My shop is bilingual, English by default with French translations. For the second time this week, I've found one of my listings with a French title and description instead of the English one. The French section has been entirely duplicated and has overwritten the English one. So far I've only noticed it in two items but I have thousands and have not yet had time to look through them all. I know these were in English before as they have sold in the past and the Sold items do have the titles in English.
Which listing? Can you provide a link to it and someone can check what they see.
Here's one for example. Last time it sold it was written in English as I can see in my sold orders. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1479121101/
OK yes, I see it on that listing. That is weird and I have no idea why it would happen other than the suggestions below about the app which I do not use. Try contacting Etsy if nothing else works. Hope you get this strangeness resolved.
You are better off sticking to one language. Set that language as your shop's default and do everything in that language. Make sure you have enabled the auto-translate. This will allow buyers to see your shop in their language. When you mix languages, the translator tries to translate from your default language to other languages. If you have set the language for English but write half the shop in French, the translator won't work correctly for other languages.
I've been selling on Etsy since it exists and have always had bilingual shops. I absolutely refuse to rely on automatic translations in languages I speak fluently because whenever I see any, they are extremely bad.
@AnniebelloPaper
Pretty sure @FrenchVintagePrints has done what Etsy allows and approves which is setting a main language, in her case English, then opting to translate into another language you are fluent in, in her case French, rather than opting for auto-translation. Etsy offers this, the pages are separate so it's not a MIX at all in the way you're thinking. It's completely separate. One can toggle between the shop's main language and the translated pages. This is absolutely worth doing if you are fluent in another language and are targeting speakers of that language since the auto-translator makes huge, glaring, often confusing errors at best, completely misleading or false errors at worst.
I see this listing for a print of a white rose, and it is in French. (My language setting is English).
Beautiful shop! I skimmed the first four pages, and didn't find any French except where it would be logical, e.g. map of Gruyères.
While I don't doubt there may be something going on, I wouldn't think it represents a major problem for your shop because people can always click to translate to their own languages.
Thankfully it's only a few listings so far. I've caught one in my other shop too, which is bilingual as well. That said, I've spent a lot of time researching my keywords in both languages and my descriptions and titles are not written randomly in either language. And more prosaically, it's not so much a question of customers as a question of search engine. If my titles are in French when they should be in English, the search engine won't find them.
Hello Anne,
I am sorry this is happening and have no idea why but can only confirm that, yes, even when I chose English I see this listing in French. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1479121101/
Do you list and/or relist from the app on a device that has it's default language set to French?
The app has no language setting, and uses the device's language. When you list, or edit and renew/publish, it will apparently list it in the language of the device.
This is one possible reason why it's happening. couple of threads of this happening since the new seller app came out.
I'm not seeing the mix. Could be an Etsy bug or a problem with the app as suggested above OR possibly your browser is automatically translating some of your English listings into French. I've had that happen (I'm in France, sometimes my browser gets confused!) Try clearing your cookies and see if that does the trick. If not, I'd contact chat to report the bug.