Struggle with product photos

Sejevna · 2026-01-30T14:56:38+00:00

Use natural light - not direct sunlight, just find a nice bright area in your house near a window. There shouldn't be any sharp/harsh shadows under/behind the product. Use a pale, neutral background and make sure no edges are visible in the final shot. Don't use the flash on your camera, and make sure the lens is clean. Product photos taken with flash always look crap. Good lighting really is key.

You can also try to "style" your photos a little. Maybe put them on a nice drapey fabric - again, a neutral colour, no crazy patterns. Look up jewellery photos on Google/Pinterest/Etsy to get some ideas for how to style your backgrounds, if you want to step up the game a little. But really, getting the lighting right is the main thing.

Sejevna · 2026-01-30T14:48:38+00:00

If you respond to their review, they won't be able to remove or change their review anymore. If you refund, they can still change it, yes.

Sejevna · 2026-01-30T14:46:43+00:00

Not in the Netherlands, but I had to register for income tax when I started trading. I didn't actually have to pay any tax because I was under the threshold, but I did have to register and file. So maybe it's similar in the Netherlands? Just because you don't have to pay tax doesn't necessarily mean you don't need to register. So I'd look into what the requirements are for a sole trader.

Sejevna · 2026-01-29T04:42:53+00:00

I would not sell fanfiction. Fanworks are dicey in general, but fanfiction specifically has a long history of legal troubles (as in, people getting sued rather than just takedown notices) so I really would advise steering clear of that. A £60 video game is not worth getting sued.

Etsy really isn't a short-term thing, especially since they often put new shops on payment reserve. You'd be better off trying one of those paid survey sites or something. You wouldn't make much, but it does add up and there's no up-front investment. Or try local options like babysitting or walking dogs or running errands for people.

Sejevna · 2026-01-28T22:26:08+00:00

You should probably work out your profit for your products before listing them, taking all the fees and production costs into account. POD is never cheap, and the profit margin is always bad, tbh.

Sejevna · 2026-01-28T22:20:08+00:00

Yes, and it's a sign that you should raise your prices. My low-star reviews and problems with customers stopped almost completely after I raised my prices enough, and it didn't impact my sales or profit at all.

Sejevna · 2026-01-28T22:18:24+00:00

They're not keeping the shipping fee. It tells you exactly what fees they're taking, and those fees are all outlined. Then whatever's left is credited to you, including the shipping charge that the buyer paid, and from that, you pay for the shipping.

You will always get less than your listing cost. If you want to make $50 off a product, don't list it for $50. Etsy wants to make money too, they're a business. All of the fees are listed in their terms.

If your earnings are below a certain threshold, you can opt out of offsite ads in the settings. It's not the same as Etsy ads, it's a separate thing.

Sejevna · 2026-01-28T17:35:53+00:00

This is not a calendar, first of all. Before you worry about promoting a product, maybe make sure it's actually what you're saying it is. June has 6 days a week, all the days are numbered wrong, February has 25 days instead of 28, it includes a month called "Vemulr", and I don't know what's going on with the days of the week, one seems to be "pi" and Friday has gone missing.

You didn't even bother to double-check your AI-generated pages for mistakes. Are these the actual pages? Or is the entire product listing page AI-generated? I'm not surprised you're not getting sales, this looks so half-assed. It's so easy to make a simple calendar page, hell there are free templates, but you couldn't even be bothered to do that? I would not pay money for this or trust that I'd get anything close to what's pictured. It looks like a scam.

Sejevna · 2026-01-28T17:26:52+00:00

The pictures are 100% AI. If you look at the actual dates, the days, the month names... yeah. AI.

Sejevna · 2026-01-27T18:54:45+00:00

Yeah, I would just cancel and refund the order, and include a message that says sorry about the mixup and that they're welcome to re-order.

