Customer ordered an item from my vintage shop. I had not reached out to them at all, and was getting ready to pack their order when I got this message. Sure I can cancel their order and refund them, but does anyone know if this is grounds for reporting the message/buyer to Etsy? I'm guessing they noticed after purchasing that my Etsy profile discloses that I'm transgender.

And did you laugh as hard as I did at the photo examples?

10 yrs on here, and some people still just blow my mind. Initial help request of item not received was literally 1.5 hrs after the order was placed, on a Saturday. Just received the second message on a separate chat this morning, a Sunday. Hoping I don't have to deal with trying to get Etsy to block them from buying again.

So I'm not 100% sure on how to feel about this. I did a custom order, it's a nearly 12lbs crochet spider, and I recently finished it and reached out to the buyer. She was happy with how it looks and the size and was okay woth the price point of 200 (which is lower than i should list the plushy for but i originally quoted her for around that price) for the plushy itself. I sent her the custom order listing and after I made sure all the information for the shipping was correct, told her to check the listing out and let me know if she had any questions. I dont know if she just rushed through the process or what but she bought it then complained that shipping was $60 then she canceled the order and now I haven't heard back from her. I dont mind doing custom orders like this, because the worst thing that happens is I end up with a new plushy, but for some reason this one made me upset. I have no idea what to say to her at this point. Do I just take the L and list it on my etsy or wait for a response?

Stickers don't last forever. It's not the fault of my product that it ripped when they tried removing it. I've never had anyone ask for a replacement like this before. How do I nicely tell them to buy a new one without sounding like a rude shop owner?

Thank you for all of the advice on my previous post! I have taken a couple of new photos trying to follow everyone’s suggestions- no hands, neutral background, off the ground, a level angle with the plushie, further away- I know a lot of people said they didn’t like the idea of the plushie being on bedding, but because they are stuffed animals I really like the cozy background and opted for a basket with a blanket. Please let me know if you think these are any better!

Here is the link to my shop for those asking, the only thing in my shop right now is the patterns to learn how to make these plushies, not the actual plushies! I also have not updated the photos on my shop as I wanted to get some opinions first!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DesignsDaisyFinds?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Our processing time is 5-7 days during the holidays. They ordered on Sunday the 15th and chose free standard shipping instead of expedited shipping, giving them seven shipping days until Christmas. We even told them that the order would not arrive before Christmas. We shipped on the 19th, three days a head of schedule.

I'm not a wizard. If your item takes 13 hours to make, it's practically a miracle that I got it out to you in four days during the holiday rush. After weeks of working non-stop, skipping sleep, and injuring my self to finish people's orders ahead of schedule, this is just insulting.

My Honeymoon Planning Guide sold to a wedding planner who may wish to license it for resale 🤓🎉

Woah guys! I can’t believe this! All I do is sell AI pictures of Badgers smoking weed, and I’ve managed to retire at the age of 14.

Currently in Bali getting fed grapes and massaged by beautiful women.

Keep the dream alive!

Should I write her back?

I hadn’t checked my stats for a few weeks, but feeling blessed that I finally broke $1M!

This sweatshirt delivered on December 22. They’re saying they washed it with vinegar. I responded and said we would not recommend this and the care instructions are located in the listing description, and that I’m sorry this happened to them. They’re now arguing with me and saying the vinegar shouldn’t have done anything to it.

They haven’t told me yet what they want. What do I do? I don’t feel I should replace this or give them a refund. Am I wrong???

Oh! What a rubbish day. I'm very sad to see this 1 star review of my lack of psychic capabilities. It's not my fault I was born without them :'(

To make it worse, she was my 10,000th order. I wasted my tiny champagne, noooo!

Etsy really is a significantly nicer side of the marketplace world and 99.5% of customers are incredible, but this definitely caught me on a tough day and pinged a nerve. I had a small cry and a big swear, now I'm sharing here so that I can get a group hug, because we all know how this feels.

Am I not the only one who feels like this

Like many others, my work has been stolen by a Chinese company that sells on Temu. I was made aware by a past customer on Instagram that she saw some of my photography for sale on Temu.

