International Buyers Paying Domestic Prices

[MyQueerGifts]

I have different domestic and international prices set up on multiple of my listings so I can provide free delivery. About a week ago, I noticed I had received two international orders where the buyer's had both paid the domestic price. This is a major issue for me as the domestic price doesn't even cover the cost of international postage let alone the cost of making the item and Etsy's fees. 

Only one of my listings seems to be affect as others with the same pricing are working as normal, not sure why this has happened and I don't just want to create a new listing as this item has previously sold as a best seller and has multiple reviews.

I contacted Etsy on the 24/h chat about this when I first noticed it and they said they would email me back in 24-48 hours. They did eventually email me back 4 days later (when the order was then already overdue) and said they would refer it to the engineering team. I replied asking what to do with the order as cancelling it could leave to a bad review (still have had no response 8 days later)

I had another incorrect order come in a few days later so went onto the 24/h chat again where I never got connected to a worker, another one came in today and I've currently been waiting on the 24/h chat (With a 1 min response time) for an hour, still not connected and I have refreshed it 3 times

Is anyone experiencing the same problem? I feel like cancelling all these orders is reducing the traffic to this listing too.

Thanks

[GlassyFields]

Once an item is listed, the only way to restrict who buys it is by limiting what countries you sell to.

Since your idea of having different prices based on domestic or international is not working, consider having free domestic shipping and using calculated international shipping. 

Most buyers understand that there is a cost to shipping. There are a lot of questions about whether offering free shipping really increases sales. Prices with shipping built in could just as easily have a negative impact on sales.

So even though I find your idea of free shipping with different prices for domestic and international intriguing, if it's not working then it's probably time to re-evaluate.

[MyQueerGifts]

@GlassyFields The main issue is that it is currently working for all my other listings, its just the one that is having issues. I think the best idea may be to create a delivery profile for just the problematic listing with free domestic and paid international as you said. 

[JDTotesnDolls]

@MyQueerGifts Which listing?  That would make a difference.  Do you have shipping profiles?  Do you add the domestic and then international.

I see cost to ship to me for one item as $6.93 (USD).  Is that correct for the item?  And there is one large item that I don't believe can be shipped for $6.93.

As to the item, could you not have made an adjustment? Refund any overage or if the cost was too much to ship then cancel the sale with apologies?  No need to wait on Etsy.

Your problem may be a singular one and Etsy team will have to see if they can replicate the problem to find out where it lies.  That will take time to do.  What you could do is check your listings and see if there is anything anomalous that you can find.

While you are working on this I suggest adding your shop policies for the UK.  You have no GDPR or return policy listed.

BTW myster boxes are not allowed.  The buyer has to see exactly what they are getting in the listing. 

[MyQueerGifts]

@JDTotesnDolls Thanks for your reply, it's specifically the Goose with a knife sticker. I have shipping profiles for all my listings, this listing is set as free delivery as I include the cost of postage in the item which is why I have separate prices set up for domestic and International. (£2.50 for UK and £3.75 for International) 

I've checked many times and everything with the listing is correct. I have been cancelling the orders with an apology but I'm fearful it will lead to bad reviews.

I think your right in that it will take time, its just so unusual as its seemingly only this one item that has been affected and had previously worked fine. (Some of my other sticker listings were directly copied from this one yet are working fine)

I'm not sure what is going on with the policies as I already have return policies set up.

Thanks for letting me know about the mystery boxes, I will look into it. I presumed they would be okay as with custom items you just need to make it clear in the description that the photos are just examples.

[OwlAlwaysKnit]

You have free shipping set for France on your travel crochet hook set, your crochet hooks and some stickers, the complete crochet tool set has shipping at 5.42€  I didn't check all the listings. Maybe recheck your profiles if you use them.

Sorry not much more I can suggest

[MyQueerGifts]

@OwlAlwaysKnit thanks for your reply, it is one of the stickers that is having the issue (Specifically the goose holding the knife). It is set as free delivery for both international and UK but has a different listing price for them. Not quite sure what's happening as I had no issues previously, I think I am going to temporarily change it to paid delivery for international.  

[ul6p8jmrelnmhjdw]

I had exactly the same problem yesterday and was told by etsy chat that I would get an email. Same email as yours that the engineering team were working on it, but couldn't give a timeline. I removed all the domestic pricing and simply reduced the shipping cost for domestic customers, so it works out the same for the customer, but it's obviously a problem Etsy are aware of and yet they haven't made any announcements or removed the feature. Don't hold your breath as to when it will be fixed.

[OwlAlwaysKnit]

I don't know if this has any relevance but I wonder if the issue is because you have knife in the title and you cannot sell knives within the UK on Etsy, just thinking that may be causing a glitch, just guessing really.