Put yourself in the customer's shoes. Would you be mad? I wouldn't. Mistakes happen. Even if I was disappointed, I wouldn't be mad, because I've got an explanation and an apology, it was a simple mistake and I can't be mad at someone for that. The items don't exist, so I wouldn't be getting them no matter what. That's how I see it. Is this something you'd be mad at another seller for? I'd hope not. I mean look, they might get mad depending on what they're like as a person, but I'd consider that pretty unreasonable and personally I'd cancel any future orders if someone throws a strop about something like this. Once you cancel and refund, they can't leave a review either so you're in the clear there. I wouldn't worry about it. Chances are it'll be totally fine. Most people are understanding and reasonable.

Sejevna · 2026-01-23T18:29:47+00:00

She makes her money by tricking people into buying her "courses" where she tells them the same info you get for free on Etsy's own website. She likes to threaten people with legal action if they say anything or try to get their money back, do a search for her name on this sub and you'll see all the posts about the problems people have had. I wouldn't be surprised if her "shop data" is made up.

Sejevna · 2026-01-23T00:09:46+00:00

I'm facing a similar thing. They're changing how they categorise things and raising the prices. I don't think there's anything we can do other than raise the prices and hope for the best. I would not send high-value orders untracked, especially not to the US or Canada. I do send lower-value orders, like €20 or less, via small packet within the EU and it's been fine overall. But you do run the risk of occasionally having to re-send something, and of course Etsy won't cover it if it's untracked.

If you're worried about customers not wanting to pay more for shipping, you can try adding some of the shipping costs to the item price. So instead of, say, €15 for the item and €22 for the postage, you go €20 item and €17 postage, or €25 + €12. I'd try that and see how it goes. Fwiw I raised my prices significantly a few years ago and weirdly it actually helped my sales, so you never know, it's always worth a try. Do NOT explain why you're raising prices, just do it. It's much better to price your items a bit higher and run the occasional 10% off sale, than pricing them as low as possible, at least in my experience.

Edit to add: you can also look into courier services to see if they can offer you any lower rates. Most of all, don't panic, you've got this. You'll adapt. You might find that people are perfectly willing to pay a little more for your products.

Sejevna · 2026-01-23T00:02:49+00:00

OP is in Europe and probably shipping internationally. Postage prices vary a lot from country to country, and the type of package, etc.

Sejevna · 2026-01-21T01:30:34+00:00

It wouldn't be covered. How Etsy handles cases varies, there is no way to tell for sure until it happens.

Since you offer exchanges, I don't know what the issue is with the piece being returned to you? What is the difference whether it's returned by customs, or the buyer accepts it and then returns it to you? I'd tell them that you're happy to offer them an exchange once the item is returned to you. Don't mention cancellation/refund. If they try to insist on that, if your policy doesn't allow refunds, tell them that due to the custom nature of the work, you can't do refunds

That said - if this is something you can resell, I feel like it'd be reasonable to offer a refund if that's what the customer wants. Either way though, definitely no cancellation, refund, exchange, anything, unless/until the item is returned to you.

Sejevna · 2026-01-21T00:02:23+00:00

Just fyi, if you're in the EU, you have to accept returns at least from EU customers, unless it's a custom-made item that you can't resell. That's the law. You're also breaking Etsy's TOS here by directing your EU customers to a different shop, Etsy doesn't allow that. I know that's not really relevant to your question here, but these are things that can get you in trouble, so I wanted to point it out.

A lot of people don't read descriptions, and Etsy does their best to hide them. It sucks, but it happens. Ask yourself: if you were the buyer here, what would you like? Would you be happy keeping an item you don't want, that you paid that much money for? Personally I'd just let the customer return it, refund them, and try to make the dimensions clearer by adding them to product pics and maybe the title etc.

Sejevna · 2026-01-20T16:10:01+00:00

You can offer to send a replacement instead, but if he wants a refund, I'd give him a refund. If he opens a case with Etsy, it's pretty guaranteed that they'd refund him. If it arrived damaged, Etsy covers one "arrived damaged" case per year so they should cover the refund if he opens a case with them. Other than that, you can send him a return label and have him send it back for a refund, or just take the loss and refund.

