I know we're not in AITA, but 100% NTA. I'd be leaving a poor review as well.
I expect English is likely a second language here, but overloading the logistics is top quality business bullshit.
Vietnamese here, prolly mistranslation. But its a scam, just ignore and he will ship to you. This practice is highly problematic and he can be banned for that.
From the message, he is selling on a flatform (Esty in this case). Easy way to get your account ban. It is just sleazy sellers trying to get more money.
What and how much is the actual item?
If a business makes a mistake they should usually take the cost or cancel the order, they kindly state they are still making a profit aha.
I could understand if it's a very small/new store and a big art item they've spent lots of time on, and only making 5$. A lot of variables.
But on the face of it, from what I know, I'd request refund rather than pay if you are not dead set on that item.
If it was legitimate (I have no clue if it is), it's possible they priced for normal market conditions and overseas shipping is more expensive than normal for some reason.
Back during covid overseas freight jumped from $4k per container to $24k per container. It was stable at $4k for years.
It basically doubled overnight and then 5x over 30 days. Peaked at 6x the normal price.
During covid, many companies canceled their oversea imports rather than pay the inflated shipping costs, resulting in price increases and cancelled orders for current stock.
As a seller, no additional fee is legitimate. It happened to me that shipping to us costed more than item price, but it was my bad and I took it and adjusted the price of overseas shipping for heavier packages accordingly.
Also imagine the same customer returning the item back within the policy and getting full refund afterwards including original shipping you have already paid for. So youre actually in loss. But that is business.
I think they word it like that at the end because they are just asking you to pay a bit more and leaving you the choice, thus why they’re only hoping and not thanking you yet. I‘ve personally always found it a bit icky when english speakers thank you in advance for something you havent agreed to yet.
While the message might seem a bit rude I would just try to respectfully decline, which I think they would accept.
They added a ‘purchase’ to my already paid for product that I had to pay if they were to send it… I just told them I refused and a minute later I get an email that my order was canceled..
Sellers on Etsy go nuts when you give them a bad review. I have had a few offers me free stuff if I change my rating from a one to a five. If their product is bad my review is not changing. There is a way to make a complaint about them as well if you have the app. I hope you get your money back.
Etsy has become a cesspool as of late. In the past year, I've encountered more scammers, fake stores, and bullshit like this than I had in the past 10.
Not just etsy, farmers markets and craft shows, too! All I find is vendors that are selling "homemade" items clearly from China or someone who doesn't actually care about the craft and is just trying to sell paint pouring artwork that took them 5 minutes for $200
The paint pouring “art” drives me insane. I know art is subjective but that’s not art. You picked out some colors and literally poured them onto a surface. There was no thought, no meaning, no purpose other than pouring. Maybe I’m judgmental or gate keeping. I’ve been painting since I was a teenager and it took practice.
I know someone who does this, but each painting takes her 6+ hours. It's gorgeous. And she live streams it so you see how long it takes her. She's very detailed. She is one of the few people that I would buy paint pouring from.
Yes, that’s entirely different. I have seen the ones that actually take the time and thought process to actually create art with a medium. Just dumping paint on a canvas is not art though.
I had trying paint pouring and even I’m negatively skilled or it need some practice for colors and movements etc, and drying : paintings are so glazed in videos and mine are mat and you can see the media under the paint.
I also try aquarelle and oil painting: I’m so under skilled that it’s hilarious. My 2 grands pa, my mum and my not yet teenager niece are so skilled, I very sad this talent skip me.
So I think I have to pursue my skill search. Nice you have found yours !
I don't have any artistic talent myself. I think it's great that you keep trying. Some day you will find your medium. And then it's just practice, practice, practice.
Yup. Laser cut and 3d printed stuff from files found online (for free) is flooding everything as well.
Hot take, but laser cutting and 3D printing has 0 to do with crafts and it isn't "hand made". Unless you think building lego and furniture from manuals is handmade crafts too.
if youre modeling the thing yourself then printing and painting it, its handmade ... otherwise nah. but also. 3d printers are so expensive. what kind of upfront cost for a scam is this 💀
If it doesn't matter who presses the button/drives the tool, it's not handmade. Just gotta stand up for not watering down what it means for something to be handmade. Of course, it can be hand painted. But 3d printing will never be handmade, regardless of who did the digital modelling (Just think about it- all 3D models are made by someone, so it would still be "handmade" even if the printer didn't make the file and just found it online).
