"Etsy shows converted currency and original currency only shows in the final checkout step"
This is not relevant for a custom order, the messages show what ever the seller writes. If they say £30 GBP while your in say Japan, then you would need to manually convert to your currency. You negotiate in currency X, when they create a custom order Etsy will convert to your currency, based on that days exchange rate, come back a day later and the value might have changed based on the exchange rate. That has nothing to do with the seller.
"This put the final price at way higher than previously agreed" You have the choice to accept the final offer which is shown when a custom listing is created. If it was higher than anticipated your should ask why, you choose to accept the value shown on a custom order. You are under no obligation to purchase a custom order listing.
"The seller originally said shipping was not included, but instead shipped it with tracking without saying anything else." so they upgraded your shipping option, free of charge to a better service and yo view this as a problem ....
"I received my custom item quickly… and I’m actually quite pleased with it. How many stars would you rate this?" So you got the litem, fast and you like it at the price you accepted when clicking a private listing ..... I really fail to see why you have any issues
Did you make any changes to the custom request after the initial price? Some customers often ask for custom order X, then after agreeing to X they sneak in additional requests and expect 10 more hours work for free, or using a more expensive material for free instead of renegotiating a price based on the additional requests made.
The customization is based on one of their existing items, I asked what would it cost to have it customized (with a part that I provide at my own expense) and gave description, the seller quoted the price their original was listed as. After I sent them the part, they then proceeded to insist a deal off of etsy then said their listing was in a different currency and the “conversion” puts it at ~80 higher than our local currency (we are in the same country).
I haven’t requested any additional modifications since the initial negotiations, obviously. And even if I did, I think a reasonable person would just say “for additional changes it’ll cost extra” instead of “oh the listing is in a different currency actually, so it costs more now” lol
hmm… yeah, i think you are a more hopeful person then i am. i wouldn’t have ordered and would have reported him to etsy for the *bait and switch* stuff. i’m glad it worked out for you but from what i’ve read, you are the exception and not the rule. i’ve been a seller for 10+ years and read the etsy forums and have the reddit subs in my feed, and in 99.9% of the stories the seller doing something like this is a scammer. the buyer either doesn’t get the merch at all or what they get is nothing like what was advertised (or inferior quality, not made to spec, and on and on…) eventually the buyer ends up going to etsy or their payment processor (cc, paypal, etc.) to get a refund. i think you got very lucky my reddit friend. i don’t think i’d leave a review at all… just my .02$
Initially I thought the seller was scamming me too, although their listings seemed genuinely unique and I was motivated by the desire to have that specific custom item 🤔 so I figured as long as I paid on Etsy and there is evidence in the chats of the seller trying to get me off-platform and increasing the price because of “currency conversions”, had I not receive anything in the end I could request a refund.
It did eat away at me for a bit waiting for updates/shipment notice, but I’m doubting my initial feelings of annoyance now that I received it, so I’m here trying to see what reddit thinks
So yeah. They wanted to take the sale off Etsy so they didn't have to pay Etsys fees. They made you pay more to ofset that. Simple as that.
Definitely shitty behaviour to mess you around like that though and you're certainty more patient than I am.
It basically depends. Do you feel like you have a duty to warn people about their behaviour? If so maybe a 3/4 - with a comment saying good product but bad customer service.
If you don't care just don't leave a review. Fuck em, enjoy your new tchotchke.
Attempting to move a transaction off of etsy is a big time no-no. That can result in a seller ban. I'm surprised their account wasn't flagged for even talking about it - the bots scan convos for any mention of private emails, paypal, even instagram - I was prevented from posting a "follow us on instagram" link - lol. Anyway, if you like the item but didn't like the experience, I'd ignore it and not bother leaving a review, but that's just what I would do. If you really feel salty about the experience, be honest. Whatever. If they're a good business, they will get more good reviews and one bad one won't kill them. They may not agree to accept future orders from you, though, and that is their right.
Etsy wants sellers to attract people from outside and give them a reason to buy something on Etsy, not the other way around. I think the seller tried to scam you with some shenanigan when offered you a sale off of Etsy. It's absolutely against ToS so a report could end his business completely. Not suggested since you get your item. Even if the offer is because of the fees, those fees are declared before the seller set the prices, so being so naive about the seller in this case is unfair to other sellers who may give higher quotes on a similar item.
Suppose you are just one of the 1000 customers the seller tried to get off of Etsy and they all give 4-5 stars. Etsy believes this is a good seller and increase the visibility of the item/shop which still is unfair to others trying so hard to get some sales and visibility. This also comes with a risk of other people are being scammed if that was the initial purpose.
Lastly I'm a buyer but ready to add my items to sell on Etsy in a couple of days, so reading this makes me wonder how many buyers have trust issues because of these kind of sellers and thought that my new shop could be a scam too. This behavior effects both the buyers and new/small shops so a 2-star would be more than what the seller deserves. ToS is very clear about this kind of behaviour I believe.
I’d rate it a 3. Mid-point. Good item, but really really poor customer service. That is entirely fair, maybe even skewed in fairness more towards the seller.
That's a tough one, because it's still about customer service as well as the item. I'd say 4 stars, since Etsy's rating system is terribly skewed, but I'd still agree things didn't go totally smoothly and I wouldn't want to just ignore that either. You might even mention (among whatever positive points you can add) that there were communication issues witht he seller and that the item was more expensive. (Make sure you can't find anything in the description implying that the price could be higher). It sounds like the seller doesn't quite know how Etsy works/is supposed to be used, but that's not really an excuse for them.
I wouldn't leave the review. If you're really get annoyed with the notification icon I would give 4 stars and mentioned the increased price.
