4 orders in 10 Days Personalization cut off after ONE WORD

[ReImagineBrewing]

This has been a known issue since August 2022.

I reported it again two other times with one being in November 2022.

4 more orders in the past 10 Days with the Personalization cut off after ONE WORD.

I tell these customers to contact Etsy when they receive an item upset due to writing one thing, submitting an order, not double checking their receipt and receiving something they didn't want but IS CORRECT based on the order. I do ask them if they have an outdated app. Some purchased via an app and some on the computer (they say). I tell them they should request a refund from Etsy directly due to the bug and provide them with links to the forum where this bug has been reported.

It is not the shop's fault when Etsy has a bug and customers always blame the shop. This can be very stressful for a customer and a shop owner.

When will this issue get fixed?

Thank you!

[PrimFun]

Unfortunately it may only be your shop.   I have not seen any other reports from sellers commenting on this.  Perhaps you need to reopen ticket and get Etsy to check your shop to see what is causing the issue.   

[ReImagineBrewing]

Nope, Etsy doesn't really work like this. A few other people were reporting this up until two weeks ago when Etsy closed my other post due to being "too old" and we should start new ones verses adding to past posts. (and yet we shouldn't start too many and should check if other ones were started...)

[Adorabilities]

I have seen it mentioned before (here and on FB groups) but hadn't seen any fixes/solutions announced. I hope this post gets seen by someone who might be able to help. This is a bad situation for everyone involved.

[RiversEdgeRelics]

Can you send a confirmation email after the order is received showing exactly what the personalization will look like? I have seen other shop owners offer this service.

[ReImagineBrewing]

This is already automatically set up by Etsy. I'm not going to communicate outside of Etsy with customers. I've had requests for changes outside of Etsy but not on the site, made the changes and then a photo of the original order next to the item and a "Not as described case". The customer then was refunded by Etsy, and kept the item. I was told to communicate exclusively on Etsy.

At some point customers have to be responsible for their own orders and not blame shops forcing shops to have to double check everything with the customer. "Adulting". We already put a reminder in their receipt to double check their orders. If they are paying attention when checking out they can see the text gets cut off when entering the "Notes" section too.

We get a lot of customers ordering just one name, a date, a location or something else that we don't show in the listing sample photos. So, even double checking each order that only has one word is "impractical". It would force us to increase the manufacturing times to accommodate the response time it takes for people to get back to us. 1-3 days becomes 2-5 and 3-5 extra messages. About half of customers don't respond when orders are really wonky. Proofs also could solve the issue but again, it isn't part of our business process. The shop is mostly just me with help packaging things up and help on blank item manufacturing/lumber hauling days. Lots of work for a shop that looks big but is tiny.

We just want orders to come in right. This should be a priority for Etsy too. I hope by having customers contact Etsy it becomes a priority to fix the bug.

[MicrostepCustoms]

I know it can be a lot for someone that does a ton of orders with personalization, but this is exactly what I've always done.  I always message the buyer with a pic of the mock-up or proof for them to approve.  If I am delayed in getting a response I push their estimated ship date out a week, which usually gets them to respond.  

[ReImagineBrewing]

@MicrostepCustoms glad you can accommodate photo proofs. I can't. 20-50messages/day becomes 50-150messages/day while I make all of the graphics put them on items, manage inventory, order lumber, do bookkeeping, do quotes etc. It is not part of our business process. Also, if you push out orders your shop gets dinged for "on time shipments". Also, you get told off for not getting something to customers by the estimated due date. Sellers always get blamed even when a customer doesn't respond. So, I don't like being called I have a black soul for intentionally ruining a wedding by delaying an order. Then the demands for a refund for ruining the wedding.

Most of my customers need items within 3-10 days of ordering. 25-50% of customers depending on the season ask for items prior to when they should ship or arrive. 5% pay for shipping or manufacturing upgrades to even get the items "on time".

No proofs has worked. A tradeoff reflected in prices and manufacturing times. We do offer a purchase a proof option that has only been purchased 2 times in 10 years. I'd love to be able to offer proofs, but they don't help when I can't get the same customer to respond with other order questions. 