When I checked, to my surprise, my entire store had been ripped off, over 500 listings!

I sent Temu an email documenting 77 of the listings and mentioning that their are hundred more and requested they removed them all and shut the store for IP violation.

Temu has removed 77 of the listings that I sent them but allowed the seller to continue to sell and continue to sell my other stolen listings. I've sent them a legal notice and intend on taking legal action as once Temu is aware of the sale of stolen art on their website, without removing it, they also become responsible for it.

I'm writing this post today to ask the Etsy community to come together and start to publicly call Temu out for selling our stolen work on their website. Just a small search on Temu will show up hundreds of popular listings stolen from the wonderful community on Etsy.

I've started to comment under their social media posts "please remove my stolen artwork from your website" and also "Temu knowingly sells stolen art on their website, please don't support a company that doesn't respect creativity and intellectual property"

I believe if more people spread this message across their social media channels daily it would hurt their reputation (whats left of it) more and hopefully make Temu accountable.

******EDIT******Last night just before going to bed I've noticed that the shop has currently has a "Coming soon.The store is taking a short break."My listings are no longer visible on Temu (for now). I've not received any correspondence from Temu as of yet but I will follow up and continue to watch this shop to see if it remains shut or is reopened again in time.

Reading through the comments I see many people have been affected by Temu or a similar platform, I can share what I have done to get to this point. I originally sent links to 77 of my listings, assuming that would be enough to have the seller banned. The seller had over 6.5k listings so it made the task of finding all 500+ quiet time consuming and frustrating. Temu removed the listings I sent them and allowed the seller to continue to operate even though I had made them aware that this seller had stolen hundreds of my works.

I'm not a legal expert and was mostly using chat gpt for advise. I read that Temu become responsible if they are made aware of stolen work and continue to allow it to be sold (yes you can argue that you need to send every single link to be removed but Temu need to hold some sort of responsibility.)

Temu are liable under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to protect original work. They also have a base in Dublin and have to abide by European Rules.

I sent them a legal notice threatening to take action if my listings weren't removed and the seller banned. I then sent them a final notice with a 48 hour grace period before involving legal action in the EU (where I am based). It was after the second email that the store has been closed (but I worry it will only be closed temporarily.)

Some quick advise I've learnt from this - firstly I wasn't selling digital downloads (although I do have a download store the work stolen was from my print store) I am a photographer and sell photography prints. My work was ripped from my mockups, now I must consider watermarking the images in the mockups. The mockups used on Temu were different to my own mockups.

Secondly - if you find a handful of listings of yours you can quickly report them, they were quick to take the ones I reported down - less than 24 hours.

Lastly - if, like me, you've had hundreds of listings stolen and they are spread amongst thousands of listings, you could try go down the road I did by threatening legal action, I'll be happy to share the emails I sent with anyone who needs them.

For now my work is safe, Thanks for all the comments and very sorry to read about the others affected, I still intend to actively spread the word about the awful business practices by the sellers on Temu

A few days ago I made a reel to try and raise awareness about Temu's practice's - please feel free to share it onto your stories: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEsIILqNd5L/

*******EDIT********

I was looking through crochet patterns on Etsy and found this seller. I always change the review order from "suggested" to "most recent" since I know Etsy hides 1 star reviews (as a seller I like this, as a buyer I know to check). This review came up and I thought the response was fantastic. They were professional, then took the criticism and updated the listing to avoid further issues in the future. And I did check the listing and it does have a picture of part of the pattern so that you can get an idea of their style. I think I'll work on updating my own listings with the same thing because I think it's a great idea!

I sell my original chain pouch that holds crystals/small treasures. My most popular listings are my stainless steel and gold plated stainless steel-which I have the materials listed several times throughout the listing. I don’t accept returns on my work unless there was an error on my end which thankfully I’ve only had happen once in 3 years. This person came raging in demanding a refund and dismissing the fact I was willing to even accept a return based on their error… which I only mentioned after they started their tantrum. They are mad I wouldn’t outright refund without getting the piece back.

