My handmade bestseller deactivated

[#1]

So many of my best sellers have been targeted by copy cats on AliBaba and AliExpress. They steal my original photos and use them to sell cheap knock offs of my handmade pieces. Many other sellers are dealing with this same problem. To add insult to injury, Etsy’s bots have recently deactivated my best seller- a beautiful unique design I have been making for years. It is 100% handmade and the process takes days and is painstaking. I have photos proving every step of this process and have written to Etsy through their email portal and haven’t received a response. Not only am I losing money every single day, but Etsy’s boys have inadvertently helped these thieves by taking my original handmade designs offline. I cannot get a response and am afraid my small business will lose tens of thousands of dollars because of it. 

My guess is the bots use reverse image searches and are finding my best selling photos on other sites that sell mass produced knock offs. It’s very frustrating that these thieves have not only stolen my original photos and designs, but Etsy’s bots are now punishing me further. 

I hope somehow Etsy will respond to my emails and get this best seller back online and remove any marks against my shop. I’ve been selling in etsy for over 12 years and have maintained Star Seller now for more than a year. I deserve better than this. We all do. 

Thanks for reading. 

[Kurafuchi]

Interesting ! For me as well, the listing they took down was the same one they asked me to apply to their stupid contest with. 

[retrorabbits]

Hi, I am sorry this happened to you, and honestly I am shocked they apologised, they have never apologised to me for their doing something they shouldn't have with the exception of once I asked why hadn't someone apologised. It's depressing.

[DeerGirlDesigns]

It has absolutely affected this listing’s ranking and my shop overall. This was also the design award suggested listing for me as well!

[GraffitiFonts]

Not true. It's very obvious that search rank would be greatly harmed if a link keeps leading to a deactivated page. It would harm the search rank for that URL literally forever. It doesn't matter at all if the page later achieved equal or greater search rank/traffic. Days, weeks or months with the intended content not appearing at a given URL would indisputably, irrevocably, irreparably damage the rank of that URL. It's not all about search on Etsy, it's Google & other search engines, it's backlinks from 3rd parties, it's links that shop owners have added to their own sites & other platforms coming up broken...

[BagmakerSupply]

@GraffitiFonts: You are absolutely correct about external searches - I (mistakenly perhaps) interpreted the question to be about the internal Etsy search ranking.

[Kurafuchi]

Wait until you hear the best part about Alibaba :

You know when you go through all the trouble of signing up to Alibaba’s IP reporting portal, register all your copyrighted works, wait until they confirm it, and finally manage to file the IP infringement complaints, then after a few days you see that the listing has finally been deactivated and sigh a breath of relief? Well, sorry to ruin it for you but I just found, using a VPN, that they only deactivate the listing in the country where you file the IP complaint from. Meaning the counterfeits are very much still live and selling to everyone outside of your country. They just make it so you can’t see it.

This explains why my bestseller was also deactivated by Etsy’s stupid bot even though I spend 2 hours of every single day hunting down copyright thieves.

[PhenomeGNOME]

Thank you for posting this. Alibaba/Ali Express has stolen so many of my items! Resellers are on Etsy, eBay, Amazon you name it. They all use my photos showing the items in my own hand even! Its time consuming enough to file take downs with Etsy. I figured trying to fight this at Alibaba/Ali Express would be a nightmare. Now I can see it would be a complete waste of my time. I have lost thousands of sales to these thieves.

[DuscaLux]

.

[JosiahEidmannStudios]

This happened to me on Tuesday, to my best seller/Etsy's pick that was featured in a marketing email by Etsy in 2021, and was also in the design comp suggestion email Etsy sent out this year. It was reinstated late Wednesday but my shop views and sales have fallen off a cliff. I was on a steady upward trend all last month averaging 25 to 30+ sales a day now I am getting less than 10. All of my listings seem to have been affected.

The best part is that I had two Etsy team members in my studio in March for a research study and they recorded me and my workspace on film.

I have been a die hard supporter of Etsy through all the stuff they have done but this has finally made me loose faith and start thinking about transitioning my business elsewhere. I used to wake up excited about coming up with new designs to try to break into the search algorithm, now I'm like "why bother? This would probably happen again."

[Kurafuchi]

For me, that realization came at about 6 years ago, haha.
Your work is so beautiful ! Definitely consider Shopify if you haven't already got one.

[UrbanOpsCollective]

Need advice please … My very best custom watch and my best seller was deactivated because …  today I received a message from a potential customer that wanted me to build him a watch exactly like one of the images in my listing. The watch band in the picture he liked was discontinued so I offered alternatives. He accused me of using “generic images from the internet” among other accusations and I explained that no two timepieces are exactly alike because I use components that are available at the time of the order. After back and forth I told him “my apologies but I don’t think I offer what you are looking for”. One hour later I receive a message that this listing was deactivated because of intellectual property. This guy called and complained that my listing contain images that do not belong to me so they deactivated it. I have three of these watches ordered and now I am supposed to cancel the orders. Even though I’ve already started building them.

