etsy problems
etsy, tips and tricks

Words you don’t want to hear as an Etsy seller…

etsy problems… or simply an online seller of any kind. Being an Etsy seller surely has lots of advantages, but it’s not always pink cotton candy and unicorns and flowers and rainbows. Remember a while back we talked about one of the biggest problems we have as sellers – shipping problems.

Shipping is definitely a major issue and it’s very stressful as it’s clearly out of our control as sellers, but also out of the client’s control too. So it’s definitely a bummer when a client tells you: “My package hasn’t arrived yet. What’s going on?”

*** Since we’ve already given a few tips on the article about shipping (see above), let’s move on to the next terrifying words you could hear from your clients: “I received the package, but i don’t like the items / the items don’t fit.” Awful, right? Here are some tips to prevent such a situation:

– make sure your shop policies are crystal clear on refunds. For example, if ordered items are personalized, could you actually make a refund? You’d be stuck with the items as you couldn’t resell them, you’d have lost time on making them, you’d have lost money on materials…

– make sure you double check every detail of the order before sending it. Make that a triple check!

– send as many photos as possible and as accurate as possible.

*** Another terrible situation is when a client tells you: “I received the package, but it is not what i ordered!” Etsy sellers are either full time online sellers or they also have a day job too. It is tiring dealing with a day job, Etsy promoting, talking to clients, being active on social media, working on orders, shipping orders, creating new designs, maybe also taking care of the family. It is understandable to make mistakes, so here are some tips in order to try and prevent something like this from happening:

– be organized. Even if you’re naturally not an organized person, make sure you have an organized mess there in your workshop!

– use labels. I’m not talking about something fancy, but simple post-it notes or something similar so that you’ll know at all times what is where.

– step by step and one by one. Don’t start working on more orders at once. If it’s deadlines that you’re worried about, you should consider extending the time frame within you tell your clients that you’ll ship their orders. Better safe than sorry.

*** The final terrible situation you can find yourself into as an Etsy seller is having your client tell you: “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to order anymore.” Even though there aren’t any apparent losses depending on the exact time the client has decided not to order anymore, we – as sellers – know exactly what and how much we lost: time, money and materials. Here are our tips:

– communicate. Try and find out what caused the client to change his mind and work your way from there.

– do not send hateful messages to the client. Yes, he might have caused you to waste time and money, but hateful messages won’t bring them back and won’t do any good either. Quite the opposite actually.

– stay positive and don’t get too upset about it. You’ll need that energy for the other billion possible clients who will actually order from you!

Feel free to add your own tips and tricks for these situations or maybe share similar awful situations you had to go through and how you handled them!

The Funky Studio team wishes you, as always, a colorful day!

PS: This is part of the blog articles i’m “rescuing” from the old blog.

an2

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shipping problems
etsy, tips and tricks

Shipping problems tips & tricks. It’s not always pink and flowers…

… Remember that even beautiful roses have thorns!
This is the second Tips & tricks article that i’ve taken over from the old blog. It’s slightly revised as it’s been almost 2 years since writing that article, but the main aspects still are the same to this day. So let’s talk about shipping problems when sending out your clients’ orders and respectively, when receiving a package ordered online.

etsy shipping problems

Probably the most common problem Etsy sellers have is shipping. Everything regarding shipping.  Starting with the insane shipping fees and ending with packages not being delivered! Everything in between those two examples is also of high importance, however this time around let’s focus on those two, discuss about them, find solutions and give tips.
1. Shipping fees
This is by far the biggest problem of them all. First things first:
for Etsy sellers – don’t feel guilty about the shipping fees! You’re not the ones making them; you have no control over them. Try and make your customers understand that. Give them links for the websites of the couriers / post office and have them see the fees themselves. Do not charge less for shipping fees because you feel like they’re too high! A possible solution for this would be taking a little out and putting it on your items’ prices. However, keep in mind that Etsy calculates its fee  from your items prices, so the absolute best solution is to try and explain to your clients that this particular aspect is out of your control. Another thing you can do is presenting special offers for the repeat customers or clients with larger orders.
for Etsy buyers – in order to have your orders sent safely to you, you need to pay shipping fees. They are high, but Etsy sellers can’t do anything about it unfortunately. The lowest shipping fee always comes with risks – damaged package, lost package, delayed delivery, no track & trace, no insurance, no way of ever finding out what happened to your package. You have to pay extra for the package to arrive sooner, you have to pay extra for the package to have a tracking number, you have to pay extra to have insurance, you have to pay extra to have a confirmation of receipt, you have to pay extra if the package is heavy. It’s terrible, all Etsy sellers know that, but this is how it is, unfortunately.
2. Lost packages
The Etsy seller gives you a heads up when he mails your package and you’ve also read about how much time it would take to get to you. That time had come and passed and you still don’t know anything about your package. What do you do?

