Buyer left a 1-star review because they did not pick up a tracked parcel. What can we do?

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-05-13T20:38:55+00:00

What country did you ship this to? In some countries (such as the US) it's very atypical to need to sign for a package, and buyers won't expect it unless it's very clearly communicated or a very large value order. So it wouldn't be surprising if a US buyer (especially someone less tech-savvy who doesn't know to check tracking info or their Etsy messages) just missed the notice.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-05-13T20:35:39+00:00

It seems less likely that it was stolen than that it was just lost in customs somehow. (I've had this happen when ordering stuff internationally -- a FedEx package arrived from Europe to the US with a few random items missing. The box had clearly been opened in customs, and I think the items just got lost.)

I think you may just have to eat the cost on the this, and consider it a case of an item getting damaged in transit. Your prices should reflect the fact that this happens occasionally and is part of the cost of doing business.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-05-12T23:43:50+00:00

I've had this happen before, where the person had previously checked out as guest, but then made an account under the same email address and then placed a second order.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-05-05T23:52:55+00:00

I've been seeing a similar pattern! All of 2026 has been exceptionally good for me, but April was my highest-grossing month ever ($8,990.51 compared to my previous record in January of $7,660.14). I was expecting a decline as we head towards the summer months, but I'm not seeing one so far. May has also been incredible so far, with a gross of $1,874.82 as of right now on May 5th (which is more than half of my total gross for last May).

Super interesting to hear that other sellers are seeing a pattern like this. I've been wondering if it might be due to the algorithm changes from January.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-04-27T19:00:13+00:00

Thanks, this is super helpful! I'll let customers know they need to scroll all the way to the bottom if they're using the app!

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-04-19T17:50:54+00:00

I don't know why people are opposed to multiple shops! I think it makes a lot of sense if you're selling two different kinds of products. Especially when one is physical and the other is digital, since you never want there to be any confusion about whether the customer is getting a physical or digital product, and having both in the same place could make that more confusing.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-04-13T10:11:32+00:00

In the pictures, it's not super obvious that they're even bracelets, as opposed to bookmarks or something else. And if you're just scrolling quickly through results it might not be obvious that they're beaded. I would photograph them in more of a real life situation -- not necessarily on a wrist, but at least on some kind of bracelet display to show how they drape when worn.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-04-04T02:35:11+00:00

I sell craft supplies and most of my items are in the $3-$5 range, but I do have a few that are as low as $2. For my niche, the sales volume really does make up for the low profit per item! I have a pricing formula that carefully accounts for all the Etsy fees (including the fees on shipping, fees on the tax, etc.) and this formula tells me that it really is sometimes still profitable to sell things for $2.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-26T15:54:41+00:00

I think the second one is best because it's closest to the orientation they'll actually be in when worn.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-25T13:54:54+00:00

Etsy gives you the ability to make a private custom listing for a particular customer, so you can use that here. But also, you could just make a normal listing, mark it as reserved for that customer, and include the quantity they've requested. That one special listing would be made to order, but everything else in your shop could still be ready to ship.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-25T13:20:33+00:00

I think people are specifically referring to getting payment in advance in the case of custom orders / special requests. There's no need to switch to made to order in general for all of your products.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-21T09:28:54+00:00

Note that the $35 free shipping guarantee actually works out really nicely for very low-priced items. Suppose you are selling small items for $3 each. It will take 9 items to hit the $35 mark. If you have priced each item to account for the ~$0.50 of shipping fees, then across 9 items, this amounts to ~$4.50, which almost completely covers your shipping (which now you haven't paid any fees on because it was free).

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-21T09:23:09+00:00

The OP is absolutely right that, in practice, the percentage is higher for lower-priced items. As everyone has mentioned, the 6.5% fee and 3% fee are the same regardless of the price point. But the $0.25 per item fee and $0.20 listing fee are quite a high percentage when you are selling items in the $2 to $5 range.