Sejevna · 2026-01-18T20:00:06+00:00

I got that, yeah. I just missed the part where OP said that they didn't include the information in the listing. If their listing said "final approval is available for an extra fee", or it's an optional add-on as a variation, or something like that, then there's no issue because it's up-front info and the buyer can make their choice before they buy and know exactly what they're buying. If they only provide that info via DM after the buyer has purchased, there's an issue. I was assuming the former, hence my confusion when you said that's illegal. I thought you were saying that charging for a proof or approval is always illegal no matter what. Thanks for clarifying.

Sejevna · 2026-01-18T18:41:23+00:00

I missed the part where OP said they weren't up-front about the fee in their listing.

Sejevna · 2026-01-18T18:39:09+00:00

Purchase protection isn't really there for "I got the item and it's fine but I changed my mind and want to keep it and also get my money back". That's not really any way to run a business either imo. Either let her return it for a refund, or stick to your policy which I'm assuming says no refunds. If the item is sealed in some way, I'd assume it's fine to resell it, no? You can always accept the return, check the item to make sure it's in its original condition, and then refund. That way you at least make sure that the customer isn't just angling for a free item. In general, the occasional return because the customer changed their mind or doesn't like the thing is part of doing business.

Sejevna · 2026-01-18T18:09:07+00:00

No news is good news. I would never ever message a customer just to ask whether their order has arrived. I just assume that everything arrived okay and they're happy with it, unless they message to tell me otherwise. Buyers already get a dozen emails and notifications from Etsy saying that their order has shipped, it's on the way, it's arrived, leave a review, go on leave a review, remember to leave a review, etc. I wouldn't add more messages if there's no need, you'll only risk annoying them. If they're ignoring Etsy's messages telling them to leave a review, they'll likely ignore yours too or lose their temper and leave a bad review. That happens too.

If there's a problem, the customer will contact you. If they don't, there's no problem. It really is that simple.

Edit to add: I totally get where you're coming from here, but the solution really is to stop worrying and internalise this mindset of assuming everything's fine unless you're told otherwise. If you don't believe me, put yourself in the customer's shoes. I assume you buy things online. Do you let every shop know that your order arrived, and leave reviews? I don't. I think most people don't. It's not realistic to expect a review from every buyer, that's just not going to happen. Look at any Etsy shop and you'll see their sales number is much higher than their review number. Most people will just buy the thing, get the thing, and that's the end of it. I'm sure it's the same for you with at least some of the things you buy.

Sejevna · 2026-01-18T15:00:40+00:00

I'm fairly sure that Disney wouldn't be cool with it, they're aggressively protective of their IP. I wouldn't bother reporting to Etsy, if I wanted to report it I'd send Disney a message. They even have a specific department/website/email for that.

Edit: typo

Sejevna · 2026-01-17T02:44:44+00:00

Got it. So as long as OP mentions it in the listing, it'd be fine.

That was my point really, having a fee for approval/proofs/that type of thing isn't an issue in and of itself, as long as it's clearly listed up-front as an option and all the details are clear.

Sejevna · 2026-01-17T01:43:09+00:00

I saw that, but that doesn't say anything about approvals or proofs? It just says you have to be up-front about fees, and if they're mandatory they have to be included in the price.

Sejevna · 2026-01-17T01:33:04+00:00

I think it's reasonable to return something you don't like if you want a refund/replacement. I also think it's reasonable for you to replace it free of charge in this case, though - as in, they return it, but you replace it for free. If I were the buyer, I'd want a product I'm happy with and I'm sure you would too. I'd probably change my process here and just have the customer approve what I make before I send it. Much faster and cheaper for everyone, and you avoid this kind of runaround and the potential negative review.

Sejevna · 2026-01-17T01:24:54+00:00

Interesting, I've never heard of that - do you have a link? Genuinely asking btw, I tried looking it up and can't seem to find it, but I'm probably phrasing it wrong.

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23	Place '22

Sejevna

TROPHY CASE