Date on Messages to Buyers

[ramonahall]

I was about to send out a msg. to a buyer yesterday evening (Friday - September 2) and noticed that etsy had already filled in the date - with Saturday, September 3 at the top of the message box to automatically date the message.  I had stated that I would be shipping the purchased item out' tomorrow" .  I was talking about shipping the next morning which would be today - Saturday.  But if she read the auto-filled date, she would have believed that I would ship Sunday morning.  Etsy is on the East Coast, of course, and I sell and ship from the West Coast.  It would be really helpful if etsy could put the seller's correct time on the msg forms.  I can see some issues arising from the inaccuracies.  Has anyone else encountered this?   I do not know if the seller sees the date but it appears next to the sellers name inside the message box where one writes the message.

[NanaLetha]

 Never encountered that because I never send messages to buyers about when I’ll be shipping. They can see my processing times and get notification from Etsy when I ship.

[ramonahall]

Thank you for responding.  It's my habit to always send a note re: when the item will ship.  I have a lot of custom requests and just got into the habit of doing that.  Plus I fell that it reinforces the date for the customer, which is sometimes important when there is a postal holiday like Labor Day.

[Former_Member · Accepted solution]

I do the same thing as you.  To get around the Etsy 'right & left' coast time stamps, I just make sure I spell out the entire date in the body of the messages.

If a customer inquires, you can always explain 'Etsy time' to them relative to your shop's location.

[CarpetCollectionAU · Accepted solution]

@ramonahall Perhaps my observations may assist?

These "time zone" diferences are something all should be aware of

I have just had an Order timestamped 

Ordered 8:27am, Sun, Sep 4, 2022

Ship to Lafayette, CA

I needed to send a Messaege and did so immediately

The Message is timestamped

Jxxxxx Sep 3, 2022

I am in Australia and it is Sunday 04 Sep 9.16 am as I type this. 

What I would when sending messages which refer to dates, which may be crucial, is say "Tomorrow, Monday 05 Sept"

[ramonahall]

Thanks to everyone for your replies.  I realize that I am going to have to slow down and be very careful with details when I communicate about dates and times.  It's just a shame that etsy is not able to find engineers who can find a way to make times and dates accurate as they are hosting international sellers from many different time zones.  Lesson learned.

[Former_Member]

Keep in mind that your buyers will be viewing Etsy's time stamps on their end in their own time zones which may or may not be the same as the timestamp you see depending on where they are - so as long as you state dates clearly you should be ok.