r/EtsySellers

Hi Etsy Sellers,

i just got the following notice after i accidently used some Copyrighted designs on T-Shirts.

I made a grumpy cat shirt with the word „BRUH“ and somehow the word „BRUH“ is copyrighted to a brand, altough their brand is „BRUH.“ (with a dot).

Your badges have been removed because you received a final warning for a policy violation.

My question is, will those violations drop some day or will those stay forever?
Also will I get my Badge back sooner or later?

I just checked my Shop and there should be no Copyrighted stuff anymore and i will check new designs more thoroughly in the future before dropping them.

EDIT:
More information on what happened.

Thanks for any help!

A customer purchased an item from me a week ago., but unfortunately I can’t find it. I have a similar item that I offered them with a discount the day of the purchase. Presumably they haven’t read the message because they would have replied, but they haven’t.
Etsy keep reminding me it’s overdue, but without the customer’s response I can’t send anything.

Should I message again? How would I word it without sounding pushy?

This is an approved thread for sharing your shop links, shop launches, shop updates, instagram handles, etc.

Contest mode is turned on to ensure a fair share of visibility for everyone.

This is also the approved place for sharing your shop milestones! Please use this thread and only this thread to share your milestones. Do your best to also share any information that other sellers might benefit from including tips and tricks that got you to the milestone, etc.

We strongly prefer posts that contain more information about the milestones. Tell us your story. Talk about the struggles you went through to reach 1000 orders. Explain what you learned about producing your products that let you scale from 10 orders to 100 orders.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a post for promotional only. Please do not post unsolicited critiques and feedback here.

Sellers, if you would like feedback, please create your own post requesting a critique, following the shop critique guidelines in the sub rules.

So i was at this small con a few weeks ago, and there was a vendor selling the most gorgeous sticker sets of characters from a webnovel i actually read. the art was clearly its own thing but you could tell exactly which world it was from. So I got home, went down a rabbit hole and found the author had literally posted saying she wishes people would just ask her before making stuff with her characters. said she’d almost definitely say yes if someone reached out properly. and it just… stuck w me. because i work with a bunch of indie authors and SOo many of them feel the same way. they’d love to see their worlds turned into candles, pins, stickers, whatever. they own everything, they’d say yes in a heartbeat but here’s the frustrating part like i’ve reached out to a few sellers about working with these authors, and most of them only wanna do their own designs or big existing fandoms. nobody seems to wanna work w smaller authors even though the demand is right there.

Hello lovely fellows,
I've had my Etsy shop for like 5-6 years now, but I've been inactive for the past few years as i was putting more efford in my official website instead (migrating to shopify ect) as well as few other personal projects that took way too long to finish. But I am back again , basically starting anew and i wonder how can i improve my humble store. It's not exactly finished, as i have 1400 listings in my website, and only 200-something on etsy, but i'm doing it manually one by one whenever i get the time (being kinda lazy during the summer lol).

1. What am I missing, how is my About section
2. What would you recommend for more "trustworthy" international orders
   Any tips and critiques will be very helpful.

What inspired me to create this store? - I created my online store (and the equivalent Etsy) because of my passion for crystals and gemstones. It started as a small hobby during my student years, and turned into a full time "job". I put that in quote, as i own the business (it's legitimate) so it doesn't feel like a job most of the times. Well unless i have to spend until 4 in the morning to photograph stones, or while i struggle for a week to fix some bugs and stuff on the website.

Why do i feel my products are worth purchasing? Well I try to offer affordable crystals and gemstones for everyone - either for collection, decoration, study or to make a pretty jewelry out of them. They are not perfect, but nothing in life is. Inclusions and imperfections make them unique.

I am using Etsy to "expand" my options for selling, and it looks like a good platform to do so.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LapisMagica

I fulfilled a custom order for 26 items from my shop, totally about $700.

Shipped on 6/27 with expected delivery with priority with USPS of a day or two. It shipped in state (Ca), about 120 miles away.

