For Those That Complain About Ebay From A Buyer's Perspective - Etsy Problems

Be careful what you wish for; it could be far worse.

I'm currently in the middle of a frustrating buyer experience on Etsy, a platform I'd only used once previously many years ago. I keep seeing references on the ebay forums from disgruntled sellers saying they will close up their ebay stores and go sell on Etsy... yeah, well good luck with that.

I doubt if there's a more buyer-hostile platform out there.

So I purchased a piece of ephemera on May 30 and made immediate payment. After 2 weeks without any marking of the order as shipped, I reached out to the seller for a status update. No response.

We're now at 3 weeks and no shipping, so I figured I'd read through the Etsy forums and perhaps ask a general expectations question there. As I was browsing, I found it odd that there were no "Buying Questions" or similar sections of the forum. I go into the Shipping section of the forum, and attempt to ask a question, and am confronted by a big honking red error telling me I don't have permissions to post there. I start looking at other subforums, same thing. Since they use Lithium, the same forum abomination that ebay uses, I wonder whether I have the authentication connected to my Etsy account properly, so I sign out, clear all cookies and cache, and re-login.

Same thing.

So after doing some Google research, it appears that when Etsy was bought out and they transitioned to Lithium, in order to cut down on contentious public "buyer-seller" interactions on the forum, their ham-handed solution was to make the entire forum system seller-only. That's right, if you are a buyer at Etsy, you cannot post or respond anywhere. It's a private sellers-only club.

If there's anything out there more overtly buyer-hostile, I'm not aware of it. I would not consider selling on any platform that has that much disregard for its buyer base.

At least on ebay, for good or evil, there are plenty of forum sections for buyers and sellers alike to converse, ask questions, and vent.

What a fustercluck.

***Title Updated***

Yeesh that's brutal. I shopped there a number of years ago for some unique hand/made type home decor and it was good back then (for that, at least) but at the same time, I did not require customer service thankfully and that was also 5 years ago - times change. I hope your issue gets resolved.

I've only had 98 transactions on ebay, 16 this last year. The only problems I've ever had is being outbid!

I've used Etsy only once with a positive experience. I bought a lot of 3 beer stamps. 2 were REA156 and one was REA156a.
Needless to say, I was thrilled.
Been looking for my next gold nugget ever since.

I have purchased Australian Ephemera through Etsy, no problems.

Your original problem is with the seller.
Which, in turn has highlighted the problem with the service.

My vendor was fine. I guess I was just lucky.

I also dislike, the bay, (managed payments) but I have no other choice.

Congrats on the great beer score. A thriller.

My (limited) experience on etsy has been excellent. This weekend, paid for a rug on Friday evening, it was shipped from Ankara via DHL on Saturday morning, and with me in London at midday on Monday. A letter wouldn't have crossed London in that time.

I never got any response from the seller. Finally had to log a dispute. Got my money back, but really wanted the item. Sigh.

Etsy does have a buyer-seller "conversation" system that basically does email forwarding, but otherwise no buyer protection. It is no more helpful to the buyer than the county that owns a fairgrounds where a flea market is held. Consequently, experience is individualized depending on the seller and service is all over the place. I am currently waiting on a $270 replica movie prop that the seller completed late, necessitating renegotiation of the target delivery date. That date now has been missed by 3 days, Etsy says the seller shipped, but the carrier says it has no information other than that a label was created. I'm going to give it two more weeks but I'm expecting to end up like Rev.