Any advice …PLEASE!!

[BagmakerSupply]

@UrbanOpsCollective: "I have three of these watches ordered and now I am supposed to cancel the orders." Who said that you are supposed to cancel the orders?

You might have also been caught out by using Seiko images in your banner and the name in your descriptions.

[PlymouthCreative]

Any advice will be appreciated.. We received an email from Etsy that our best selling item was being deactivated because it didn't met the "handmade" criteria. We responded back that the deactivation of the item was an error that we make the item ourselves in our home. We received this got this response from Etsy 

Hello,
 
This is Etsy’s Trust & Safety Team. Thank you for reaching out about your account. 
 
We are currently experiencing a high volume of incoming messages, and as a result our replies may be delayed.
 
If your issue has been resolved, you can ignore this message.
 
Our decision to suspend your listing(s) is final and may not be appealed. To clarify, your item(s) were removed for not meeting the criteria for what qualifies for sale on Etsy.
 
Items listed as Handmade must be made or designed by you, the seller. The item(s) you’ve listed in your shop appear to be commercially available. Sellers may not sell items which they have neither designed nor created.
 
Etsy is a marketplace with specific policies about what can be sold, and these policies differ from most other online marketplaces and venues. All items listed here must fall into one of our three categories: Handmade items you have designed or created, Vintage goods at least 20 years old, or Craft Supplies. 
 
Products that do not meet these criteria cannot be sold on Etsy. You can find more information about the kinds of items that qualify for sale in our marketplace here.
 
When we suspended your listing(s), we sent you an email to the address listed on your Etsy account with more information regarding the specific violation. If you believe you did not receive an email, we encourage you to check your spam folder.
 
If you believe your item was removed on error, please be aware that we never take action against an account lightly, and we use a variety of information to make determinations about whether items are in compliance with our policies. If you believe your listing was removed by Etsy in error, please review our Handmade Policy. You are welcome to create a new listing for your item(s) if they are within our policies.
 
Moving forward, please carefully review our Seller Policy, including our Handmade Policy and Prohibited Items Policy. Your shop may be suspended if you continue to list non-qualifying items. We recommend that you review your shop to ensure your remaining listings qualify—here are some tips to help make things easier:

• Handmade items have to be made or designed by you. You can’t resell anything in our handmade category. Learn more about reselling
• If you work with someone who’s not part of your Etsy shop to make your items, you’ll need to add them as a production partner in your listing’s core details.
• Simple customization, such as selecting colors, shapes, or choosing from ready-made options available from a supplier, is not considered design on Etsy. Additionally, adding your own logo or branding to items that you are not otherwise designing or making does not meet our handmade criteria.
• Using others' photos or stock images of items that are similar to yours is not permitted, even if the images have been altered to include a watermark of your shop name. To do justice to your own craftsmanship, you must only use photos of the actual item for sale.

 
We appreciate you taking the time to review our policies and help protect what makes Etsy special.

We actually have a patent pending, and have been on Etsy for over a year. There are several copy cats of our design and we have asked them to stop selling their products as we have a pending patent. We think that one of those folks may have complained but we have no idea how to see what transpired before we received the original email. Does anyone know who you can contact to see who made the original complaint or how to get the item relisted? 

[DeerGirlDesigns]

My advice is to keep opening help requests, tag them all over social media, take photos showing you make the items and be relentlessin botheringthem and telling them they made a mistake. I clicked around the help portal until I was able to chat and request a call back as well. Don’t give up. 

[TREASURESZTREASURES]

I was hit with reserves on my items  not realizing what it was until,it was too late   Cancelled my last 2 sales refunded them or they would be in reserve for  45 days  never mind tracking  I showed tracking  it didn’t help  accused me of using different  senders  funny I use same for years   I’m rural nobody else to use  , then I was making more money  ,, well ISNT that hood for me  Duh ,, I got so sic of this I bombarded Etsy WITH emails   You do that they will at least start responding somehow    Part human  part computer generated  info ..   I will get to the bottom of my proper  balance it’s not right  so I have  opted down to 2  listings until  it’s all fixed   .. Etsy made  2.57 BILLION  LAST YEAR    I MADE WHAT   ???   Thank you   Press on its the only way   .. 

[BagmakerSupply]

@TREASURESZTREASURES: You personally handmade the Disney Weiss Schwarz card and have a licensing agreement with Disney to use their name and sell merchandise with their name on it?

