Etsy has removed and /or blocked so many of my legal flower seeds. Most of them, when you click on have a block " NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR AREA". All of these are incorrect. I have emailed and begged for help but no one has responded to any of it the last month.My fall planting month has been ruined, and at least they could do is address some of these major technical issues. Or acknowledge the problems and why.
Besides chat which is pretty pointless unless they can get you to someone who might help I would go through the contact button and just keep pushing Need more help after replies until you hopefully get to an actual person. I might try to band the seed sellers together and contact ECommerceBytes about it. Maybe some media attention would get at least an answer on how to appeal error removals.
@Former_Member
You need to pen a ticket, and if it doesn't solve your problem, you need to reply, saying they, and it gets pushed up the chain, keep replying.
If you open a new ticket about the same thing, your previous ones are closed, and your new one is now open, but at the bottom of the chain.
just keep bumping up the open one
don't open a new one
Does anyone know how to get a real person to help? I have gone through the channels available. No replies and all of the requests are now marked "CLOSED"???????
@Former_Member
You need to pen a ticket, and if it doesn't solve your problem, you need to reply, saying they, and it gets pushed up the chain, keep replying.
If you open a new ticket about the same thing, your previous ones are closed, and your new one is now open, but at the bottom of the chain.
just keep bumping up the open one
don't open a new one
I think CA sellers need a particular license to legally sell? If you don't have it you may have issues. If you do you need to unfortunately contact Etsy about it.
I have a proper license to sell flower seeds. Etsy will not help or even acknowledge my existence let alone the technical problems. They have made a ton of money off my store, yet ZERO CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR TECHNICAL HELP..
So sorry..that is typical. The lack of CS is appalling. I'd try both email and chat and try to get to the bottom of it.
Do you know how to contact Etsy? If so let me know. I have gone through everything available in their system.
Besides chat which is pretty pointless unless they can get you to someone who might help I would go through the contact button and just keep pushing Need more help after replies until you hopefully get to an actual person. I might try to band the seed sellers together and contact ECommerceBytes about it. Maybe some media attention would get at least an answer on how to appeal error removals.
If you Google Do I need a license to sell seeds in California you see this and more> Persons selling agricultural or vegetable seed in California without authorization are in violation of Section 52351 and are subject to enforcement actions by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. There is historical precedent for concern about the identity and quality of seed offered for sale.
Not sure where flower seed falls in that..you may want to investigate.
I don't sell in those categories and most have the same items or similar and continue on. What ever the reason the programming for ETsy is incorrect. And why would they not acknowledge 10 emails asking for help?? They are run purely by computers and will not help.
I am Sooo glad I'm not the Only Duck in this Small Pond!!! I am Exhausted from trying to get this figured out. My Son brought it to my attention about 8 weeks ago. He said Mom, it says you have 362 listings but only 296 shows. (He also has a shop) I have Chatted, Called, Messaged, finally, It they throw that Noxious Weed list at me again, I'm going to lose my mind!!! That is like Poking the Bear at this point. Flowers got hit hard. Zinnia's, Strawflowers, Sunflowers, Celosia, Calendula, tons of Cosmos...the list goes on. But also Vegetables. Cucumbers, Okra, Beans, Peppers, Lettuce etc. Mine are as well marked closed.
I wish you the Best of Luck!!! Jan, Buckeye Seed Garden.
Maybe time for a class action.
I also sell seeds and have had some entirely legal listings deactivated. My concern is that if you search for the same plant name there are still sellers on etsy selling the same item. So how are you supposed to know that it is banned on etsy. It is quite frustarating because I have tried to speak to ssomeone on etsy to find out why other sellers are selling same as my deactivated listings and all you get is an automated reply. So frustrating.
https://www.etsy.com/legal/policy/plants-herbs-seeds-and-soil/242685907951
Feel free to report other listings that break Etsy's Terms of Use.
I know its hurt my Business. My Customers are messaging me, not understanding what is going on. They know, if I have it listed, I have it in stock. They are frustrated. We should be working on Our Business instead of trying to Chase Etsy's (Very Capable Specialist). NOT! The last Chat she said Our Very Capable Specialists will be able to figure this out for you.
I spend at least 2 hours a day trying to get a hold of Etsy or relist. My customers are confused also. Forget Chat they rarely speak English. Not available here anymore. I had a customer call them and they had her on hold for 20 minutes then came back on phone and told her the Seller should reach out about he errors. No one helps buyers anymore either. Maybe that is why their stock is down!!
