Processing time issue?

[RuncornWax]

Morning you lovely seller community from sunny Cheshire, UK!

Going on a short break later today and having had major issues with using holiday mode in the past, I am again just updating processing times so customers can still browse and purchase but with updated, accurate lead times for their orders.

Worked amazing last time and didn't suffer the major drop off on return that holiday mode used to cause.

BUT  -  I see Etsy changed the processing times area so its now made to order or ready for dispatch and can be different per variant which is amazing!   

The issue I have is even after lengthening processing times this morning  - it still appears to me that customers are seeing my items available for the usual delivery lead time of being dispatched same or next day on rapid delivery - so most are showing delivery estimate 24.05.  It should be much later than that based on the processing times edit I made. 

Wondering if it takes time to reflect on the listings?  Has been nearly an hour since I made the change though.  Worrying as a customer placing an order now would be given a false lead time that is not possible.

[RuncornWax]

Hmmm. .  Etsy support none the wiser on this but I wonder if the changes they are making are impacting here.   This is from Etsy.....

"We’ve created processing profiles based on your current listing details. Review them and edit as needed before May 27, when we’ll begin to use processing profiles to show buyers more accurate estimated delivery dates.  "

So is that basically saying until 27th May, no changes to processing time will actually work ?  In which case I am pretty screwed or be forced to use the dreaded holiday mode?

[DaysofYoreTreasures]

@RuncornWax 

That's a very good question, given that the processing times have already disappeared from our shipping profiles.

Surely they would have thought of that?

[RuncornWax]

You would have thought so.  Etsy support now doing their usual of ignoring me.  Last update was that engineering know it is an issue. But yes - as far as I can gather... unless they can fix it, nobody is able to update their processing times (and it take effect on listings) until the 27th May when the large scale changes take effect.

Or.. they did think about it and didn't overly care. Either way I am now either forced to use holiday mode which i have terrible experience of... or contact customers when orders come in and explain the situation (also a nightmare and not great service).  *sigh*

[jcudesigns]

Just asked live the support the same and have had the usual platitudes. Mine said the same that these are improvements etc etc that come into effect on the 27th but can't /won't confirm if for the next week we can't change processing times. It's half-term next week and loads of UK sellers will want to make the change! 

[KarinLorenc]

It's a holiday weekend here. I was planning to extend my time by one day later this week. How ridiculous if this shiny new feature only promises to be easy but doesn't work at all. 

[TynesideOriginals]

Same issue here. Looking to extend processing times while I take a holiday but nothing is updating. New orders still reflect old processing times.

[EccentricHandbags]

While editing one of my listings this morning I see it is now an option in each individual listing and they changed all of mine to 1 - 2 days.  And you cannot bulk edit all of your listings at once.  You have to do it one page at a time.  Etsy just gave me another reason to keep my shop small.  When they finally do catch me up and make one of my orders where it would ship late I will just cancel.  I need this feature left alone.  There is a good reason for my 1 - 4 day processing time.  I won't get into the details, but it is only me running this shop and I have to have a way to handle an emergency at the drop of a hat and still have time to get an order in on time.  Etsy again finding a way to make it where you have to change every single one of your listings.  Moving me slowly in the direction of wanting to be done with Etsy.    

[MouseGarden]

Etsy again finding a way to make it where you have to change every single one of your listings.  Moving me slowly in the direction of wanting to be done with Etsy. 

I was thinking about this yesterday.

Etsy changed pictures to square and expected people to change them all.  Etsy messed round with alt text and expects people to check each photo to see if the original text is there or if it is some AI attempt at one.

Really?  Because I don't have 10 pics each but at one point I had over 200 items, and  that is 2000 photos I need to look at.  I can't keep doing this.  Especially when sometimes the changes don't save.

[PawPets]

For me, under shipping settings you can check or uncheck the holidays that are included or not in your processing times. (I unchecked all.) Then you can change processing times for each of your shop's categories. BUT they can only be the processing times that Etsy picked for you to choose and none are longer than 5 days. For my shop, the only choices I have showing are:

 Ready to ship (1-3 days), Ready to ship (1-2 days), Made to order (1-3 days), Made to order (1-2 days), Made to order (3-5 days).

[jcudesigns]

PawPets if you go to delivery settings you should have an option to create your own profiles? I do on desktop.

[KarenaHigtonArt]

I just checked my listings, as there's been issues with wrong delivery estimates for overseas orders for awhile on my shop. Before, I could fix the bug by manually altering the time frame back and forth every day. Was hoping a change would fix the glitch on my shop. Nope! All the ones that have the same processing time show different delivery estimates now. Some show they'll arrive to the US in 2-3 days after posting (with a 3 week processing time), and on my bestseller, it shows it'll take between 3 days to 3 weeks to arrive after posting (should be up to 7 working days) . On another it shows even longer. Not happy. 