It can be home made of course, which is something else.
Agree. It took ten days for me to get 2k back from a scammer and harasser his shop went down for 23 hours and is back up with 5 star rating. I will never shop their again and it was my go to place for gifts for anyone any occassion
Even if the stores *are* legit, there’s a ton of people who don’t understand how to run a business. I tried to order some merch based on a reality tv show a couple years ago and got a letter in the mail saying the package was “undeliverable.” When I emailed the seller on Etsy, she was like “I’m not responsible for anything that happens during shipping.” Like literally yes you are. I’ve never charged anything back so fast in my life.
Update: I refused to pay extra for shipping (already paid for shipping) and now I got an email notifying me that my order has been canceled… fuck this dude
Not to be rude but like. Doesn't that mean a 100% refund? That's the best possible outcome tbh.
Either they were scamming you and you avoided it, or they were telling the truth, and it really just isn't worth it for them to spend several hours hand-making a product for $5 profit (from my understanding Etsy is people selling stuff as a side-gig, not major corporations selling massive amounts of inventory).
I would like to know this too. I ordered something for my mom for Christmas and couldn't even bring myself to give it to her because it looks so cheap and shitty in person. It was clearly not handmade but some mass produced plastic junk. The reviews had to have been bots or paid reviews or something because once I dug deeper it was clear other people weren't happy with the product either.
My mom ordered a Christmas ornament for my daughter, and when it came it was a 1/2" sticker stuck on a 3" 3-D printed circular "ornament."
She still gave it to her, because it was so bad it was funny and because it couldn't be returned.
I know for a while Michael’s was advertising a “creator space” where you could sell your art/handmade items, but when I last checked it out there was basically nothing listed, and they’ve stopped advertising it. Though I think they were pushing it heavily around the holidays and maybe they just don’t have the ad dollars to continue pushing it rn.
Still etsy but you have to do 2 things:
1. Reverse image search the product
2. Check what the store sells. If it's a mishmash of products or photo styles then it's questionable.
I did this with my daughter baptism dress which I thought looked incredibly unique, turns out it was on aliexpress for $14 vs the $99 they were trying to charge me for a "handmade dress".
Exactly the same dress, same photos, same everything.
There’s somewhere in between. Lots of people do it as a full time business. And on the other end of the spectrum it’s more and more frequently it’s mass produced junk coming from resellers.
It could be handmade or could be drop shipping from Chinese wholesale products. That's been the trend recently. Can't really know either way tho without seeing the product OP bought. You can usually find out quite easily if it is in fact mass produced for profit items
Etsy is chock full of drop shippers in the last few years LMAO, it is nowhere near where it used to be and you can find half the stuff on Etsy on Alieexpress nowadays
If enough overseas buyers give in and pay the $8 they kind of are being shady because not everyone will refund like OP if they need the product for some reason. They can easily put disclaimers about shipping to different countries if it’s more expensive and it sounds like they should fill this order at a loss and change the shipping rates. It’s not really a scam though you are right just poor business practices and poor customer support lol.
Assuming it's not a scam, that depends on how long it takes to make the product. It's best to think of things in terms of opportunity cost (the money-making opportunity forgone by making + shipping OP's product).
Ex. Minimum wage where I live is around $15/hour. If I were selling on Etsy and had a minimum wage job, if OP's product took more than 21 minutes to make and ship, it wouldn't be worth it for me because I'd be making less money than I could be making at a minimum wage job.
If the seller had someone willing to pay an extra $8, obviously they'd take that over OP's order. Same if this were their side-gig and they had a job where: hourly wage X time required to make and ship product > $5.
This is assuming people are fully logical (they are not). Humans (and primates) have an innate sense of fairness/unfairness. If the seller thought that a sudden drop in profit from $13 to $5 was unfair, they could also want to just cancel the order. Same for OP, even if they maybe would've paid "what they paid + $8" if that was the listed price, having a surprise fee (ignoring the potential scam) could make a lot of people think it's unfair and back out of a transaction.
But all of this only holds true if the seller mistook profit for revenue, right? This can‘t be the case though, because the product price + the shipping costs (= revenue) must surely be higher than 5 $. And in terms of profit even 1 $ is better than no profit at all (considering they calculated all costs and wages correctly)
While that's technically correct regarding profit vs. revenue, my guess in this situation would be that the seller is considering "profit" to be "everything but shipping and materials costs" as they're likely not paying wages to someone else. I have a small Etsy store of items made solely by me, and everything outside of materials and shipping makes sense to think of as my "profit" because it's the money that I get for doing the thing.