The problem i see with every issue that happens here on Etsy , is there is nobody to talk to that can help, its an automated system, and if you do get a human most are not qualified to even speak on behalf of Etsy, shheesh from some of the chat responses I see us sellers know more but etsy. This is getting incredulous honestly they raised fees to offer more support and so far they have not.
Etsy Chat is worthless if you have more than a basic question that is already answered in the Seller's Handbook. They are people in a foreign country reading from a script. If it isn't on their script they will say they will forward it on to Etsy. Then someone may or may not get back to you. Then you will still have to go through all the steps outlined below anyway, so it just creates an extra step.
Go to Community & Help=>Help and choose a question. It doesn't really matter which one. At the bottom of the answer it will say I Still Need Help, click that and you will get the email form to contact Etsy. Explain what your problem was. It can take up to 10 days for them to answer. Do not send any more emails, or they will close your first question and they will treat subsequent inquiries as new problems that will go to the back of the queue of questions they haven't answered yet.
Chances are good, when they reply, they will have a canned response that does not answer your question. Scroll to the bottom of that email and click I Still Need Help, and explain again what you need. They might do that 2 or 3 times before an actual person actually reads it and addresses your problem. Keep clicking the I Still Need Help link in each response until you actually get an answer to what you asked.
If your problem is a deactivated listing or closed shop, they may just ignore you and never answer at all. If something is deactivated by a bot, a real human is supposed to automatically review it within 10 days and decide if it was a valid deactivation and reinstate it if it wasn't. In the meantime, you lose a bunch of selling time, and if you use the word that caused the deactivation in the first place again (and they won't usually tell you specifically what that word was), it will probably get deactivated every time you renew the item or create a new listing using it, and have to be reviewed again.
When Etsy first made this new regional restriction policy, I immediately contacted support and was told that they had a bunch of support requests, so they were making a list of stores to be evaluated and my store was added to it. Shortly after, I received a message that said...
"Due to regional restrictions your listing(s) were temporarily unavailable to view or purchase in certain locations. However, we have determined that your listings were restricted in error and have been unrestricted."
Basically, if you weren't in that first wave of support requests, you're basically screwed. I know sellers who have been dealing with this for weeks and getting the runaround by support. Likewise, while our active listings were fixed, all of our new listings are being restricted.
WOW.... They are a mess.... No one will help us at all. SAd with all the fees we pay. Technical nightmare and we are losing so much money now. Maybe this is why their stock is down also.
Did you try requesting a call back? You may want to revise your Announcement and exclude mentioning Etsy.
What @CraftyCornishMaids said!
Keep in mind that Etsy has only 2500 full time employees world wide, so there are probably more lawyers in the CYA department than there are help desk personnel. It can take numerous exchanges before even reaching a person who can actually do something besides read the script.
May I suggest to anyone whose business is failing, or even flailing, because of the unintelligent bots Etsy uses, that many eggs should be removed from the Etsy basket and put into other baskets such as eBay, Amazon, Posh, Bonanza, and other platforms. NOT being snarky, just offering a possible solution.
i’ve read before that sticking with one ticket and not sending multiple emails is the way to go and sending multiples can actually slow the process down.
that being said, the lack of customer service and what you and other seed sellers have related, is disgraceful. josh silverman has said over and over again that sellers do not matter, only the buyer experience does, guess this is how that manifests itself in the real world here at etsy. shameful, absolutely shameful…
since it became difficult to find the links for support, i’ve collected them when sellers mentioned where they found help. i hope one of these will work for you:
here is the link to the “how to contact support” from the seller’s handbook.
here is a link to initiate chat or email.
here is the link to request a callback.
or try this link or this link to email them.
if you do email them you *should* get an automated reply and once you do, you must reply to that email above the line of asterisks that their automated best guess solutions did not work. all you have to say is something like “i still need help” send the reply, and it should stay active. it’s critical that you reply to the automated response you receive and don’t send additional emails thinking it will speed things up (this actually slows things down.)
keep in mind these may or may not work outside the usa during standard business hours (m-f & 8-5).
One ticket is the way to go until you finally get a response from Etsy, have 1-2 exchanges about the situation, and then you try to reply only to get...
"Thanks for contacting Etsy! Your request has been received by our support staff, and we'll be in touch as soon as possible."
And all progress is lost.