Etsy...can you hear us!?

[#1]

Perhaps it's just me, but I've noticed more and more etsy keeps changing and tweaking things that aren't broken instead of addressing bugs that have been an ongoing issue since i joined over 3 years ago! This will probably go unnoticed but i can't bite my tongue any longer! 

1. All of the items that shouldn't be eligible to be sold i.e. alibaba junk, copyright infringement, non-handmade items being advertised as handmade etc. I won't elaborate any further because this is all anyone ever talks about, pretty sure you get it. 

2. $35 guaranteed free shipping. We should be allowed to set out own minimum. The price of everything has gone up, yet you still expect us to offer this option. I have tried no free shipping, all free shipping and guaranteed shipping and whether i like it or not, i seem to do the best with the guaranteed option. At the very least, the minimum should be bumped to $50 but honestly, i think each shop should be able to choose their own.

3. Please fix the bug in the create a sale program. Everytime i go to select a category to put on sale, the order gets changed in the drop down menu, this is super irritating. It would also be nice to have a select all option, instead of having to select every category.  

4. If you're going to charge 15% for offsite ads, i think we should have some control over what items you are advertising. 

5. We should also have some say in how much of our budget goes to the listings we choose to advertise with etsy ads. 

6. We should be allowed to rate our buyers as well as them rating us. It's really only fair! Why should customers get away with slander just because it's their "opinion". Opinion is not fact and it can seriously hurt us. Its also frustrating that some buyers will literally NEVER give a 5 star rating. Some people are literally never happy no matter what you do. Yes, i realise we can publicly reply to their review but that doesn't help future sellers and is often seen as a shop owner being defensive. 

7. Etsy commercial ads - They are BORING!! I am sorry, but your commercials lack creativity and any kind of wow factor to grab peoples attention. You only showcase the most average items jewelry, decor etc and if you do showcase any art, its always painting or drawing, never any of the truly unique items that can be found. Just because they are not the norm doesn't mean they shouldn't get a spotlight on occasion. In general, if i wasn't a seller on Etsy, i wouldn't even notice when these ads are played. 

I am sure there are more but these are the ones off the top of my head. I have had amazing, wonderful customers and i overall i do enjoy selling on etsy. I am grateful for every single order i receive and i couldn't have come as far as i have without this platform but i'm beginning to wonder if etsy is starting to hold me back. 

Again, these are just my opinions. I have taken several surveys but they never address any of these issues or ask for our actual opinion. Its all pre generated questions about topics etsy chooses so i decided to take to the forums. If you agree with any of this or have your own issues that you'd like to vent about, please feel free to comment, maybe just maybe, we can get some attention for them. Thank you for your time and allowing me to vent.

[Chrysalism]

Ugh, the create a sale tool is so so buggy. You have to type the name of the item super fast or it auto-deletes itself. Etsy admins acknowledged this in the bugs forum years ago and never fixed it. When choosing individual items to place on sale the dropdown menu retracts between each selection, making the process unnecessarily time consuming. Categories rearrange randomly. There is no "copy sale" tool. If Etsy wants sellers to use this tool more often they really need to put a team on it and iron out the many irritating bugs.

[nineteen27]

@Chrysalism 

and if you have a typo.

forget it.

so you have to type really fast and 100% accurate.

[OneEyeCatStudio]

Bulls in china shops cannot be expected to tidy up after themselves.

[Studio23Thirty]

I've seen several of you mention that you are able to up the dollar amount for the free shipping guaranteed limit. I've searched and don't see where to do that. This would tremendously help me. Can someone walk me thru it please?

[Adorabilities]

@Studio23Thirty 

Go to:
Marketing
Sales and Discounts
Run a Sale
and then choose "free shipping" as the discount amount
and set the order minimum to whatever you'd like.

[VintageRescueSquad]

I would much rather they focus additional resources on hacked accounts (which we see daily pleas in the forums) and REAL customer service.

And, of course, a TV ad that was 100% vintage.

With the off-site ads, it's not about which listings are shown; it's based on what the user has already been searching for. So, if I'm on Google researching vintage buttons, the OSA will show me vintage buttons.

[NoFrogsAllowed]

You don't have to go through and select every category when you run a sale.  Set a minimum of either quantity (as low as 2) or amount (as low as $1) and then everything in your shop is automatically included in the sale.  The cool thing is you don't have to edit in your new and renewed listings like you ha e to if you don't set a minimum.

The reason that the section order keeps changing is because you have more sections than there is room to display them all.  If they didn't rotate there would be some you would never be able to access.  Also, in using the individual listing selector, it works better if you type in a key word rather than the exact title.

The free shipping guarantee doesn't really give you the search placement boost it would like you to believe.  There are too many people  offering the guarantee for the boost to be beneficial to anyone and good SEO will win out.

[GroundZeroCreations]

I agree that Etsy should redesign the free shipping guarantee option to allow each seller to determine at what level they offer free shipping. And setting it as a "sale" whereby you must renew the sale every 30 days is both cumbersome and is not what Etsy designed the "sale" option for. There is a reason that Etsy limited the sale function to 30-days...because it is a sale. LOL Another drawback to using the sale function as a way to offer a designated free shipping amount is that each time you add a new listing you must remember to go back and add that listing to the "sale" you have running.