[PoochandTabby · Accepted solution]

There is a legitimate technical issue with the international and domestic pricing tool affecting some sellers that Etsy is looking into. All you can do is report it and keep fixing it yourself until they fix it. Doesn't matter which listing format, old or new, you're using. Happens randomly and now I've noticed, at least for me, when an item's pricing is working fine, if it's bought and renewed it goes back to the wrong pricing again. 

For me it started with one item here and there and now I'm up to 20-30 items having the problem and for some items the listing price reverts to a random amount that isn't the domestic or international price. I fix it and it reverts back whenever they feel like it.

[ImagesForCrafts]

Yes - I have just had an international order go through at the domestic price. Just went on the chat facility with an Etsy agent and got nowhere. So two weeks on from your post and it is still happening. Did you get yours sorted?

[TheSwedishMouse]

I had the same problem yesterday and today when using different domestic and international prices. They kept changing without me even doing anything. My whole shop became a total mess with wrong prices everywhere. I tried to change them several times but the bulk editing tool didn't work properly, in fact, it made it even worse. While correcting some prices, the bulk editor changed other prices at the same time and the mess became even worse. Then I changed them all one by one and it looked for a little while I had solved it. Next time I opened my shop a whole bunch of prices had changed again, both domestic and international. At the moment I use the same prices for domestic and international, and now they don't change.

[EstragonHelmer]

I've had an order to the USA today, where 1 item was paid at international pricing, and 1 at domestic.

Checked the affected listing, and it still has 2 different prices, but the buyer somehow managed to pay the wrong one.

This issuse still isn't fixed.

[MyQueerGifts]

@ImagesForCrafts Sadly not, I’ve had to go back to charging international shipping

[ImagesForCrafts]

Thanks for that update MyQueerGifts - have heard back from the technical team saying they are working to fix the issue. It seems strange though that this has been going on for quite awhile. When I spoke to Etsy over the chat system, the agent said it was because I hadn’t set different rates for domestic and everywhere else.  When I showed screen shots to them proving I had, and that it had been working perfectly up to now, they said it’s because the new Etsy app doesn’t support setting domestic and international postage and that I should do it via the desktop version. I told them everything IS done on desktop - I haven’t used the app to set shipping prices so then they came up with another excuse and advised me to clear my cookies, shut down and restart. When I pointed out this is happening to lots of people so how will that help - the conversation petered out and they said engineers are working on it. I asked how long this will go on and they said they don’t have a time frame. I have since had three responses to emails in which the final one admitted it is an engineering issue that is being worked on. How are you dealing with the postage difference in your listings? Etsy prioritises shops offering ‘free’ postage but of course we have to add that cost to our item price. I’m not sure how we can offer free domestic shipping but charge shipping separately for global orders in the same listings. I’m confused! 

[ImagesForCrafts]

An update, I’ve had this again today! An international order has gone through at the domestic price. Further comms with Etsy felt a lot like the runaround despite them knowing this is a very real issue with a lengthy history. I have received exactly the same email as I see on here they were sending out months ago. So I temporarily set my shop to USA settings today to see what USA buyers are seeing and all my prices are literally my UK prices converted to dollars. The international prices are way out!  Etsy is totally ignoring my Everywhere Else price despite it having worked perfectly ever since they created that feature.  It seems as if they have quietly removed that feature for (some?) of us but are not telling us, even after repeated pleas for help. It’s feels like a pretty unkind way to treat sellers in my experience. Its so tiring trying to clearly explain this stuff over and over again only to have them act like they don’t know what you are talking about. It seems the only way out is to revert back to the days before they made us offer free shipping. Which I think is what lots of you are saying. But we will be penalised for not offering free shipping. Losing the domestic and everywhere else feature is a huge step backwards in my opinion because free shipping is hard to offer without it. Any ideas anyone? Thank you.

[DaysofYoreTreasures]

This problem began when the new listing format was first introduced and it is STILL not fixed.
https://community.etsy.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Pay-attention-to-domestic-and-global-pricing/m-p/1427...

For US sellers who have commented in this thread. The bug relates to the listing tool that allows sellers outside of the US to set their domestic vs global prices differently, as described here
https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403156582039-How-to-Add-Domestic-Global-Pricing-to-Your-Lis...

[BlueLilyCrafts]

I've just had this occur and I reported it to Etsy via live chat. I can't believe it's still happening. Part of the problem is that the listings overview will tell you that you have different prices set for domestic and everywhere else, but when you go into the listing it'll have reset your prices to both be at the domestic prices. It makes it really hard to tell which listings are bugged and which ones aren't.

