My handmade bestseller deactivated

[DeerGirlDesigns]

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. 

[LinkisPrintables]

             The same happened to me. I got an email stating my drawn pattern dress was copyright law, blah blah, and they put in my non-active folder and told me not to remove it or change it in any way. They "said" I would have to wait for 10 days while they investigated and that in their email I could find the person who claimed it was their stolen design. It didn't and they would not say, but they have some IMHO issues with discrimination, (at least the person who sent me this and two other incidents with him).

               So I took my dress photo and went to the Google image finder page. I took full shots, top half close-ups, the bottom half, and the back; each time hitting the submit button, (they have the tools to do it fast).  Every shot showed my dress in the number one position and zero dresses or other products with that pattern on every search. Then I took a screenshot of all of them and the results Google found. Finally, I went to the Etsy Legal box, or private messages to them, posted all of the pictures (copy and paste), and gave them my concerns about being harassed by that individual (this was the third incident and all different).

                I called it discrimination and explained how I came to that educated certainty. In less than a day, the dress was back on sale. But the damages from his first two acts of direct discrimination, which I proved pretty well, worked.

                    So googling your photo at their match pictures on the internet worked. But my visitors while and after, have been drastically reduced by Etsy to well under half the traffic, I barely get a trickle. And after spending over 1,,000 hours at least working on Etsy, they have you dead to rights - it would take weeks to transfer - build up an audience- and sell with brand new ads elsewhere where there is zero discrimination and things like what happened to you and me and countless others as I have been reading.

[GlassyFields]

@DeerGirlDesigns 

I took a look at your shop. Your items are beautiful.

It's very distressing that Etsy has deactivated your best seller listing. I hope the documentation you provided results in your best seller being reactivated.

I wish I could think of a solution for the knock-off problem. I suppose you could file copyright infringement claims against all the sites that are copying your design and selling knock-offs. That sounds like it could be a whack-a-mole process. Perhaps you could note in your descriptions how to distinguish your items from knock-offs ... or add something distinguishing that it would be difficult to copy. 

But your items are gorgeous and I do hope that in spite of the copy cats you persevere and land on your feet.

[DeerGirlDesigns]

Thank you so much for this response and your positive words! Yes, trying to file reports across the internet is an exhausting and endless game of whack-a-mole. Also, many of the sites aren’t based in the US and finding the host’s process for filing has been labyrinthine. My sales have been good despite this constant battle, but now having my best seller down is really frustrating especially because it must be that the bots think my stolen images across the web are proof it’s not handmade when it is. I hope I can somehowget ahold of an actual person to look into this and see my proof.

[Littlejemsuk]

Can you put a watermark on your images with your shop logo?

[LIZZYLYONS]

this is like chicken and egg, i reported so many shops in one day, they all were loaded with aliexpress, the thing is as they are cloning pics etc, your never sure who is the original seller there was a beautiful picture which is on ali express then everyone has got that pic of the ring maybe somewhere there is a seller whose actual ring it is, although ali express have a whole range of their jewellery,    there is another thread showing top sellers and two have all of this stuff literally nothing else, even the same pics, im flabergasted by it it did not realise it had got so bad, i was encompassed in it all day when i realised, i think a watermark is a good idea but what they do at ali express is they will have a seller whom gets a design made they just copy it, they have a huge manufacturing base the same as alibaba, its horrible and so upsetting, i think people who make or design should get it registered, so you can do them for it.

[SadaJewels]

@DeerGirlDesigns: have experienced the same thing on Thursday. Have been following up with Etsy Support since Thursday but no luck so far. Volunteered videos of the making process. Let's see what happens. Please do update if you get some help. I hope someone in the Community  (moderators or specialists) can see this thread and help us out. It's sad when honest makers are being made to suffer and Trust and Safety isn't even looking at the tickets.

[BarlowJewels]

Hi there! I was just reading through this thread and wanted to know if you got any resolution to your issue. I had a best-selling item that I made be deactivated by Etsy due to violating their handmade policy. It has been disheartening to see my sales drop dramatically since this occurred. I also volunteered photos and videos of my process of me making the item. I submitted them all to a Support Request, but I am a week in and still waiting for an answer. I've been with Etsy for 8 years so this is beyond stressful to see how fast they can take away business from an honest seller.