A bug is a bug and Etsy should fix them. That is the key factor causing the issues here. Etsy should take responsibility for this and fix it.

[MicrostepCustoms]

@ReImagineBrewing Yes, sounds like sending a proof deinitely won't work for you.  Congrats on being so successful with so many orders.  Good problem to have I suppose.  I really struggled over Xmas time with a personalized ornament I was selling.  Was barely able to keep up.  If it was taking too long to get a response with approval of the proof, I canceled the order.  95% of the time the customer would apologize for missing my message and reorder.

One point of clarification though, you do not get dinged for pushing out a delivery date.  You can do it one time, and you can push it out up to 90 days.  I had to do it a handful of times and I've never once failed to qualify for Star Seller.  I've found it's actually quite useful in getting the buyer to respond for same reason, same as canceling. Been plenty of times I messaged sellers, to include direct to their email when I couldn't reach them through Etsy message, and I would get no rsponse.  Then when I either cancel or push their delivery date out I all of a sudden get a message from them asking why I canceled or why delivery changed.  Anyways, point is you don't get dinged.  

[ReImagineBrewing]

@OrindasOrnaments I've had more orders come in with the text cut off. I figured I'd tag you here since they closed the last thread after your post two weeks ago. Since then, 3-4 more orders have come in like this for me.

[ElephantTeapot]

I've had the same last week. I didn't know this was a bug but I'll be looking out for it now. 

[bradgoodell]

That is really odd.  99% of my orders are personalized and I haven't had that issue.  I wonder why it happens on your shop and not others?  What a weird glitch.  

[TonsOfPaper · Accepted solution]

Hello there,

Kindly know that as of the moment, our team is still working on to resolve the issue about the personalization on orders that are being cut-off on some orders. I made sure to add all of the details you've all provided to their on-going investigation so they have more information to work with.

At this time, we do not have a timeline for when this issue will be resolved but please know that we prioritize issues based on the impact to our members.

Thank you very much!

[ReImagineBrewing]

This has been a 9 month issue and is popping up more and more often. From the sounds of it, it isn't going to get fixed until it impacts more people. That does sound bad when we have to tell our customers that and their wedding is in a day after receiving an item "as ordered"  but a bug cut off everything but one name due to a bug. Those customers are livid...

[ReImagineBrewing]

This has not been solved. More orders are coming in like this. 3 last week. Others sporadically since my last post on this issue. This has not stopped and it has been over a year.

[JoyfulPebbleArt]

Hello, I also experience this with my shop and would like Etsy to fix the problem. It only happens on some orders and the first word always comes through.

[ZenCatPottery]

Perhaps you should require buyers to approve a proof that you send them before imprinting the items until the issue is fixed. 

[ReImagineBrewing]

Proofs are not an option. I don't have staff. I've made every graphic for every item shipped from here and handle every single board, box, opener, tote etc multiple times. I could only do proofs if I gave up handmade or significantly increased manufacturing times and prices due to the 3-5+ extra emails per order and chasing people down by email and social media. 29 messages for one order with no responses was my record...then a refund and nothing to pay for those 29 messages.

I tried in 2016 when I got 80 orders/month and it was a disaster.  

I'd love to offer them if it was practical, I just can't work more than 12hr days anymore. Life of a small business owner that doesn't buy pre-made items nor drop-ship.

Etsy just needs to fix this bug.

[moonbeamgifts]

I know you said you didn't want to follow up with buyers in another reply but I think that's your best bet until this is resolved since there's a known issue.     If you can't accommodate that on volume, then it might be best to strip the personalization option off until it's fixed.     While it shouldn't come back on the seller if it's a site issue, I can guarantee you it will whether that's in negative impact on your shop due to open cases, reviews or just poor word of mouth because the product wasn't created as requested.

The custom order feature has been broken for more than a year now.   While it technically still works, it is ineffective/incorrect and to make it accurate requires constant editing of the custom order which looks unprofessional to buyers.     So I found a work around until such time that the tech support team - who are well aware of the problems - gets around to fixing what was working perfectly fine until they broke it.    In order to move forward in business, we have to help ourselves.

