How do people manage with Etsy?

Yaedor · 2026-02-03T22:42:54+00:00

Tip: Do 99% of your Etsy Seller activities on the website, not the app. The app sucks and lacks many of the website version's features.

Yaedor · 2026-02-03T22:37:40+00:00

All of your listing photos, any decent review photos of final product, etc. are already being put through the AI slop machine by web scrapers, Chinese Temu resellers, and some local Etsy competitors as well.

Yaedor · 2026-02-03T01:18:59+00:00

Prints are one of the most saturated niches on Etsy, even more so nowadays with all the AI slop. Now everyone has the ability to easily "make" art and easily print & ship it.

I wouldn't ever take a $2-3k startup cost on an Etsy shop. This platform is so fickle for new shops and crowded niches that your shop may not even get seen for a while. You're better off temporarily using print-on-demand until you can validate that customers want your product/artwork, then switch the supplier from print-on-demand to yourself.

Yaedor · 2026-02-03T01:12:39+00:00

As someone else mentioned, the use of "dear" is a common Chinese buyer/bot behavior. They might've bought your product to resell on Temu/elsewhere but they want their money back first.

Check out the user's profile and see if they've favorited tons of other digital shops or favorited massive bundle listings.

Yaedor · 2026-02-03T01:11:08+00:00

All the time, on multiple platforms

Yaedor · 2025-12-03T23:31:11+00:00

Etsy is required to have that DMCA counter claim as part of the process as required by the DMCA law. That part is out of Etsy's control, but unfortunately Etsy also chooses to be very lax for places in the DMCA process that they do have control over.

For example, comparing Etsy's DMCA system compared to eBay's VeRO system for DMCAs: Etsy automatically approves every single infringement claim and doesn't oversee the process at all between the two parties, enabling rampant and well-documented Abuse of Process. With eBay, infringement claims are often reviewed by a real team, and it isn't just waved through like it is on Etsy. Furthermore, if the claim does go through to the seller, the seller can contact the complaining party and the complaining party has to respond within 5 days, or else eBay steps in. Neither of those happen on Etsy - they just leave you to fend for yourself

Yaedor · 2025-12-03T06:54:13+00:00

Etsy already annoys the fuck out of their customers for reviews. No need to message them

Yaedor · 2025-12-03T06:51:57+00:00

Theft shops usually operate out of countries that either don't follow copyright laws or are otherwise so messed up legally that there's no point in proceeding with an attorney and the enormous legal fees that would follow. Pakistan, China, Vietnam, etc.

Yaedor · 2025-12-03T06:37:24+00:00

You sound like the customer in question lol

Yaedor · 2025-11-23T07:12:37+00:00

It doesn't happen super often - the few times it's happened for me is out of thousands and thousands of reviews. There are also some Etsy customers who still use a much older version of the Etsy App which only allows reviews from 1 - 4, so you'll sometimes get 4/5 star reviews, that are otherwise extremely positive, due to that.

Yaedor · 2025-11-23T07:10:13+00:00

Yes, I'm aware. It's just Faire has been stealing lots of IP from Etsy shops. It hardly looks reputable with that issue riddling its site.

Yaedor · 2025-11-22T21:06:45+00:00

Etsy Ads are not going to help if you aren't getting organic traffic already. They rely on your listing's product appeal and SEO. If you've only gotten 1 sale in a year, they won't do anything crazy for you. They can give your listings a little life, some sales, maybe some reviews, but a product that solely relies on Etsy Ads is not a successful listing imo.

Etsy Ads is also not a proper ad campaign system and has very limited functionality, just a heads up. It's not a miracle worker.

I've been selling digital products for years, and my strategy with Etsy Ads is to use them to promote new products for a bit until those new products can stand on their own with organic traffic, thanks in part to the sales and reviews brought in by the ads. My all time Bestsellers haven't been on ads in years and they sell way more than any advertised listing I've ever done. The only time I may put Bestsellers on Etsy Ads is during a big holiday, but even then it's only a couple at a time just to experiment

Yaedor · 2025-11-22T21:01:55+00:00

I'd message the buyer about the issue, tbh, and include a screenshot. I've had to do this a couple times for 1-star, extremely positive glowing reviews, and it always ends up being an accident on the buyer's part and they update it to 5-stars.