[vinnieboyvintage]

I have had the same issue, and have lost money. I have informed Etsy over two and a half weeks ago and they never get back to me. I keep calling as I have closed my shop hoping it will be fixed 

[ImagesForCrafts]

Sorry you are having this problem too - it only goes to show that despite Etsy claiming that their engineers are working on it, the problem is only hitting more sellers as time goes on instead of being fixed. So what kind of ‘engineers’ do they have! After the last email I had trotting out the same meaningless nonsense, I asked them outright if they have deliberately stopped the Domestic and Everywhere Else function but for some reason are simply refusing to admit it. I told them that this is very stressful for sellers and to just be honest with us but 24 hours later, I just got the standard response they’ve been sending out to affected sellers for months. They totally ignored my plea for transparency.  The thing is, if they know the system has a fault, why don’t they just remove it until their engineers have fixed it? They are allowing a known issue to gradually spread to more and more unsuspecting sellers who only find out when it happens to  them. That is just plain wrong because it causes unnecessary and totally avoidable stress and confusion. It’s only happened to two of my orders and I cancelled them both because I’m not having etsy make money out of sales where I make almost zero. The only option sellers for whom the Domestic and Everywhere Else function us no longer working have is to stop offering ‘free’ shipping - but of course, we will be penalised for that as etsy favours shops with free shipping. I spent ages converting my physical items back to the days before free shipping but then I realised just how much this situation is making me mistrust etsy and so I deactivated all but one of my physical listings while I research other ways to sell. I’m not a huge shop and etsy only provides me with a supplement to my other income so its not such a big deal for me. But for other people, this is their whole income and it must be extremely stressful. Its very sad because I have really loved being with etsy - I thought the platform and their infrastructure was brilliant. However, since deactivating my physical listings I feel a sense of relief that I don’t have to deal with this issue anymore. While researching this issue to find out if this is affecting ALL sellers or just a select few, I was shocked at some of the videos I saw on YouTube about even bigger and more serious issues people are having. I don’t watch the news so I had no idea about the serious etsy issues that have actually hit the mainstream press. Its all very disturbing. I want to close my shop altogether now but so many of my youtube videos promote it. So I will have to make a new video and blog post, like so many other people are doing, to explain the situation to my subscribers. But that won’t stop people following etsy links in all my previous videos. What a mess they have created! So disappointed in etsy.

[BlueLilyCrafts]

Looking through some older threads, people have been reporting this issue since at least May this year. While I've only experienced this today, a lot of people have been taking constant losses from this error. Etsy should take some accountability for this, or else it sets a precedent that they can change whatever listings they like in our shops without our knowledge or consent.

[BlueLilyCrafts]

That sounds like such an awful hassle, @TheSwedishMouse .Etsy needs to really work on fixing this issue instead of having us try to fix it ourselves. We're paying them for a service that should work properly.

[deeranddot]

Yes I reported this issue it must be a year ago now. I just came on here to see if it’s still the same. So very disappointed this is still going on. Looks like I won’t be setting up domestic and international prices again anytime soon! 

[TheSwedishMouse]

Yes, it really was @BlueLilyCrafts . I had to put the shop in vacation mode for the night because my items were suddenly both rediculously high and low. The shipping settings didn't stick either, they kind of lived their own life. Thank goodness I noticed it before I went to bed. It wouldn't have been fun waking up to a lot of sales for only 1 or 2 dollars!

It was only by coincidence I noticed how to solve it. I started with using the bulk editing tool and put the same price on everything. That worked. And that made it automatically remove the separate domestic prices, so every item had only one price. And then it stopped changing prices by itself, then I was able to set the right prices on the items without them changing into something else. It was then I understood that this domestic/international price feature is suddenly causing the trouble somehow. So now I only have one price per item, no separate domestic and international.

[cindylouwho2]

Unfortunately, Etsy doesn't take bugs seriously now, unless the bugs impair everyone from buying. There are so many bugs they simply do not have the staff to prioritize ones that affect seller income as opposed to Etsy income. Etsy doesn't have enough human beings for anything now - check out the other threads where Canadians are waiting over 60 days to have their tax and corporate info verified. (a problem exacerbated by the lousy coding and poor Support info on what numbers Etsy expects us to put in each slot, since Etsy's terms do not correlate with the proper provincial and federal terminology.)

Since US sellers cannot use the domestic pricing tool, the issue is even less likely to get attention. The fact it is the only thing Canadians and some other countries have to keep within tax compliance should make it a priority, but it isn't. Etsy brass do not care as long as the harm caused is only to sellers and not to Etsy's bottom line.