"I got so sic of this I bombarded Etsy WITH emails" Often the first response you get from customer support is an automated reply meant to weed out the people who contact support over common issues that can be easily solved. Every eMail from Etsy support should have a link something like "I Still Need Help". Click on that link in each reply from Etsy (or actually reply stating that you still need help) to keep the report alive otherwise Etsy will assume that it is resolved. You may have to do this innumerable times, before anything is done but do not give up. DO NOT open a new issue or contact Etsy multiple times about the same issue (doing so closes the one you already opened and puts the new one on the bottom of the pile).

[SunnytyDE]

@TREASURESZTREASURES  you actually don’t have a legit claim like everyone else on this thread. You are selling counterfeit merchandise and even claim Disney in your shop name. 

The sellers here had pictures stolen from other sites. Much like you did from Disney. 

If I were you I would immediately change my shop name, delete all my listings and hope Disney doesn’t come after me. That could get very very expensive. 

[BagmakerSupply]

@PaintedLegions: "10 requests opened  ... every day" Are you opening a NEW request every day? Every eMail from Etsy support should have a link something like "I Still Need Help". Click on that link in each reply from Etsy (or actually reply stating that you still need help) to keep the report alive otherwise Etsy will assume that it is resolved. You may have to do this innumerable times, before anything is done but do not give up. DO NOT open a new issue or contact Etsy multiple times about the same issue (doing so closes the one you already opened and puts the new one on the bottom of the pile).

"semi automated refusals" Often the first response you get from customer support is an automated reply meant to weed out the people who contact support over common issues that can be easily solved.

"do you have a contact email??" There is no published customer service eMail address or phone number for Etsy. Any that you find on the internet will be a scam.

[PaintedLegions]

the first few requests were opened from the "my listing was removed" heading.  thi gets an automated response saying something along the lines of " there are no appeals, we will not reply to further emails"

the only way to contact someone, is to go through the "harrassment" heading, then select that your item was removed. this gets forwarded to the trust and safety team, who send an email saying they wont change the decision, if you reply to this they send a final email saying, the request is closed and you will receive no further replies.

so i found a callback number for customer support. 

they seem to open a new request each time i call. some are visible, and some are not on my account. 

every day i get a new appeal rejection email from trust and safety.  obvious copy paste jobs. its clear they havnt looked into it at all.  and strangely a difrent reason for rejection on eah one. all i have covered with proof i supplied. photos etc.

its clear no one is actually looking at this, and they have outsourced trust and safety to a office in india somewhere where no one cares, have no knowledge about the products, and wont talk to me.

what else can i do?

[PaintedLegions]

Hi there,

If you’re reaching out to Etsy Support for more information about a listing we removed from your shop due to a violation of our Seller Policies, please refer back to our previous reply and make sure to review what can be sold on Etsy.

Our support agents can’t reinstate your listing, and our decision on this matter remains final.

We won’t respond to further emails about this, but if you have a different question, we’re happy to assist! Please create a new support request instead of replying here so we don't miss your question.

[Kurafuchi]

Did you guys/girls notice that their bot reply says "if you think the listing was deactivated in error, (...) you are welcome to create a new listing for your item if they are within policy" ?

So basically they know they are often mistaken, but they would rather have us lose all the hype of a bestselling listing and create a new one which will take months to get to the same level, all so they don’t have to pay a human to open our support tickets. Removing the site's most successful listings (which is exactly why they are the most counterfeited on Ali) just to save a few bucks a day. That is so pathetic.

My listing had a 14k sale count and 50k favs, and is featured on so many external websites. You don’t get that kind of traffic back.

[PaintedLegions]

They dont reply on Twitter, or anywhere else I can find.

And they just deleted my forum thread asking for help. The one you posted in yesterday kurafuchi .Absolute evil

[PaintedLegions]

it seems like the bot is doing reverse image search. and assuming you (the creator) is reselling the items shown on alibaba....

we need to get together somehow to get etsy's attention. but its hard when they are covering it up like this, deleting threads...

[PawsomePetParadise]

Hi I have the same problem, my best seller product listing has been deactivated. I made them by myself, selling it for over 2 years,y customers are love it, I have only 5* reviews about it. And I don't understand the reason. It's 100 % handmade, organic natural ingredients, match with Etsy policy and still deactivated. If they don't put in active listings again, I have to find another platform to sell it which is shame because every of my sales make money to the platform I sell it on.

[HandmadeByNepal]

It is happening t me also. I worked very hard to get a star badge and treat customers with 5 star service. 70 percent of items on etsy I can find in China doesnt mean my store is not handmade. I had my store for 3 years but as soon as you start making a little money they start targeting you. They also threaten you with terminating your store.