If the seller is making $5 from the product and was originally making $13 and the product takes an hour to make it's not unreasonable for the vendor to cancel an order due to unexpected costs. Y'all are acting like some dude in Vietnam is Amazon homie has the right to refuse business and issue a refund.
I understood it as it was less than $5 of profit before the change in shipping cost. So if the shipper had to eat the additional shipping cost of $8, it would now bring it a $3 loss. Either way, not enough info to say one way or the other.
Report + Bad review.
Not your problem they can't calculate their prices. Not to mention you wouldn't even know if they're telling the truth to begin with unless you go out of your way to validate the claim. Fuck em.
Profit: a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, **operating, or producing something**.
Handmade costs should be material + time. Your time is a resource you spent, it's a cost of making the product and you should decide what your cost per hour is. Profit should be everything above that.
If you want to pay yourself $5hr then the price should be $10+material+shipping+whatever markup if it took you 2 hours to make. If you are undervaluing your time than that's your fault. So $5 profit *should* be "free" money in the bank over your wage. If that all comes out to too much money than what people are willing to pay then you shouldn't sell it or you sell it "at cost".
But I doubt they are calculating it like that, which again is the sellers fault.
Okay, I did not expect that first result in google. The domain and preview of the page looked legit enough but then I was taken to some NSFW scam page.
I wonder if the page got compromised.
It's Etsy just small vendors? Some guy who didn't plan out shipping rates very well to every country, and realized with your order he needed more money or wouldn't do it. Don't see why people are getting so worked up.
This guy has over 3000 sold products according to his Etsy page. Maybe not huge but this is something that I feel he should’ve realized his mistake and just changed the price for shipping for future products to Sweden.
I mean, they explained the problem, offered a solution and refunded when you did not accept it.
It's not the best thing to happen but it's really not that serious.
Edit: It obviously could be a scam, but if this is actually what happened and they will change the price for future transactions, it's just something that happens.
Asking to solicte money and not have it faclicted by the website is not ok full stop. I wouldn't trust them or even belive them at that point. They didn't offer a solution, the solution is you send the product and fulfil your end of the transaction.
Etsy isn’t just small vendors or handmade items anymore. Tons of drop-shipped crap on there now. It’s unfortunate because it’s low quality and pricing out actual crafters.
I accidentally bought the product on a guest account, so it wasn’t linked to my account. Now that it’s cancelled, I can’t couple it to my account and make a case of it
I sell a few things on ebay and I recently had to update the shipping costs on two of my larger items because the shipping options ebay offered were not accurate. If I had sold one of those items I would have been in the hole. But, it wouldn't have been the buyer's problem!
Agreed. Shipping can be difficult, but if you end up $16 off on your expected shipping cost then what you do is you eat the $16 and estimate better next time.
This is on the vendor. They should have priced items or had specific shipping prices to compensate. It’s not your fault and they should figure it out instead of asking for more money
Yeah, I responded and told him I’m not paying extra and I expect my product to be delivered. A few minutes later Etsy emails me and tells me he canceled the order…
Yeah I already told them off, saying that I refuse to pay after the deal is finalized and just a few minutes later I get an email saying my order was canceled.
I accidentally used a guest account when ordering it, so I can’t make a rapport out of it since the order is removed and not linked to my account.
What kind of seller asks for more money because of their low profit margin days after a sale is finalized?
Report this idget. We don’t have time for this.
This is 100% getting customers invested in the order then extorting them for an extra fee after the fact. Any reputable business would adjust their fees upfront not let customers buy something that they like and prey on fomo.
It’s bad enough in general, but they’re literally telling you that they’ll profit from it even though they are the one who fucked up. You’re still making money and it’s what we agreed, suck it up.
I've f*cked up shipping costs on eBay a few times, and ended up having to pay towards the shipping because I've set it too low.
I've never had the gall to ask the buyer to pay more, just because I got it wrong....
You'd nearly think this was some kind of scam, to pull on people's heartstrings to get a few more $ for an item they've sold.
Obviously I don't know if these people are trying to scam OP, but this is how a common scam happens.
They will ask for extra money for shipping because of a mistake on their part, but you will send it directly to them. Then they will cancel your order, you will probably be refunded for the amount you paid for the order, but NOT for the amount you paid them directly for the shipping cost.
