ETSY not recognizing Canadian mail holidays

[TheBanknoteMan]

I am sure other sellers have noticed and been "dinged" status points for missing ETSY's shipping standards due to EYSY itself not being very globally aware of holidays outside the USA ones. Today is a perfect example. October 10th is a postal holiday in Canada for our Thanksgiving holiday, which is a different date than the USA. NO MAIL SERVICE, yet ETSY has "Ship by today" as its service metric? They are holding sellers accountable for missing a date, that they CAN'T PHYSICALLY SHIP THE ITEM!!.

Unbelievable really, that a company that offers shipping labels and connected to Canada Post isn't aware of these holidays! They make money from this.

Yet sellers are punished by not having their listings featured by this Star seller program criteria. 

As a seller we are either forced to lie about shipping date to meet this criteria, which is unethical. As a buyer I would sooner know what is actually going on instead of someone marking orders shipped when they haven't been. The other option: be truthful and be punished by ETSY's lack of being proactive and seeking these dates out. 

Not only does this go for holidays but major events. On the East Coast of Canada we were just hit by Hurricane Fiona. It devastated the area and we were without power. This included basically 3 provinces. Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland. Today, 18 days later many area are STILL WITHOUT POWER! We were without it for 10 days. Yet not one mention anywhere from ETSY, that this event even occurred, let alone sellers in this area will not have service metrics harmed because of them?

This needs to be corrected from ETSY immediately as they garner a huge amount of business from sellers and are punishing sellers who are great sellers by a faulty reward system program, they developed but yet can't take the proper time to manage it. 

Have others noticed this fault as well as ETSY needs to be made aware of it.

Good luck selling.

Trevor Otterson

[cindylouwho2]

Etsy doesn't recognize any holidays in its on-time shipping stat, not just Canada. We've always had to change shipping profiles or change the ship by date on individual orders. Some postal outlets in Canada are open today, though, even though mail isn't moving. 

Note that shipping on time was a requirement on Etsy long before Star Seller, and we are now seeing people put on reserve for shipping too many orders late. Lying about the shipping date is not a good idea, as if the tracking doesn't pick up today, you are going to have shipped late per Etsy's rules. 

I 100% agree that sellers in areas affected by Fiona should have received the same advantages as those in Florida, but Etsy has always ignored Canada and given extra advantages to Americans, so no surprise there. 

[PrimFun]

But Fiona was a truly odd event for Canada and did Canadian Etsy sellers ask Etsy for consideration?   Sometimes in the US, we have to push when there are natural disasters even though it doesn't seem like it to others outside the US.  

[cindylouwho2]

@PrimFun Fiona was the worst storm in Canadian history and received plenty of news coverage in the US. Last I heard, 10% of the province of PEI was still without power, over 2 weeks later. 

I am not aware of anyone pushing for support for sellers caught by Ian. I am aware of many of us pushing for support for people hurt by Fiona, and zero response from Etsy, berceuse Etsy always ignores Canadian issues. Always. 

[PrimFun]

Etsy has never ever recognized holidays.  It is up to the seller to arrange shipping dates.

Venues that do recognize like Amazon (though Amazon does not recognize today as a holiday) are able to do so easily because they have sliced up the world into sections.  Etsy is still more global than sites like Amazon.

[TBQSC]

I’m sorry you were caught off guard … there’s been plenty of forum posts about the upcoming holiday and what you can do to prepare for it and prevent any shipping mishaps.  I guess you missed seeing that topic though. And I’m sorry about Fiona … Hurricane Ian just did some major damage in Florida!

Etsy is an international company, and if they were held responsible for all the holidays in every country around the World, Etsy would NEVER be open, and nobody would ever sell anything or make any money or ship anything!

I, for one, prefer to take responsibility of my own business, and make money on those holidays, and schedule shipping accordingly. Etsy makes it super easy to do so and gives us the tools & resources to set appropriate processing & shipping schedules, as well as allowing us to extend shipping if necessary. And if something ever goes wrong, I take full responsibility for it because it’s MY business to do so, not Etsy’s!. Etsy is just a platform (tool), but I’m the business owner (driving force)!

Bottom line is it’s the seller’s responsibility to know which Federal / bank / etc. holidays land on which days of the week, and to schedule your shipments accordingly!  Setting a 1-3 business day processing time works very well for scheduling shipping around holidays. If I need to, I can set processing to a 3-5 business day schedule as an additional buffer for any orders that may get cancelled by Etsy due to issues such as cc fraud.

I hope that makes sense!

[TheBanknoteMan]

ETSY and eBay are both International companies and are public companies. There are not issues with other sites on Canadian holidays or storm events.

The other issue is ranking and sales metrics and as a driving force it is your job as business owner to ensure you rank as high to searches as possible. Besides the service metrics of star seller program, SHIPPING TIMES, are a search ranking parameter. Therefore, this means as a business owner, by adjusting your shipping times, you penalize your business during these times. By the way, these holiday times are often when people have time off and are searching for crafts and things of interest as they spend the day with family, and the night on sites like this. Worst time to adjust shipping times as you will lower your items when the most people are searching.

I hope this makes sense why as a public company. with billions in sales per quarter, ETSY may want to look at getting a programmer to reflect on international holidays and events, just like they have done already to account for weekends.

[JackisJustVintage]

@TheBanknoteMan Etsy has one site for all countries. Ebay has sites for various countries, and all individual sites do observe the holidays for that country, but not worldwide. So the US site is not observing holidays for other countries, they are only observing US holidays.

[cindylouwho2]

@TheBanknoteMan "SHIPPING TIMES, are a search ranking parameter" - it's just a filter, which most people won't use. Staff have denied processing & delivery times are part of the search algorithm, & I wasn't able to find any evidence of that factor when testing it. 

Every time I take a vacation I extend my processing times, and often make more sales when they are longer. While it probably pushes away people who are really in a rush, I am not interested in catering to that group anyway. I only ship twice a week. 

[weekendjewelry1]

I'm not trying to address the issue of the devastation caused by Fiona and the fact that Etsy isn't responsive to the immense difficulties that Canadian sellers have had to deal with - because that's indefensible. I just wanted to mention that for what it's worth, the U.S. post office is also closed on October 10 - and Etsy ignores that fact, too. 

[ThePurplePuppy]

Yup--I am in the US and had orders that "supposedly" were to be mailed today--Fortunately I had them finished and mailed last Friday. 

Etsy does not recognize postal  or bank holiday world wide.  We in the US get no  "perks" for our holidays.

[JackisJustVintage]

Nested wrong

[cindylouwho2]

Since you already knew this fact in April: https://community.etsy.com/t5/All-About-Shipping/ETSY-incorrect-Canadian-holidays/m-p/138209635

why didn't you extend your shipping times or extend the ship by dates of any affected orders this week?  This isn't complicated; many of us have managed it for years with no issues or loss of sales.  

[TheBanknoteMan]

I actually hadn't known I had even posted this back then until after I had posted this.  I was new to the community chats and after I had posted that,  I had no updates or messages informing me there were responses.  When i had checked this as I was informed there were replies,  I saw a number up to and it showed the previous post and replies.  

[PristinityJewelry]

"...due to EYSY itself not being very globally aware of holidays outside the USA ones..."

Etsy ignores U.S. holidays too.