– check out the track & trace number – usually when you make an Etsy purchase you’d receive a track & trace number for your package. Check it out and see where exactly your package is at the moment.shipping problems

– no track & trace number? If, however, you don’t receive a track & trace number, contact the Etsy shop owner and let him know about the problem. He would then give you that number and check it out himself. There are situations where there is no track & trace number (for example: packages sent with non-priority mail if the customer so wishes, simple envelopes etc.). For those situations it’s best to have your package sent with a confirmation of receipt. That way it will certainly either arrive to destination or get back to the sender. If there’s also no confirmation of receipt, the Etsy seller should send a new package to his client, but this time making sure all the proper precautions had been taken care of. There is also another situation where post offices simply don’t register international tracking numbers. An example is Australia. We ship to Australia quite a lot, but we can only track the package on our post office’s system until it gets out of the country. After that, if there’s a need for tracking, we can only contact the social media team of the Australian post office (and by the way, this team is awesome! Quick responses, friendly people!).
for Etsy sellers – it does cost extra, but make sure you either have a track & trace number or a confirmation of receipt. Otherwise, you’d have to send out a new order on your expense.
for Etsy buyers – please understand that shipping problems are out of the Etsy seller’s hands. They will of course do everything they can in order to have your package delivered safely, but what will happen on the way to you is out of their reach.
Hope everything above will be helpful for both Etsy sellers and Etsy buyers.

The Funky Studio team wishes you, as always, a colorful day!

an2

Etsy shop I Facebook I Twitter

etsy reviews
etsy, tips and tricks

Etsy shop reviews tips and tricks. How much do they really matter?

The Etsy shop reviews was a subject i talked about on the old blog sometime last year. Since I decided to use only this site for blogging now, i thought it would be a waste to lose information i had on the other one, so i’ll bring them back over here, revise where necessary and update where i have anything to add. So the very first upgraded topic is “Etsy shop reviews”.

etsy reviewsThere are lots of talks among Etsy sellers about shop reviews: how to get happy customers leave a positive feedback, how to avoid being rated with fewer stars, how much do customers rely on the shop’s reviews?

I will be honest with you, i never paid special attention to my shop’s reviews, nor have i ever asked a customer to leave a feedback. That doesn’t mean i wasn’t excited every time i got a positive review or that i don’t appreciate them! It’s just that there are other things i believe to have a greater importance than this.

What are shop reviews?

After buying an item, the customer can leave feedback – whether it’s positive or negative – and can rate the shop, services and products with stars from 1 to 5. The customer can leave detailed explanations about why they gave the number of stars they chose to give. Usually they take into consideration: communication, items’ quality and shipping.

How do you get customers to leave feedback?

I’ve seen this question many times on teams’ forums. While i do enjoy hearing back from my clients, i do not want to push them to come back and leave a review. I’d much rather encourage them to come back for another happy sale! However, this is just me. The most efficient way to have a client return for a review is by making a little note on a thank you card you send along with the item he bought. That way he won’t feel pressured, but he would have appreciated your work and would feel more inclined to share this aspect. You can also write this note when announcing the item has shipped. However, try not to insist on it. You’d risk getting a fewer stars rating.

How do shop reviews affect an Etsy shop?

Whether they’re good or bad, the shop reviews can play a decisive role in making the decision to buy. If, on the overall shop look, the rating stars are not all yellow, there would be an instant alarm signal for the customer. After carefully reading customer’s opinions, one can change his / her initial opinion. Other potential customers that are indecisive at first, after reading a whole bunch of positive feedback, actually decide to buy.

How much do shop reviews really matter?

The shop reviews are simply subjective opinions of customers. Reading lots of shop reviews myself, i found that many times the customers that rate the shop with fewer stars have one general problem: item never arrived. As an etsy buyer, i try to solve the problem directly with the seller. That would pretty much be the best and easiest way to get everything sorted out. We all know about postal services problems. I used to think it was only something that happened with my country’s postal services, but i actually found that people all over the world are dissatisfied with their post offices. So that’s the main reason etsy sellers get in trouble: something that is out of their reach and that they can do nothing about. However, it is their job to promptly answer their client’s messages and let them know what they can and can’t do about it. Avoiding and not answering the messages would certainly earn you a negative review. On the other hand, trying to explain to your client what’s going on and giving deadlines and ultimately giving a solution would certainly mean a lot. Basically it’s a time when both sellers and buyers must be reasonable. However, this is by far the most common explanation for negative reviews, so you as possible future clients should ask yourselves: is this something that was the seller’s fault? Does this negative review actually count for that much?

What is more important than the golden 5 stars?

I was saying at the beginning of this article that in my opinion, there are other things that are more important than reviews. If i check out an etsy shop and the overall image doesn’t appeal to me at all (basically it’s all photos’ fault), i won’t even look at the ratings, much less reading explanations for them. It might not be a good thing, but in online shopping photos are all you’ve got. A client doesn’t get to actually see the item he’s buying until after he’s already bought it, so photos should be at least appealing. Then we have the item’s basic description. Words should cover what photos couldn’t, so these descriptions must be accurate and precise. Otherwise, if i don’t know what i’m buying, how am i supposed to order anything?

Then, if i like an item, but the shop doesn’t have a 100% 5 golden stars ratings, i check the explanations on both sides. It would be a lot better if negative reviews had explanations from sellers even if it wasn’t their fault. That way possible future clients can see that you did try your best to solve the issue until the very end.

There still remain a lot of aspects to talk about when it comes to reviews. As we move forward and come across other related issues, we’ll create a Chapter 2. Feel free to express your own opinions on the matter in the mean time!

The Funky Studio team wishes you, as always, a colorful day!

an2

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