[KarenaHigtonArt]

Seem to be able to fix the wrong estimates by going to settings and altering the delivery profile back and forth to different mailing classes... Does appear to have fixed it for me now, as is showing the correct timeframes - will see tomorrow if it lasts.

[millyandpip]

I can't believe that Etsy have done this. We can't change our processing times! Here in the UK it's a bank holiday on Monday the 26th and school holidays next week so many sellers will want to change their processing times, but they can't. :0(

[bradgoodell]

Monday is a bank holiday in the US as well.  This is a holiday weekend where many people travel too.

[GlassyFields]

I sold a custom order listing yesterday. I used one of my shipping profiles that had a processing time of 7 to 10 days, and it showed the correct delivery date on the sold order.

My processing times are contained in my shipping profiles. The one I use the most is 1-2 days. I have others that I apply to custom orders that are 7-10 days, 1-2 weeks, etc.

I'm leaving for a vacation in a few days and planned on editing my shipping profiles to show a 1-2 weeks.  Hope that still works.

[TynesideOriginals]

If it was previously saved and active on the listing it's fine. But if you try and apply a change to days on an existing profile, or even create a new one it will not apply to the listing.

In other words, anyone trying to extend processing times to be different to their BAU times (or even shorten) are in for a shock!

[TylerGraceCo]

Not even sure if this is the same problem but many of my listings say that there is no processing time. When I click on the listing, 4 days is clicked. Grrrr

Also, I just received an order to ship on May 28th. Etsy gave them expected delivery window of May 29-30. Ground advantage moving across the country doesn't take 1-2 days. 

[GlassyFields]

ok ... I just went to check my shipping profiles which had my processing times.

I got the notice about the new processing time profiles with instructions to review before May 27. There were tons of profiles applies to all my listings including active, draft, sold, expired. Felt weird. Seems they created a profile for whatever the actual shipping time was. Since I do a lot of custom and have estimated the processing time for each custom order individually over many years, I had a really long list of profiles. 

Anyhow, I reviewed and edited all the new processing profiles that Etsy invented. I kept the 1-2 days for the Ready to Ship items which corresponds to what I had in the majority of my listings. 

I edited all the other profiles, which appeared to be based on draft, sold and expired listings to Made to Order 1-3 weeks. I wanted them all to be consistent so that I'm not scratching my head over where a processing time came from if I use one of the listings as a template for a new listing. And all of these profiles were ready to ship with various time frames. Seemed like an oxymoron that there were ready to ship profiles with long time frames.

I'm hoping that when I leave for vacation I can edit the 1-2 day profile to be 1-2 weeks. If I can't, I'll put my shop in vacation mode for the first time ever. And if this whole thing isn't working I won't know. I'm going to an island w/o cell or internet service.

[CanningCrafts]

That was a good idea to edit the processing times for some of the profiles that Etsy created. I had a few one-off custom listings over the years where I had a longer processing time setup. Much of these weird processing profiles are showing very old custom orders & things I don't even sell any more. So weird. So I've edited away a page worth of confusing profiles.

[TailoringByDebra]

OK I found this in the etsy help center article--If you have a history of completing your orders faster than your listed processing times, buyers may see estimated delivery date ranges with your actual processing times reflected.

I purposely have my shipping set to allow a cushion in case something comes up etc. If I ship earlier, which I usually do, the buyer is happy and I am not stressed. Etsy is changing the expectations of the buyer. 

[TynesideOriginals]

In this case it is unrelated. As the actual 'ship buy date' the seller sees is not being correctly influenced by the processing time

[GlassyFields]

me too ... I almost always ship same or next day but have my processing times set at 1-2 days.

And there have been occasions when that extra day was essential - loss of power after a storm AND roads with snow ... so can't update ship by date or get stuff to the post office.

Etsy punishes late shipping so having contingency is really important.

This whole thing could backfire ... I may start shipping on 2nd day so that Etsy uses that as the norm.

I've always been an under-promise, over-deliver person so this whole thing goes against my grain.

[bradgoodell]

@GlassyFields  I'm with you on that.

Our stuff is all made to order, but this isn't our only business.  We have other obligations.  A sale on Wednesday may go out on Friday, or it make go out on Monday or Tuesday.  Sometimes we work weekends, sometimes we don't.  

I much prefer to ship sooner, but I need the opportunity to ship later if needed.

[MattBrewerJewellery]

This is an absolute mess. 

I have so many processing profiles which Etsy has generated, many of them are for items which are sold out, expired etc. I have tried deleting an old redundant profile by removing the one, sold out item that was using it. A delete button appeared but a red error message just popped up saying there was an error. This wouldn't be such a pain if it wasn't pulling data from old sources and was just using items currently listed as active.

What makes it even more annoying is that there really didn't seem to be much of an issue with processing profiles within the shipping profile. At least, I didn't have any problems. And what is the point of having Ready to Ship and Made to Order if this is only visible to the shop owner?! Surely we know what we have made and what needs making?! Think I'm just going to leave everything as it is and hope they've not messed up my processing times.