Somehow it’s in Indianapolis and has been since the 30th & the customer is coming up on the date of the trip that they ordered the items for.

She’s asking about taking out a case against my shop with Etsy in case it is truly “lost”. But as of right now it still shows “in transit, arriving late”.

And I going to be out $700 and a two weeks worth of my time? They’re custom. So I can’t resell the item if they ever make it back to me.

I’ve been doing Etsy for 8 years and this is the first time anything like this has happened. I’ve worked with the USPS and they basically just keep telling me to “wait another day”. I feel terrible about the whole situation but it’s also out of my control… but what are the expectations as a shop owners responsibility for something like this?

Well I have finally had it with Etsy. 3 months, over $2 grand in revenue, walked away with $700 and now they started flagging my listings for seller violations. No reason why, no ability to appeal, just says "we are working to implement this feature". Contacted customer service, they had no idea why and said it needed to be escalated to a review team, total waste of time.

Decided to finally call it quits and closed the shop. Going to focus more of my energy into my own Shopify web store and leasing a local spots at flea markets. I got a decent amount of traffic on Etsy but at the expense of ridiculous fees and being at the mercy of a company that has zero care about the people that make them money. I had a perfect 5 star rating and 100% on time with shipping and communication over 105 transactions. Absolutely crazy.

Wondering what it was that got delisted? A handmade piggy bank made from real wood that was made to order. Don't ask me how it violated seller policy because I couldn't tell you.

I sell custom pet portraits and I’ve received two orders recently where the buyer did not message me a photo of their pet.

I’ve contacted both people twice on Etsy and even gone as far as searching for them via social media because that’s where the majority of my traffic comes from.

The deadline to fulfill is coming up and I haven’t heard from them. I can’t read minds or conjure up an image of their pet…what do I do? Refund on the day the order should be fulfilled by? Keep my fingers crossed?

I’ve edited my listing now so they have to upload a photo before their order goes through. Live and learn I guess!

I definitely don’t mind sending a replacement for the customer. What is the best way to go about sending a replacement? I was just going to do pirate shipping and just send the tracking but seeing as the shipping was $30 for original order, is there an alternative cheaper route? Isn’t there a reserve fund on Etsy for stuff like this instead of using personal funds? If so is there a section on shop manager to do this?

I know you can't direct people off-site on Etsy, so I'm not sure how to answer their question?

They're looking for a product that's only available via my website because it's a subscription product. I'm not sure what to tell them that wouldn't risk me getting my Etsy account flagged/in some other trouble with Etsy for directing a customer off-site. It's also a $3 product, I'm not really interested in making a separate listing for it on Etsy

Some stores seem to do well with a small number of listings. Others keep adding more and more before things start moving. Hard to tell if there’s any pattern or if it’s completely different every time. How many products did you have when things started becoming consistent?

The link should be added.
I created my store a few years back but didn’t start posting until December or January 2026 I believe.

I love creating for others and that’s what inspired me to make my store.
I feel like my product is worthy of being bought because I try to put my own twist on some trending items. But I also try to create my own style.

On to my questions.
How do I do more market research?
I’ve been trying seo websites and just looking at what’s trending but I haven’t had much luck.

How do I get sales ?
I’m very aware that this takes time and work but I think I’m honestly just confused. I don’t know where to start anymore.

How do I get engagement ?
I have social media. My TikTok does decent. But I barely get comments or shop views etc.

I’ve been considering opening a Shopify but if I can’t get sales one Etsy is it worth it? I’m not even a year into my journey but my patience is thinning 🤣😭 🤪

This is also a question for POD sellers. Makers of button pins - I have an idea, but before I get started I am wondering about, (1) what button pin producers are good companies to work with? And, (2) is it possible to sell pin-on buttons on a POD basis? My idea is for 1in - 2in sized pin-on buttons, like you see pinned to hats, etc.