer a letter but I could not remember his name or when he last made a purchase. But I remembered what he bought. I typed that into the search box do a little filtering and had his address. Same thing happened today - I wanted someone's email address so I typed in his name + guitar and in 10 seconds I had it.

If the problem is clutter, you can easily sort different email types into folders.

[Plektra]

Folders work well for me. I don't tend to delete business emails. You never know when you might need some information for all kinds of reasons.

[maydaylabels]

Your shop >Shop Settings >Options >Download Data

[maydaylabels]

Richard, you can search your orders that way - no need to keep the email.

[BrushStrokeOrnaments]

I delete all incoming messages from etsy/paypal. I routinely need to review past details about a sale but have always been able to find what I needed on the etsy site. I don't even really look at my incoming etsy/paypal messages other than to register that I've had a sale - I quickly delete the messages in an attempt to keep my mailbox a bit cleaner.

[Former_Member]

Thanks for your input, everyone!

I have gmail and have a lot of storage - I just was getting overwhelmed with email overload and looking for a way of simplifying.

I keep pretty good notes on my paper copies and it seems that (so far) when I've needed to find information I typically look in my sold orders files on Etsy itself and that has been pretty sufficient.

I'm just one of those "just incase" people and want to keep (hoard) everything. lol

[SageNThymeDesigns]

I keep it all!! I have a folder in my gmail account for all orders (Etsy and Paypal confirmation go there along with any email communications with customers). I have another folder for shipping receipts- I dump all that in without opening or looking at it.

I am rather concerned that Etsy has the power to close your shop without giving you a chance to collect your data. It happened more in the past and that's one of the reason we're now allowed to have help with product creation and shipping, since those shops were previously in violation of Etsy policy and they had their shops closed with no notification. It can take several business days for Etsy to reopen your shop and I need access to my orders and customer data.

I think redundancy is a good thing, especially if you can safely and easily store your copy of the information you need to run your shop outside of Etsy or Paypal systems. Etsy has the right to terminate your shop on their website, just be aware of that.