I started this blog to share my journey with essential oils. I also am a wholesaler for Simply Earth and had created an Etsy Store to sell my inventory. I had been on Etsy many years ago and, silly me, thought I knew enough about Etsy to build my own store.
When I found that Etsy had changed, I joined an Etsy training group led by someone I had done business with in the past and respected her and her knowledge. The training wasn't cheap but I felt it was worth it and would recoup my expense with my Etsy sales. She was a tremendous help and I followed her advise on setting up my store (Home Page, SEO, Title, Description, etc).
When I was happy with my store I got up enough nerve to list 21 items as craft supplies for soap and candle makers. Within about 24 hours, I received an email from Etsy saying they had removed some of my items because I had violated Etsy's Medical Claims Policy. The email said that they had reached out to my several times - I had only received that email! There was no detail on how I had violated their policy so I read the Medical Claims Policy and to see if I could figure out what I had done wrong. I didn't see anything that applied to my listings but to be cautious I revised my listings, only 3 of the21, and reposted. Two of them were successful but 1 was deleted again for the same reason. So I revised my listing and removed my entire description so it was blank. I thought that ought to do it. To my surprise, it was deleted again. Same email with no explanation except that it violated their Medical Claims Policy.
That listing was an essential oil blend named Breathe Easy Essential Oil Blend so I thought maybe it was the name of the product that was the problem but I couldn't change the name and I looked and there were several other sellers that sold essential oils with the name Breathe Easy so this time I removed tags, changed the title as much as I could and relisted it. You guessed it, the item was deleted again!
When I went to my email the next morning there was another email from Etsy saying my account had been permanently suspended due to repeatedly listing a prohibited item. I was shocked!
I tried to contact them but the only way I could find was a message board in the support department. No phone numbers. I sent a message and got almost an identical message than the one I received before. Could this be a BOT? I found an email for anyone that wanted to contact Etsy Support but it came back as a non-monitored email. Then WHY was it listed???
By now I was not only hurt but now I'm angry. I don't like to get angry so this made me feel even worse. I started looking for others that had their accounts suspended and was amazed at the number I found. If I found hundreds then there are probably thousands!
To make it worse, I had planned to create another Etsy shop to sell homemade greeting cards among other things. Now that's not possible.
I had ordered hundred of dollars of inventory and now have no way to sell them! AND I haven't even finished paying for the Etsy course that I bought. I still have 1 more payment!
I'm at a loss. I'm a senior and not able to go to weekend markets. I don't know what to do. I also live in a rural area so there's no local places I could try.
I've said all this to hopefully help anyone that might be opening an Etsy Store. BE CAREFUL! Read the Etsy Sellers Handbook and then read it again! Don't do anything that is against Etsy's rules. I've learned my lesson and hope you never have this happen to you!
I'm sorry for such a rant. I promise my next post will be more upbeat!
Stay balanced and breathe easy.
Gayle Thompson - Your Guide to Essential Oils
No comments:
Post a Comment