Etsy Advice to Sellers on Dealing with a Negative Review

by: thriftyone

I am so over them and their shenanigans....adopting so much crap from Ebay's play book....

by: Anjya

Let's address the elephant in the room here and talk about those customers who hint at giving a negative review if you dont give in to their demands for a full or partial refund,  and of course allow them to keep the item they say they are not satisfied with. Am i missing something here,  Etsy wants us to deeply discount our inventory by putting our items on sale, ship it for free to the buyer and then offer them a shop credit for additional merchandise if they express any dissatisfaction for the original item,  and yes, ship that for free too, why not - I love working for nothing, don't you?

by: BargainzBabylon

Josh is an idiot who can think of nothing better to do than drag out old, failed eBay policies and pester Etsy with them. Typically for a rent-a-CEO type, he probably hasn't had an original idea in his life.  

by: Life During Wartime

If you shop online catalog sites or Amazon, and read reviews, there are always negs.  So what?  People don't read descriptions/measurements/shipping details and then diss the product or the seller.  

I buy everything except perishable groceries and prescriptions online, and I always try to be honest and helpful with reviews.  Mostly I wind up rating everything 5 stars because I know what I am buying, and take same time and care with an online purchase as I would in a bricks and mortar store.  But the younger tap-my-phone shoppers are impulsive and suffer from acute entitlement.  Asking sellers on a venue like Etsy to take financial hits when they have a ''mean girl'' transaction go wrong won't fix anything.  Instead, it hurts the seller and reinforces the buyer's belief that she can get away with anything.  

Funny that Etsy has zero tolerance for any assumed slight to the corporation from its customers, the shop owners.  And worst Customer Service EVER.

by: Garcia

What is the point.  What Etsy is doing with ODR is making sure sellers don't waste their time working with buyers to change bad reviews.  Is this what Etsy really wants to take away any incentive to have bad reviews changed?  Josh is stupid if he things this is a helpful way of evaluating sellers.

by: rover

Etsy has now closed this thread to further comments - their usual shady tactic when they see something they do not like. In their response, the representative says:-


''We understand that some reviews are: left in error, a duplicate from the same buyer, or may be removed for violating one of our policies. Although included in a shop’s Order Dissatisfaction Rate, please know we have humans – agents on our Trust & Safety team – review accounts individually before permanent suspension takes place.''


Most Etsy sellers would not trust the ''Trust and Safety'' team as far as they could throw them. They are a poorly educated bunch of college kids who communicate with buyers via a mosaic of pasted in messages.


The Etsy appeals process for suspensions is a joke.

by: Pj

There's a difference between dealing with sellers who consistently get bad reviews then the occasional no one could please that customer. After over 20,000 sales on Etsy there are people that are going to not read a description who's going to leave a bad review no matter what. Etsy should require the buyer to contact the seller before leaving a bad review. This is the stupidest thing that's been implemented by Etsy yet. And what about Etsy's Inc rating on Trust Pilot, BBB,
Resellerratings? Less than perfect for sure. Been a seller since 2008, if I had to rate it went from 5 stars to 2 stars since Silverman became CEO. If Etsy could be rated by its customers (the sellers) under the same limits they are putting on us they would be shut down.  

by: The End

New NON CORPRATE All American Venue NOW ! ! !

by: The End

NON CORPORATE

by: C.Page

Let me see if I got this right: Etsy now wants to teach buyers that all they have to do is leave a bad review, and the seller will send them a coupon for free merchandise? Sounds like a step in the WRONG direction!

by: Life During Wartime

While Etsy is suspending sellers who have a tiny percentage of poor review ratings, shops that cheat their customers with deceptive listings are allowed to operate on Etsy with no hassles -- as long as the buyers are too stupid, or too embarrassed to give them a poor rating.  

Etsy isn't a risky place to shop because sellers with over a thousand transactions got dinged with less than a handful of poor reviews.  It's risky because Etsy allows sellers to misrepresent merchandise as to its country of origin, the materials used to make it, who made it, when it was made, and omit warnings about restrictions on safe use.  

If all online merchants removed products and sellers because they didn't have 99.9999 percent good reviews, we'd all have to go back to shopping in bricks and mortar.

by: hawk

this type of CEO people have over inflated heads with over inflated pockets with stolen fees , and think they know everything about all the billions of businesses on the planet. they don't even know all about their own business. except for 2 things , arrogance and theft.

by: maxmad

"buyers are their real customer"
"sellers are disposable"


just like ebay, in the beginning they needed sellers, but now that they have millions, ,,,,

a seller is now meaningless to etsy, they are simply not needed, it's exactly what ebay did to it's sellers, it was quite a shock at the time

sellers that don't like it can leave, all the better for etsy,

by: SammyCat

Etsy not only helping unscrupulous buyers extort their customers, but teaching them how to do it  --oh happy day.  

by: Whatever

I haven't sold on Etsy in quite awhile now despite them STILL showing my items in Google search. After reading this article I remember why I don't sell there anymore. It's pretty mind boggling to me how these CEO's even get their jobs - certainly not by working. Etsy's making eBay look like the fairy princess these days. With ALL the online venues these day for a seller to put their items what the heck is Etsy thinking? It just dawned on me that I'm perfectly happy at eBay. Stick to the devil you know they always say.

by: SammyCat

The Etsy Black Friday sale ... how on earth can anyone think THIS is a good idea: This person has over 5000 sales of a few dollars each by the looks of it since 2010.  

My calculation is that this individual will make 23 cents after the 5% selling/shipping fee and the 3.5% processing fee.  I mean, what in the hell are people thinking ... they have to package and ship this thing too.

US$2.80 US$4.00 US$4.00(30% off)

Are my calculations correct?  

by: NoMoreEbay

Every article and complaint I've read about Etsy for the past year or so are carbon copies of the ebay articles and complaints starting in 2008.  The only thing differentiating the two are the names ebay and etsy. They are basically interchangeable.  

by: eBay Shill Buster

The only recourse sellers have is to set up your own website and eliminate ETSY from the mix, in that way you decide everything in regard to how you service your customers.

Head over to Godaddy and look at their offerings, they have complete web stores, Wix.com has them too, break the cycle of slavery to these marketplaces by experimenting with your own eStore.

by: maxmad

No mater what etsy or ebay try to make you believe, they really have no concern or respect for the people who actually PAY them, and keep them in business.

as far as I'm concerned, NO respect for the Customer, means NO business from the Customer, and that's exactly what we plan to keep doing, we give them a big fat 0

by: Lisa

this is actually well beyond anything ebay ever did. i don't remember ebay saying even though the buyer is giving you a negative that is unchangeable as far as your  score   and it still  goes against you as a seller, You should refund, replace, and send a free gift.

The problem (ok one of many problems) and im not sure i it has been mentioned, but etsy is  marketing themselves as "ETSY", rather than all  thee individual shops that make up etsy.

And this is one of  many etsy tactics meant to keep buyers and promote etsy as a whole.  They don't want you to give a free gift for your benefit, It's for the etsy benefit in hopes the buyer will come back to the site as a whole, not to your shop.

most of the good sellers are moving  on or have moved on. its really sad.