So to me, no...the sales option is not a smart or desirable way to deal with this. Etsy needs to reconsider and allow sellers to choose their own dollar amount for offering free shipping guarantees. I have actually noticed on some sites where I purchase from on a regular basis that they have upped their free shipping to $49 purchase. Some have moved it to $75 dollars before free shipping. So other businesses are addressing the issue of high shipping costs, etc. by making changes. I think it is only natural to ask Etsy to consider doing the same thing. 

[NoFrogsAllowed]

@GroundZeroCreations 

If you set up a free shipping sale you do not have to renew it every 30 days.  You can set an end date or select no end date and it will run until you cancel it.

Since you are setting a minimum amount for your free shipping everything in your shop is automatically a part of your sale including new and renewed listings.  No editing in involved.

Setting your own free shipping with a sale is something Etsy has set up well.

[Adorabilities]

That's not how the free shipping "sale" works.

It doesn't expire, and you don't have to add new products to it, if you've set it up correctly.

Just don't choose an end date, and check off "entire shop" instead of individual listings.

@NoFrogsAllowed 
I agree. This is one thing that works as would be expected.

[MarbecVillage]

Etsy off site ads sales fees and tax are wiping out a massive chunk of profit!

[PsychoCreators]

@bradgoodell Just a heads up on your comment about Karen Check: 

"The fact you aren't aware of sites like KarenCheck and Etsycheck doesn't mean other people aren't aware of them.  But now you do know about them, so you can utilize them."

From the Karen Check site:

️Etsy is turning off access to Feedback/review data on April 3, 2023. KarenCheck will no longer work when that happens

My understanding from other posts is that etsycheck will also not work. 

[CrazyOldLadyJewelry]

Amen!

I agree wholeheartedly! 

I use Etsy to research some of my vintage items and it is really discouraging, all of the mass produced cheap C*** that turns up in my search results. It's not just cheap jewelry made to look vintage or interesting, Its plastic hand crank clothes washing machines that are bright purple (and each page has a different shop selling the same exact thing same pics) or things like dollar store whisks and other kitchen gadgets. The search pages are clogged up with all that junk. You have to be a detective to figure out if your order is actually shipping from the US and not China.

Etsy encourages us to learn about branding setting yourself out from others. Why when they eliminate everything that we have the option to change. Our pictures, our descriptions, our sales, our policies, our prices, our shipping etc.

Hey if when I signed up they said this is the deal, you are churn, we don't care if your business is successful or not. What your needs are as a seller are at the very bottom of our list and we will never take any feedback you give us into consideration whatsoever. We will keep our search ranking a secret because next week Bob is going to change it because he needed something to do in between bring your dog to work days. I would be more okay with everything that is FUBAR here. Instead of a bad feeling every time they do say they are rolling something out.

Tonight the main reason I came to the forums was because my 30 day sale expired and I was going to run a new sale. Normally I type in my SKU number to add items, because I am a lousy typer and that race to type the item faster than it deletes it will give me a coronary. Now the SKUs aren't working. I contacted Etsy support last month and someone wrote me back asking me to send screenshots etc ? really screenshots? and I basically lost it and sent a huge rant that I figured was going to a bot, but by chance if it was going to an IT person I felt bad for them. I can only imagine the patches those guys have to make with each tweak/test/glitch.

Don't let the Etsy Forum Cheerleaders grate on you. If you pay close attention they are on the forums all the time day and night. Business is BOOMING. Man I sure hope when I am that busy I can find the time to defend Etsy in every single post everyday. Always spreading that special sunshine to the forums. Sarcasm. Trolls are gonna troll.

I miss Etsycheck and Karen check. I don't want a star attached to my buyers but when I get those ones that are real doozies, I liked being able to quietly check on those that give that red flag early on. People who more often than not give 1 star reviews because their purchase did not fill that empty spot inside of them, again. I want to know about them ahead of time and simply cancel and refund their order not bad mouth them, just swoosh them on to some other shop.

I have a list of things I would like to see from Etsy that would make my fees make sense. I want transparency. If the program rolling out is to always refund unhappy buyers don't sell it to me like it was created to protect me for that 1 occurance where something is broken.

Etsy's business practices are not ethical IMO and definitely not about keeping commerce human. Seeing how scammers are really going after it, makes me grateful I am not a new seller and amazed that Etsy has not done anything AT ALL no official notices of beware of XYZ etc like any other company would do. Some forum poster tries each day to keep that post "how to spot a scam" towards the top while ETSY does not even acknowledge it.

Sadly, I have accepted that nothing is going to change, not enough to really make a difference. As long as Etsy is the best game in town they will continue to not care about sellers until there are no sellers. I take steps to try my best to ensure my business can continue if things go south for Etsy. Hey it is like deciding to do business with a crackhead. It is what it is sadly enough. I expect much worse to come in Etsy's future for sure.

The ads are the worst, orange and avocado green, half circles, and big sacks of bland instant mashed potatoes. Yup that is who I do business with, the crackhead!

[TemariKits]

There is a new problem I would like to add. They have hidden the “notes” section so well my customers think it has been removed.