Speechless, Etsy have done it again

[bearhousebeads]

I had my handmade glass beads delisted by Etsy some time ago as I dared to use the colour 'amber' to describe them, simply because that is the name of the glass used. They did eventually reinstate them once they saw that they are glass, not amber.

I have just renewed a listing, where I had already changed the name, description and tags to 'toffee', and the listing had been active for four months....... but it has been immediately delisted by Etsy. How exactly am I supposed to sell my products if the bots do this?

[EVEmporiumCo]

You are not alone in having this issue! I also sell beads. One of my listing is the color amber mixed with other colors of glass. It has been deactivated and them restored by Etsy five times in the last three months. This item is not composed of amber stone, nor does it fit the description Etsy provided of prohibited items. Etsy sites stone chips of amber smaller than 2 inches and bracelets made from amber as being prohibited. My listing is neither of these things. I have to assume they use a computer algorithm to simply pick out key words and then deactivate those listings until they can be reviewed by a human. I've called Etsy customer service twice about it. They are not interested in doing anything or even reporting the problem.

I thought the best solution might be to take the term "amber" out of keywords, descriptions and titles. I took out the word "amber" from my title and keywords, it is mentioned once in my description and the listing was still deactivated last week. There are 6-7 other items in my shop that still use the word "amber" in the title, listing and description and none of them have ever been flagged.

[SeasideRoseCreations]

Bots do the sweeps, so they will find it in the descriptions.

Are your newest listings the ones that are being taken down?

It seems that when new or renewed listings have the word, those are the ones flagged, not the older ones.

[Arcalliq]

i would not renew  listing that was once deactivated. try creating completely new listing.

[SeasideRoseCreations]

Agree!

The older listings aren't usually caught up in these issues.

It's the new and renewed.

It doesn't only happen with amber.  It happens with infringers all the time.  The new listings are caught by the bots.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

once it's flagged, it remains flagged, unless you log a ticket to get a human to un-flag it

If you don't do this, you have to create a new listing, the e-mail etsy sent to you would have said not to re-list it

[JMOldeVintage]

@bearhousebeads - If this listing that you just renewed was never deactivated by Etsy, then there may be some truth to the statement that Etsy's bots use photo recognition & the bot decided that the beads looked like amber. 

Others have posted that Etsy's "background tech" can see that at one time you had used the word "amber" so by default the bot is deactivating the listing in case you are trying to work around the system.

If this particular listing had been deactivated but then reinstated by Etsy & it's happened all over again, imo Etsy did not do their job, plain & simple. There must be a way (??) to clear the data on the listing so that you do not have the item deactivated again.

Others have suggested you take all new photos, rework the title, tags & description and post as a brand new listing. 

Yes, it's only .20 USD but there is also the principle involved. Shop owners should not have to keep contacting Etsy's backlogged customer service & then waiting on the listing to be reinstated. Plus if there is any image recognition used, the bot may deactivate the brand new listing too. And of course if the old listing has a good track record of sales, you lose that. 

[PillowDetails]

Yes - I have long suspected bots using photo recognition - 

Remember the electrical warning for non-electrical items like leather thongs ?  (the long thread-like kind, not the swimwear!)  Although those may have also included "cord" or "cording" in the description or tags.

[GieseDeseiGns]

You may have missed an amber, you still have some lamp work beads with amber listed.

[BagmakerSupply]

Etsy is cracking down on what they feel inappropriate. It also seems that the bots are looking for trigger words with no consideration for context. Since Etsy is now also factoring descriptions in search, they along with titles, tags. and materials are all probably being checked. And the bots are also "reading" images.

[moonbeamgifts]

Beware on "ivory" too - I absolutely agree that the *product* should not be sold but I also don't like using off white or cream as descriptors since that sometimes means something different to people.    Some days, you just can't win!

[artbypolli]

I had the same problem and eventually realised that I was describing one of the colours on a Murano glass pendant as amber. I then changed it to brown which isn't accurate and doesn't sound very pretty either. It was suddenly activated again.

[bearhousebeads]

I will go in and double check that the word amber isn't there. This is especially galling when a quick search for amber beads throws up 33,000 listings of actual amber beads....

[BikerBlingCa]

Sorry to say, but the word "amber" does not have to be in the description or title or anywhere for that matter.  I had two listings removed from my other shop where I sell drilled sea glass and I did not use the word amber in any of them.  One listing was reactivated and deactivated a second time in a matter of minutes.  Both of those listings had dark brown sea glass in them, not even amber or honey brown.  That means the bot is also looking at color as well.  Too bad it doesn't know the difference.  It takes weeks to get an actual support person to understand and actually reactivate them.  Meanwhile your listing fee ticks away.  

[bearhousebeads]

I actually used Etsy chat to ask why this had happened, but they fobbed me off with 'someone will e:mail you back with an answer'. I have just had an e:mail with no explanation whatsoever, and the implication that these listings are now suspended permanently, with no recourse whatsoever. Shameful