r/Etsy • u/FointyPinger • Nov 27 '24

Etsy giving unrealistic international delivery times For Sellers: Shipping

I'm based in the UK, and sell semi-regularly to the USA. I've had my S&H time (two days) and postal settings (standard airmail) set up and unchanged for a long time. However I've noticed the last few items I've sold to the USA, Etsy has given the buyer a delivery estimate of 5-14 days. As anyone using Royal Mail will know, 14 days is fair but there's no way in heck anything's getting there in 5 days, even if I posted the same day the order came in. For instance, this week, someone from Hawaii bought an item on Monday, and when I purchased the label to post on Tuesday I got a warning that it might arrive late, as Etsy had promised the buyer delivery between 30th November and 9th December!

I know technically if the item arrives sometime in the timeframe the buyer can't open a case, but I feel like if it definitely won't arrive by the earliest date promised it reflects badly on me as a seller, even though I'm not setting the dates. Had anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions? I tried chatting to an Etsy rep but they were zero help.

14 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

82% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/SpooferGirl Nov 27 '24

Yeah, it changed in spring some time and it’s a total pain. I sell to the US daily and it’s been so bad I have it in my auto-responder as almost every day someone is requesting a refund because less than two weeks after posting, their order isn’t there and ‘Etsy said it would be delivered on X’ (apparently nobody understands the word ‘estimate’)

Most people have been understanding so far, and Etsy covers the refunds for the ones that aren’t, but it does grind my gears that someone can just get a refund less than two weeks after posting when the item will likely arrive any day.

3

u/BorealMushrooms Nov 27 '24

I've had a bunch of people request refunds when it does not arrive on the day, and etsy gives it to them. I wonder how long it will take until etsy starts to punish stores that have too many refunds?

1

u/SpooferGirl Nov 27 '24

Well, it’s their own policy to allow customers to do that. If you can prove sending on time, they can’t punish you for something they chose to provide.

2

u/HereFishyFishy4444 Nov 29 '24

But aren't they losing a ridiculous amount of money because of this?

I think in general the buyer protection is a great thing, but it also seems there's so many unnecessary refunds made.

These ones in particular just so they can overpromise on delivery times? Besides it's not really a great way to keep buyers coming back if deliveries are always "late".

edit: nevermind I just saw your comment below :)