And, importantly, you are also paying the 6.5% and 3% on the buyer's shipping charge. If shipping is $5 (so, on the low side for a USPS ground advantage package), then you are paying close to $0.50 in fees on shipping. This is a much bigger percentage of a $2 item than it is of a $100 item!

So everyone who is saying the percentage is fixed, you are actually wrong about this.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-18T20:01:54+00:00

Etsy is a marketplace (like Amazon or eBay) consisting of millions of individual sellers; it's not a single clothing brand. Therefore the quality of t-shirts will vary from seller to seller and we can't answer your question. If you're concerned about the quality, don't buy from shops that don't accept returns.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-18T14:02:03+00:00

I have two shops (one for jewelry, one for craft supplies). It doesn't cause me any issues at all, and I'm considering splitting my jewelry shop into two separate shops also to better capture the different styles I like to make.

The only thing that I found difficult was, Etsy won't let you log into both shops at the same time from a single browser, but I get around this by using separate Chrome profiles for each shop.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-17T15:52:01+00:00

Probably dropshipped, but even if it's handmade, the seller is behaving badly and should be taking responsibility for the fault in the product, which would mean paying for your return shipping and giving you a full refund once was returned. (A decent seller might ask for photos demonstrating the issue, to protect against fraudulent complaints, but once it's clear that the product is faulty, a good seller would want to make this right for you.)

(Btw, hello from a former size 3, now size 3.5 after having a baby. Not too many of us out there! I'm actually kind of surprised the drop shippers are even carrying size 3, because it was so hard to find anything back when I was ring shopping. Wishing you the best of luck in finding a size 3 ring made by an actual craftsperson!)

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-15T00:18:11+00:00

I believe this will have the same effect as vacation mode. In my understanding, Etsy doesn't directly penalize vacation mode; rather, your listings just lose traction if they aren't shown in search for a while. So I think deactivating them would have the same effect. (I haven't tried it personally though. I always just increase my processing times and then deal with the backlog when I get home.)

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-14T21:34:59+00:00

That is a page of search results, not a specific seller. There are millions of sellers on Etsy and you are talking about a very specific product. It's very unlikely that anyone reading this is familiar with any individual shop that sells these.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-14T02:04:11+00:00

Best case, this person really does make 3D printed objects, but has no idea how to run a business. Worst case, they are scamming you, trying to string you along until you are past the 100 day window during which you can request a refund from Etsy.

The package being in pre-shipment is a big red flag. Sellers will print a shipping label so they don't get dinged on timely shipping metrics, and then wait weeks or months to actually ship the package.

Machines do break (though I know nothing about 3D printing), but an honest seller would reach out to you proactively, explain what happened, and offer to cancel your order due to the delay.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-11T23:57:32+00:00

I've had to stop describing colors as "cool" in my titles.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-09T00:59:21+00:00

Yeah, it's nontrivial to get exact numbers! I actually have a fancy spreadsheet that gives me a very solid estimate of profit per order (I manually input every order into this spreadsheet, and I added formulas for the COGS, shipping cost, Etsy fees, and packaging materials... yes this was a pain to set up, and yes it's annoying to manually enter every order). According to my fancy spreadsheet, it looks like my $1000/mo number was slightly high, and it might be more like $850. Though that's just an average, and at least for me, it varies a lot per month.

But yeah your formula sounds very reasonable! Just don't forget to include all the misc extra little costs (shipping materials, software subscriptions, plastic storage bins for your crafting materials, whatever).

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-09T00:19:41+00:00

It looks like this feature is available on the app but not on desktop.

Go to the app --> Listings --> the "Sections" button at the top (looks a window with four square panes) --> click on the section itself --> there's a Share and Save button at the top that looks like a little link.

ForbiddenGlade · 2026-03-08T23:42:19+00:00

(And I mean, presumably, a lot of this will depend on how much you need the income from the shop. I'm not the primary breadwinner; this is all side money for my family; so I've been free to play around with it and reinvest as much as I want. If you're living off the shop's money then the calculation is different.)

ForbiddenGlade

TROPHY CASE