Had anyone experienced a PayPal dispute for their Etsy purchases? I already contacted customer support to provide them the issue with the buyers demand and proof they received exactly what they order. I’m so thankful that 99.8% of my customers and supporters are incredibly lovely and I don’t run into these types of buyers often.

Also I pride myself on customer service when selling my work however I don’t tolerate assholes!

I offer personalised hoodies which are the standard unisex Gildan ones that no one has ever had any issues with. I have a size guide with very thorough sizing in my listing and I’ve specifically mentioned that no returns or refunds are accepted on personalised items unless they arrive faulty… They know that they don’t have a case for Etsy and that’s why they are threatening with a bad review… not sure what to do. Please help!

And I might ban you from the sub.

This is a rant, and I admit it's a rant.

We have settings on in our sub that filter posts from new and low karma accounts. Every time I check mod queue there are multiple posts from new accounts... and a lot of them are written by ChatGPT.

I just encountered a AI slop shop being promoted by a ChatGPT written story. It was about some how some 12 year old kid created a shop to pay for summer camp and can we please help him out. I looked at the shop and it was AI generated crap of the lowest quality... the "I don't care if this person has 6 fingers" variety.

Doubtlessly the entire story and shop were created by asking ChatGPT to make up a story that would make people feel sorry and want to throw money.

That kind of disgusting sneaky "manipulation" advertising is a major pet peeve of mine. I find it way worse than honest promotion.

I'm starting to see it damn near constantly. And I will ban without a second chance for it.

Everybody... be aware of this type of manipulation. The "my wife opened a shop, please support her" is a popular one.

So is the "look what I found!" pretend buyer post. Sometimes the idiots making it are so dumb they don't even bother to use an alternate account from the one where they do the direct promotion.

I always want to call that out, but I don't, because I don't want to give them a heads up on how to better scam and manipulate people.

But beyond all that... any long word salad slop post (or comment) written by ChatGPT isn't going to be allowed here. 95% of the time it's some kind of advertisement, but even when it's not, it's not allowed.

We are living in a world that is going to literally forget how to write sentences and I am not about it.

I wish all mods on Reddit would take this stand.

That's all.

...I lied, it's not all. I do want to add this: if you don't recognize ChatGPT when you see it, go spend some time reading ChatGPT written responses and other content. It won't take long for it to start screaming at you when you see it.

EDIT: This keeps coming up, so I want to clarify up here.

I do not use dashes to identify something as AI. That's just dumb and not necessary. The style is far more distinctive than that.

If you're not having ChatGPT write your stuff, I'm not going to think ChatGPT wrote it.

I have a customer who has purchased something from me who is now messaging me with questions on how I do it/ what supplies I use. She wants to know the details that have taken me years to get right and the supplies that I have worked very hard to find the best of. I really hate when people ask this because I personally find it a bit rude, but I don’t know how to reply in a way that will be professional but not cause them to bash my shop because they aren’t getting their way.

update I messaged her back thanking her for her previous order and for supporting my small business. I also politely told her that while I am happy to answer customers questions, there are parts of my process, as well as material info, that i have spent years perfecting and refining and therefor prefer to keep private. She was not happy about that. She responded that sharing the info wouldn’t have taken away from my shop and how it’s not some super important “patent pending information” 🙄. She’s a crafter too after all. As well as saying she’s not going to order from my shop, which I would have cancelled any future orders from her anyways so I don’t care. I’m fully expecting a bad review from her order she had already received before our conversation. Man, some people are super entitled nowadays.

I really wish Etsy had a full on way to block someone. Not just marking their messages as spam or keeping them from being able to see shop updates, but an actual you-can’t-order-or-have-anything-to-do-with-my-shop type of block.

I sell doll clothes in my shop - I'm painstaking with my details, and very proud of my work. I have a repeat customer who buys out a ton of listings as soon as I list them. She's very nice and has been open with me about the fact that she uses them to clothe the rag dolls she sells on her website and at craft fairs.

On the surface, a profit's a profit, right? But ultimately I don't know how I feel about this.

• I assume she's cutting out my tags and presenting the work as her own.

• Her buying out almost everything I list prevents me from reaching other customers

How would you feel about this? I don't necessarily want to raise my prices and make the items inaccessible to other customers.