Vintage Clothing Listings Deactivated by Etsy Bot

[goodboyVTG]

Any other vintage sellers still struggling with Etsy's automated takedown system?

I had two listings immediately taken down after listing them last week (vintage Adidas Sweatshirt, LA Lakers hat.) They were both manually reinstated 4 days later upon review. Today I had seven listings taken down at once (5 Adidas items, Jaws shirt, Chicago Bulls shirt.)

I'm confident all of these will get reinstated because I'm not breaking any policies, but it makes me incredibly paranoid when 7 listings are taken down at once. Doesn't this count as 7 strikes on their back-end, and couldn't my store be deactivated in the meantime if I hit their strike threshold?

I've emailed them recommending they whitelist establish sellers that have consistently passed manually reviews, but haven't received a proper response.

[CassandrasNotebook]

I just has a vintage shirt almost immediately taken down, no email explanation so I'm assuming a bot.

Your items might have been flagged to make sure they weren't counterfeit because they are pretty big brands. My shirt was like a granny shirt from the 80s so I am frustrated too.

They are cracking down on the regulated items, like children's pjs. They have no way to make sure we sell kids' pjs up to US regulations.

It has taken 20 days on average to sort out my past few bot deactivations, which is beyond frustrating. It seems it's just one after another.

[CassandrasNotebook]

My shirt listing was just reactivated today, so it was probably just a rogue bot.

[PreciousMemoriesOne]

I had a vintage baby sweater deactivated last week. Etsy said I violated their handmade policy.  Nowhere did I claim or say anything about it being handmade.  I quickly got a message that the decision could not be appealed.  They said they sent an email explaining this, but I never got any email.  I did check.my spam folder.  Really non existent customer service.

[Amaradorn]

@PreciousMemoriesOne 

It depends on how you set up the listing (how you answered the questions). It's possible you may have listed it as handmade by accident.

[OneEyeCatStudio]

How strange. I've reported some Nike counterfeiters, selling as handmade not vintage, for months and nothing happens. They are all still selling as far as I know.

[goodboyVTG]

Absolutely -- Etsy is crawling with counterfeiters and reporting them does literally nothing, which makes the whole situation way more frustrating.

I sell a lot of vintage racing jackets and lately that market has been flooded by sellers who are reselling bootleg knockoffs from Alibaba. I reported them in June to Etsy and included links to their Alibaba suppliers, plus other evidence they were counterfeit, but they took no action.

Meanwhile, legit listings are taken down in mass by a robot, just because you used keywords it associates with counterfeiting.

[TinLizziAntiques]

OP, celebrity name or team name shirts are always going to be examined by Etsy bots. Save yourself time by listing on another marketplace such as Poshmark. Etsy could one day just shut your shop. Why risk it?

[goodboyVTG]

Perhaps it's stupid, but I'm going to push forward because I find all that deeply unfair, and Etsy still offers the best traffic out of any marketplace I've sold on.

I like to think that if they get enough pushback, they'll see the light and change how their bots flag listings. (Why not flag them internally and review them manually before they take it down? They manually review all of them anyway, so they'd just be reversing their workflow.)

Our interests are also aligned which gives me some kernel of hope. The vintage sports team niche is huge on Etsy -- I'd be shocked if it didn't make them tens of millions of dollars a year. It serves sellers and their bottom line if they fix this issue. 

[qjzhi8tq]

Same thing, Adidas seems to be being targeted at the moment. Must be a lot of fake stuff cropping up?

[JMOldeVintage]

"Disney T-Shirt" & search gave me over 198K results. Filter for "handmade" & results pared down to about 185K. 
Yes, I'm sure all of the handmade Disney t-shirts are properly licensed items.

Yet the OP & others are botted, items deactivated, for listing that I will assume are authentic & by Etsy's definition vintage sports (etc.) jerseys.
While I understand the advice that the shop owner should consider selling elsewhere & not listing those items here on Etsy, if that is the shop owners business model, well then why even bother having an Etsy shop to begin with?

Who knows when suddenly Adidas will be just the tip of the iceberg & other popular name brand jerseys get deactivated? Receive enough of these bot strikes & the shop may be closed. Etsy will keep the shop's funds for 6 months to cover any possible issues.
Maybe Etsy needs to update their "prohibited items" legal pages & include all the fashion designer names, sports or t-shirt makers, whatever, that their bots will reject at the drop of hat to save themselves & shop owners a lot of time & grief?

[Amaradorn]

@JMOldeVintage yeah, there is much irony here. It's like clown world. I've also seen legit handmade sellers deactivated whilst the brand name candy sellers are raking in the cash. It's so frustrating.

[goodboyVTG]

Hit the nail on the head -- the lack of transparency over what keywords they deactivate drives me crazy. "Chicago Bulls" has resulted in 5 deactivated listings in the past few months.

If your bot is going to flag these listings willy nilly and potentially get shops taken down, make it clear upfront that all Bulls items will be presumed counterfeit.

[AUNTYANNIESATTIC]

You have a number of issues that I am surprised only one was taken down.. Disney, Mickey Mouse, Channel, Pepsi, Star Trek etc..

[ThePurplePuppy]

@AUNTYANNIESATTIC 

but I thought we were allowed to sell vintage items under the first sale doctrine. 

[AmoreTreasure]

Etsy Community Policy 2.6 "Don't harass, target, insult, troll, or call out other members or Etsy representatives."  

Found here: 

https://www.etsy.com/legal/community#forums

[ThePurplePuppy]

@AmoreTreasure 

What did I do?  Why am I being accused of harassing? I do not think I harassed anyone.

[AmoreTreasure]

@ThePurplePuppy, I was responding to the post I was nested under, not your response to that post.

But for clarification, specifically, I was referencing, "Don't ... call out other members..."  (I cut and pasted above exactly from Etsy help.  I didn't add the underlines, they were there as I believe they are links to further information.)

[ThePurplePuppy]

This is a little off the mark here but is still a trademark issue:  The past few days I have seen several (well, a lot!) of TV ads for small kitchen appliances (pots, pans, knives, etc)--brand name: MADE IN. Trademarked. So now will we not be able to say "Made in USA" Made In Canada"? Etc --(add any country) because the Etsy bots will pick up the trademark "Made In" {{{shudder}}}

[BootifulLabels]

The prohibited item filter is there to scan new listings as they go live, or existing listings as they are sold or expire and are relisted.  They are then referred to an Etsy staffer to be examine closer and if found to be within Etsy guidelines they will be reinstated.  This can take anything from 2 days to a week on average.  The bot simply scans for words that suggest a possible prohibited item, it doesn't read the entire listing and is not programmed to make judgements as to whether an item is vintage and allowed, or counterfeit and not allowed, that is for the Etsy staffer to decide.

[Former_Member]

[puts on tin foil hat] y'know if I were conspiratorial, I'd say Etsy bots target vintage on purpose. The new seller protection is void if you have a policy violation, the most common of which is these take-downs. Of all the shops on Etsy, who's most likely to encounter a return request? Well Etsy has that exact data but probably vintage dealers. A mark you didn't show me, it doesn't fit, I didn't realise it was vintage/used, colour is off, zipper broke etc etc. Vintage is a gamble, and Etsy are likely not keen on paying out for my $500 vase because a glitch/mistake showed the measurements in inches. (I'm constantly fixing listings where the attribute has done that)

If bots are targeting listings the moment they 'arrive' in search, it would target everyone. And if it were doing that, many POD shirt sellers et al would have their listings blipped out the moment one sold. The POD shirt category probably has the lowest return rate across the site.