In this article, I will share my experience selling digital products and getting suspended by Etsy for no reason. The worst part is that their appeal team doesn’t care about you.
Once you get suspended from Etsy, you won’t be able to recover, you cannot sell on Etsy anymore even if you try to create new different accounts/shops. Don’t waste your money, move on.
Having a shop with a good sales statistic is such a blessing as a seller. A shop that can generate thousands of dollars every month, or even more. Well, if you sell on Etsy, be prepared because they can suspend your accounts at any time without any warning.
It’s a nightmare waking up on your peaceful morning, trying to sip your hot drink, checking up on your Etsy shop and knowing that your shop is currently suspended by Etsy for no reason.
Where did all of this start?
I was an Etsy seller and I used to sell digital graphic assets on Etsy. Mainly selling K-pop-related-things. Especially selling digital K-pop lightstick stickers set.
During my time as an Etsy seller, my items were pretty popular over there and I made pretty decent sales. But this good news won’t last long. Etsy suspended my account after I became a seller for roughly 3-4 years on their platform.
I was being a sceptical before when I saw someone create a post or a video on social media saying that their Etsy’s shop are getting suspended. Because mine is totally fine and nothing bad happened with my shop.
Until I realized that all of my happiness and peacefulness as an Etsy seller were just a fugazi. Etsy is already place an eye on me and start to suspended my shop. It’s like popping a bubble. “Pop” and it’s gone.
What should I do when my account is getting suspended by Etsy?
Actually, there are none. Let me explain below.
When your shop is suspended by Etsy, you will see a red banner that says something similar like this in your shop dashboard:
Your account has been suspended—here’s what to know
Your account may have been suspended due to policy violations, overdue bills, or regulations you haven’t met. If you think this is a mistake, you may be able to file an appeal with Etsy.
When you click the Learn more button, you will be redirected to this page -> How to Reinstate Your Suspended Account. Which is useless, because they will not hear you and your account will not be recovered.
File an appeal
Try to File an appeal? Man… You better save up your time and just move on. All of your texts written on the appeal form will be ignored. You will regret it immediately as soon as they replied you with something similar like this:
Hello Royyan,
This is Anil from Etsy’s Member Services team. We appreciate you taking the time to file an appeal with Etsy. After careful consideration, we’ve determined your account does not qualify for reinstatement. We’ve performed a comprehensive review of your account and the information you provided, and are unable to reconsider this decision.
While we’re unable to disclose our internal review criteria or discuss your account status further, if you have questions related to your Payment Account please review Etsy’s Payments Policy.
We’re unable to reconsider this decision and can no longer respond to further messages about your account status. We appreciate the time you’ve invested on Etsy and wish you success in your future endeavors.
Thanks & Regards,
Anil
Try to beg them in texts? I can say don’t get so much hope. Again, you better save your time and energy and move on.
I am saying this is based on the fact that my shop account getting suspended for no reason by Etsy. Which led me to frustration.
Like I said above, I was tried to file and appeal, create new different shops, email the support team and neither all of them are works. My shop cannot be recovered.
Payhip as an Etsy alternative
This is a move-on section from me. Because finally I let that happen, I know my shop won’t back anymore. So, I try to find an Etsy alternative that is suitable for my needs.
I won’t write and describe many Etsy alternative websites like any other articles out there. I will just simply said that Payhip is the best Etsy alternative for me.
Payhip has everything I need to sell digital-based files. I can use my own domain, I can use my own title and description, there is a search feature built in, it is intergrated with email marketing service and most importantly, they have a great support team.
If you curious what is my Payhip shop is, you can visit the link below to view my shop:
Mostly I sell digital K-pop lightstick stickers and now I am slowly adding digital design assets as well over there.
The latest design asset I added is a Vector set of cute fishes, whale, dolphin illustrations. It contains 15 premium vector graphic characters and currently, I run a 50% sale discount for all items until the end of July 2024. Go get them before the sale ends.
Conclusion
Save your time and energy by not being too dependent on selling on Etsy only. Etsy is a good start if you want to begin your adventure by selling digital files/assets. But if you start to get more customers, I advise you to create your own shop. So, you will have more freedom for your business.
Also, you will significantly decrease your chance of getting suspended by Etsy anytime soon.
Thank you for reading out, hope this article is five you more insight and benefits about “Why you’re not selling on Etsy”.