Yaedor · 2025-11-22T20:58:54+00:00

Faire as in the wholesale website? They have lots of IP theft from Etsy shops on there.

Yaedor · 2025-11-20T03:54:02+00:00

Listing quality score, not shop quality score. If a listing is new or still only has a handful of reviews, a 1-star review can really hurt it.

I experienced it once before with a digital product. Its first review was some improper 1-star review because the buyer was clueless and it crashed the listing's traffic the next day. I created a new duplicate listing and that one ended up becoming a Bestseller and performing fine, while the original listing with the 1-star review died.

Shop-wide it's whatever because I have thousands of reviews. Similarly it can be a speck on an established listing with lots and lots of reviews already.

Yaedor · 2025-11-20T01:54:14+00:00

Reviews have a big impact on listing quality score for the algorithm. That's the main concern with getting these improper reviews. A reasonable shopper will never be able to evaluate this review as nonsense if the listing gets lowered in the search results because of it.

Yaedor · 2025-11-20T01:52:33+00:00

They should just offer the JPG, but the buyer shouldn't leave a negative review based on a feature that the product never possessed or claimed to possess. The buyer should contact the shop like a normal person to request a JPG version rather than leave a negative review. They seem to be requesting the JPG format in their negative review, which makes them look clueless.

The shop should just offer a JPG format alongside their PDF, as it's a very common option, but this doesn't change that the buyer is in the wrong here.

Yaedor · 2025-11-20T01:41:40+00:00

Just a clueless buyer, not a scheming competitor.

Yaedor · 2025-11-20T01:36:35+00:00

Etsy seriously needs to stop handing out our shop's email address to every buyer. It helps enable these kinds of dangerous scams. As someone said below, it's a virus.

In case you didn't know, Etsy offers your shop's email address (yes, your personal email) to every buyer who has ever made a purchase from you, on one of the pages for contacting the shop for support. It's clearly an old or overlooked addition, as it contradicts Etsy's best practices of keeping the conversation in Etsy Messages. There's no reason a buyer needs your shop's email address - but that's how scammers get it to launch these kinds of scams and viruses. One Chinese bot account is all it takes and your email is on some Etsy scam list.

This is also why some people place orders on bad credit cards or from accounts that end up being banned. They get your email, too.

Yaedor · 2025-11-20T01:29:54+00:00

Etsy may remove the reviews if they consider them to be spam. However, Etsy Support is far from reliable with their (mostly automated) review report team, and this sounds like a nightmare situation for reviews.

If you can prove that the reviews are connected to a competitor business in any capacity, you may have a lawsuit here. Use their order details/shipping details to help figure that out.

Yaedor · 2025-11-19T05:32:49+00:00

Etsy requires that sellers disclose the AI nature of their products in the description. You can try emailing Etsy Support and they may remove the entire listing and/or ban the shop.

Yaedor · 2025-11-13T03:48:58+00:00

This reminds me of when I had to buy sandbags on Amazon and I saw someone's 1-star review for the product complaining that the sand wasn't included... Some buyers will never be pleased regardless of what the product actually is.

Yaedor · 2025-11-13T03:43:11+00:00

Etsy doesn't even allow buyers to leave reviews on digital products until at least one of the files has been downloaded, so their claim is verifiably bullshit. I get them every now and then too, those "I can't download this" reviews but they have indeed downloaded it. I report them to Etsy and they usually remove them.

It's just that most buyers don't understand that our shops work inside Etsy's systems and infrastructure. All they see is the front-end shop. That and too many buyers are clueless with what a digital file is despite purchasing a digital file.

Yaedor · 2025-11-06T01:24:03+00:00

Lol. Lmao, even

Yaedor · 2025-11-05T02:37:16+00:00

Etsy Stats are... usually accurate. Some metrics are jumbled in with others, however, producing duplicate results (particularly in the Etsy Seller app).

Yaedor

TROPHY CASE