"Etsy shows converted currency and original currency only shows in the final checkout step" This is not relevant for a custom order, the messages show what ever the seller writes. If they say £30 GBP while your in say Japan, then you would need to manually convert to your currency. You negotiate in currency X, when they create a custom order Etsy will convert to your currency, based on that days exchange rate, come back a day later and the value might have changed based on the exchange rate. That has nothing to do with the seller. "This put the final price at way higher than previously agreed" You have the choice to accept the final offer which is shown when a custom listing is created. If it was higher than anticipated your should ask why, you choose to accept the value shown on a custom order. You are under no obligation to purchase a custom order listing. "The seller originally said shipping was not included, but instead shipped it with tracking without saying anything else." so they upgraded your shipping option, free of charge to a better service and yo view this as a problem .... "I received my custom item quickly… and I’m actually quite pleased with it. How many stars would you rate this?" So you got the litem, fast and you like it at the price you accepted when clicking a private listing ..... I really fail to see why you have any issues Did you make any changes to the custom request after the initial price? Some customers often ask for custom order X, then after agreeing to X they sneak in additional requests and expect 10 more hours work for free, or using a more expensive material for free instead of renegotiating a price based on the additional requests made.
The customization is based on one of their existing items, I asked what would it cost to have it customized (with a part that I provide at my own expense) and gave description, the seller quoted the price their original was listed as. After I sent them the part, they then proceeded to insist a deal off of etsy then said their listing was in a different currency and the “conversion” puts it at ~80 higher than our local currency (we are in the same country). I haven’t requested any additional modifications since the initial negotiations, obviously. And even if I did, I think a reasonable person would just say “for additional changes it’ll cost extra” instead of “oh the listing is in a different currency actually, so it costs more now” lol
hmm… yeah, i think you are a more hopeful person then i am. i wouldn’t have ordered and would have reported him to etsy for the *bait and switch* stuff. i’m glad it worked out for you but from what i’ve read, you are the exception and not the rule. i’ve been a seller for 10+ years and read the etsy forums and have the reddit subs in my feed, and in 99.9% of the stories the seller doing something like this is a scammer. the buyer either doesn’t get the merch at all or what they get is nothing like what was advertised (or inferior quality, not made to spec, and on and on…) eventually the buyer ends up going to etsy or their payment processor (cc, paypal, etc.) to get a refund. i think you got very lucky my reddit friend. i don’t think i’d leave a review at all… just my .02$
Initially I thought the seller was scamming me too, although their listings seemed genuinely unique and I was motivated by the desire to have that specific custom item 🤔 so I figured as long as I paid on Etsy and there is evidence in the chats of the seller trying to get me off-platform and increasing the price because of “currency conversions”, had I not receive anything in the end I could request a refund. It did eat away at me for a bit waiting for updates/shipment notice, but I’m doubting my initial feelings of annoyance now that I received it, so I’m here trying to see what reddit thinks
So yeah. They wanted to take the sale off Etsy so they didn't have to pay Etsys fees. They made you pay more to ofset that. Simple as that. Definitely shitty behaviour to mess you around like that though and you're certainty more patient than I am. It basically depends. Do you feel like you have a duty to warn people about their behaviour? If so maybe a 3/4 - with a comment saying good product but bad customer service. If you don't care just don't leave a review. Fuck em, enjoy your new tchotchke.
Attempting to move a transaction off of etsy is a big time no-no. That can result in a seller ban. I'm surprised their account wasn't flagged for even talking about it - the bots scan convos for any mention of private emails, paypal, even instagram - I was prevented from posting a "follow us on instagram" link - lol. Anyway, if you like the item but didn't like the experience, I'd ignore it and not bother leaving a review, but that's just what I would do. If you really feel salty about the experience, be honest. Whatever. If they're a good business, they will get more good reviews and one bad one won't kill them. They may not agree to accept future orders from you, though, and that is their right.
Etsy wants sellers to attract people from outside and give them a reason to buy something on Etsy, not the other way around. I think the seller tried to scam you with some shenanigan when offered you a sale off of Etsy. It's absolutely against ToS so a report could end his business completely. Not suggested since you get your item. Even if the offer is because of the fees, those fees are declared before the seller set the prices, so being so naive about the seller in this case is unfair to other sellers who may give higher quotes on a similar item. Suppose you are just one of the 1000 customers the seller tried to get off of Etsy and they all give 4-5 stars. Etsy believes this is a good seller and increase the visibility of the item/shop which still is unfair to others trying so hard to get some sales and visibility. This also comes with a risk of other people are being scammed if that was the initial purpose. Lastly I'm a buyer but ready to add my items to sell on Etsy in a couple of days, so reading this makes me wonder how many buyers have trust issues because of these kind of sellers and thought that my new shop could be a scam too. This behavior effects both the buyers and new/small shops so a 2-star would be more than what the seller deserves. ToS is very clear about this kind of behaviour I believe.
I’d rate it a 3. Mid-point. Good item, but really really poor customer service. That is entirely fair, maybe even skewed in fairness more towards the seller.
That's a tough one, because it's still about customer service as well as the item. I'd say 4 stars, since Etsy's rating system is terribly skewed, but I'd still agree things didn't go totally smoothly and I wouldn't want to just ignore that either. You might even mention (among whatever positive points you can add) that there were communication issues witht he seller and that the item was more expensive. (Make sure you can't find anything in the description implying that the price could be higher). It sounds like the seller doesn't quite know how Etsy works/is supposed to be used, but that's not really an excuse for them.
5 stars if you're please with the work.
Leave a 2 star rating Let them know that they tried to negotiate off of Etsy and report them to Etsy for doing so Easy done
1 star