Etsy offered advice to sellers on dealing with tariffs and told them that buyers may be required to pay tariffs and fees on packages that are shipped internationally. The marketplace explained that in certain cases, it would protect sellers if buyers refused to pay tariffs when their orders arrived.
In an article posted to its Seller Handbook on April 7, Etsy included the following section explaining the protection it extended to sellers:
Fortifying Purchase Protection:
To help protect your business as shoppers navigate tariffs, we are clarifying the eligibility criteria for the Purchase Protection program. Qualified sellers will not be responsible for refunds if an item arrives late or is not received due to a buyer delay, inability or unwillingness to pay tariffs due when their order arrives. You can learn more about Etsy Purchase Protection here.
Etsy said it was also working to add messaging so buyers could be alerted to instances when purchases might be subject to tariffs or might be delayed as a result of tariffs.
The marketplace also told sellers in a FAQs section that sellers could choose which countries they ship to and had the ability to choose to ship to domestic customers only.
Other FAQs included, “Does Etsy have the ability to collect and remit tariffs, like you do with value added taxes?” and “Does my shipping carrier include the cost of tariffs in their rates?”
Government policy around tariffs continue to change at a rapid pace, and Etsy continues to update the Seller Central article.
Yes, by all means, protect those Chinese sellers on Etsy!
Having had personal experience–I was told not to worry about tariffs by one Chinese factory contact, assuring me that they had ways of getting around them.
I HATE the very concept of the “tariff war.” But between knowing a US company such as Etsy and then Apple being able to bend the rules for their products it’s clear that BIG BUSINESS will continue as is. And the rest of us will suffer the costs.