[AutumnHollowStudio]

I am sorry this happened to you, and I really hope you get this straightened out with Etsy asap. Your jewelry is beautiful, and it's infuriating to see this happen. It  happened to me a couple of  years ago, before etsy went crazy with deactivating and their "shoot first, ask questions later" policies that are hurting actual artisans that design and make their own products.

I filed DMCA complaints with google as the shops stole my images (they were even watermarked!!) and they were shut down, and I haven't been able to find scammers doing the same as I do look occasionally.

[retrorabbits]

They have recently come after me and deactivated an embroidered bag that had whales on it. And then claimed their "team" decided it was against etsy's standards. I asked how any human would think embroidered cotton whales were real whales. Then got a snarky reply about intellectual property (obviously cut and pasted form email and not relevant at all to the issue). 8 emails later...and sales have dropped. I am well fed up with etsy and looking at moving over to shopify or an ebay shop. 

[DeerGirlDesigns · Accepted solution]

Everyone, my listing was reinstated!!

[SadaJewels]

Can you guide us on the process you followed for getting it reinstated?

[OURLADYBeads]

Watermarks of your logo can probably help in protecting your photos from thieves.

[retrorabbits]

Mine was too, but in the meantime I feel etsy owes some sort of monetary retribution for removing it wrongly and all our time lost and stress. (which of course will not happen) And an apology first thing!

[InkedStaind]

how did you resolve it

[LyndyLouDesigns]

That's great news! How did you get them to finally respond to you? I have have had the same thing happen to me. I've sent several messages including links to videos of my process and receipts for the supplies I use to make the item. I haven't gotten back the first response yet and it has been 3 weeks now.

[AprilRoseandCo]

thank goodness it's back on!

[LIZZYLYONS]

Thats really good news, you should get your design registered just in case

[flyingdollar]

Perhaps you can water mark your pictures where they can't crop it out. Not sure it will help but might slow them down. 

[AltArtCardsShop]

Im getting the same problem right now, been going on for a week, 10 requests opened and semi automated refusals sent to me every day. how do i get through to someone?

do you have a contact email??

[DeerGirlDesigns]

Sada, I was relentless and opened several help requests, requested a few call backs, chatted twice, and I tagged them everywhere on social media. Who knows which one worked, but the response I got through email referenced one of the calls. In that call the rep said she couldn’t help, but would escalate it to the proper team. I am guessing that it was the requested call back that worked. I had to click around their help categories to find an option for a call back. Just be annoyingly relentless is my advice. 

[GlassPalaceArts]

I had the same thing happen to me

Etsy contacted me last month suggesting I enter a certain item in their design awards. Two weeks later they sent me a email saying that same item wasn't handmade. Ummm... yes it is. I took the photos, I print the cards it's on, I am the model in the photos, I handmade the necklace. They told me there was no appeal process and I could not relist the item. I emailed back offering to send them a video of every process involved with making it.

Then they apologized, told me it was a mistake and relisted the item. Since then I've been down 46% over previous years. 

Has anyone else run into this dinging your search ranking?

[BagmakerSupply]

@GlassPalaceArts: We can feel your frustration, but with all the constant testing and tweaking - particularly with search - it is impossible to make accurate cause and effect connections on Etsy so no one (except Etsy themselves) can tell you if false deactivations hurt your listing or your shop. We will probably never hear from the people whose listings jumped in sales after being reactivated only the ones whose sales are down.

[GlassPalaceArts]

posted in the wrong spot. sorry

[GlassPalaceArts]

@BagmakerSupply 

Hello,

Several things like this can effect search ranking and overall shop score. 

I'm not really looking for answers from Etsy or anyone else here to figure out if false activations hurt my shop. I already know the answer. 

I haven't seen drops this drastic from testing because as you mentioned testing is constant.  

I'm just wondering who else here has experience with deactivated listings, and what their experience was with sales and traffic was going forward.