[ReImagineBrewing]

I'm sorry, but my entire business is all personalized items. If I quit the personalization option I'd only have 500ish sales vs 38k over the past 9/10 years here.

Etsy needs to take responsibility for their bugs/programming errors. We pay a lot of fees to be here and rarely get new tools that we request. We got "star seller"...when we want the ability to change an order and have that visible to the customer so they don't freak out when they've requested a change, we state we did it but they won't be able to see the change, this gets ignored, you ship the item and then 5-20 freak out messages later the item arrives changed as requested. They take back their death wishes. Yes, it has happened...

We've asked for the ability to choose a rush 1 day manufacturing upgrade in addition to transit upgrade at checkout. Nope.

We've asked for realtime shipping calculator for FedEx and UPS in addition to USPS to show the customer the best rates. This was promised 7 years ago.

We've simpily asked that all messages from a customer create an alert next to their order. If a customer creates a help request the message won't link nor create an alert on the order page. You have to go back and forth between messages and orders pages 2-4 times to insure no messages are missed while working on an order...change text, change an address etc. In one day that can be 40-120+ times checking. Think about that wasted time.

As shop owners we need tools that help us communicate more efficiently with customers and process orders accurately and efficiently. Each extra step seems insignificant until you add up all of the process delays. We pay a lot for a working site. We were told Sellers are a Priority and Seller Tools are Improving. One step forward and Five steps back is the pattern...

[CostumeCoutureNaomi]

@ReImagineBrewing 

How many characters do you have your customization set to?

Almost all of the items I sell are custom orders, with personalization as a required feature.

My personalization boxes are set to either 1024 or 256, depending on the item.

None of my orders have had issues like you describe.  Customers are able to write sentences, and I receive everything they write in the personalization box.

Perhaps the issue is the number of characters you have selected for your personalization.  Do the orders coming in with only one word have the same number of characters selected?

Perhaps you could try changing the personalized character count on one of those items by one more or one fewer letter, to see if that fixes the issue.

[ReImagineBrewing]

Nothing has a number of characters set. Customers can submit a paragraph and it gets used.

This is a bug where ONLY the first word shows up on the order. Sellers have no control over this.

Most recently: Ellie

Was supposed to be: Ellie & _______ Anderson May ___, 2023.

This is Etsy just not fixing something they have control over. Neither Customers nor Sellers can impact programming errors/bugs.

[ReImagineBrewing]

This happened again. I'm still telling customers to call Etsy to report this. This is now a 9 month long issue and is starting to happen more frequently again.

[BlackSheepDyeworks]

@ReImagineBrewing, I agree with you that this is a bug.

I read in another thread that it may be the ampersand that is causing the problem (i.e., once Etsy's programming for that field hits a "&", everything else is ignored).  It's possible the issue is device dependent, i.e., may occur only on the app, or browser.  Or could even be one of Etsy's "experiments" with the listing page causing the issue - for example, I'm seeing a test in one browser where the personalization field is hidden; once you click the arrow to expand it, a pop up opens to enter your personalization.

I wish you luck in getting through to Etsy, I know how frustrating it can be.  With Etsy promoting the personalized aspect of items here so much, it's very puzzling that they don't take your (and other sellers' pleas) more seriously.

[JMOldeVintage]

I carted the bottle opener & started going thru the purchase process.
Yes, the 'personalization' field is hidden. The buyer must click on the down arrow to complete it. It does have this teeny, tiny red star to indicate it's a required field.
I could do a paragraph - I am shown there are 500 characters available to me & it counted down accurately.

When placed in my cart as the buyer I see what I've entered & it is correct. 
So there must be some sort of snafu between the check out process & the information being sent to the shop?

Sadly, Etsy has admitted that they tackle issues based on the affect it has on "the marketplace".
If only the OP or only they & a small number of other shops are having this issue I'm not sure Etsy will ever get around to fixing the problem.