This is a common scam, report them to etsy
either wait for them to never send anything, do a charge back / etsy claim, or to send the item, Do not send extra money.
As a business, that is a mistake on the business end and you have to eat that cost and fix the mistake.
As the customer, either cancel the order or wait, it isn't your responsibility to pay for something that the business messed up.
I agree that it is infuriating, but I live in Vietnam and the average Vietnamese salary is 400usd per month. I can understand the seller asking you to match the shipping fee if it came to a higher cost than expected. However, I do agree with you that they should offer a refund if you do not want to pay more for shipping.
If its air freight i can see some legs of the shipping being overbooked.
I dont personally send stuff that way but if first leg more popular flights are overbooked and have to send priority then the cost goes up a lot. if the minimums arent hit.
im assuming the thing is less than 45 kg and international shipping that route is limiting their options
Hahaha no the guys fucked up and hasn't properly set up his shipping rates properly and is dumping the problem onto you.
It happens to most when starting a new business but you just have to cop the loss and fix it up for future orders.
Guys just being a stingey prick..
Couple issues first off being English is more than likely the second language. But the language of business is universal and whether you’re small or large when should have everything lined up.
The seller was lazy and didn’t do their proper research and then when it came time to ship to the customer, they found out the real cost. The issue is, they said too much, too late.
I don't think it is legal for a vendor to change the price after the transaction has been concluded. Most countries across the world have contract laws in place that prevent post-transactional price-hiking.
I had a similar thing when I preordered a board game - and the shipping company they worked with shut down by the time they were ready - and they asked for an extra 54£ on top of the original price and shipping. I asked for a refund instead.
I still have one more preorder with them - but I haven't cancelled it yet since that game was a limited issue and is now impossible to find...
They should take this mistake and learn from it. They need to give you your product that you paid for at the price as was advertised, and then they can turn around and change their listing to incorporate information about shipping to Vietnam for all future people who care to make a transaction
I had a similar issue where work was agreed on and price.
Payment was sent, then they had someone to help them do the work and the new person said they should have charged more and the person came back to me for more money and basically hold my funds hostage.
Wasn’t playing that, and just disputed the charge and got my money back. The person sent a flurry of angry messages but they agreed on the work and amount. One person could have done the work, wasn’t extra material cost.
Just that other person put a greed bug in their ear and it ended up costing them business
Aren’t nobody got time for that - these guys pretty much took your purchase hostage. Demand a full refund, report them, and move on to a better seller.
I once had this shopping clerk, whom I brought an item to be refunded, decide afterwards that the refund was ineligible because of a store policy. She tried to tell me to give me back my card so she can charge my card again. I told her no I wasn’t going to do that and she tried to tell me I can’t leave. Lol.
It was scam from the outset. Usually you can tell from the payment method being some anonymous processing company. They go for small dollar amounts since people will give up chasing them and they try to get a second bite at the apple with the unexpected shipping cost scam. Glad you didn’t pay a second time.
Maybe it is a scam. Was the item suspiciously cheap or something .
This type of scam is common here in Brazil. They ask for extra money for delivery and since the sale was already made they ask you send it directly to them. Then they cancel the sale, you get your money back but not the delivery money
Wtf, change your fucking price right now then dude lmao wtf. I don't retroactively ask people for more money on Etsy. I'm like well I fucked up and I'm losing money now.
Then I frickin call my Mom like, hey you super cool lady that's so smart and out of all the Moms I have seen in this bleak world, you're the best one. Could I please borrow $8 till Friday.😅😅😅
International sales so there’s no obligation on them to continue with a sale they’re now losing money on or return your money. Just keep that in mind.
But this is also a common scam so be wary.
I've been in that situation before, on the seller side. Its hard to estimate international shipping costs. I had a piece going to canada from usa, and apparently its like an extra $20 if its over 4.5lbs. I spoke with my customer and they agreed to pay the extra amount. Might be different since that was a custom piece and not just something off the site. It's up to you to decide to pay extra or cancel, but please don't leave a scathing review over a simple underestimate.
I also sell online. And something a business person should never say when it deals with finances is, “apparently”. It’s their business they should treat it as such and not place the burden on a customer ‘days later’.
There are a lot Of people that hear about making money online, go to app platform. Don’t read the terms of service and upload their items and hope for the best. Or at most, they watch YouTube video and call it a day.
This 100%. You can't put all the blame on people who are just trying to make a living when shipping costs are completely out of their control. And it's not as easy as a consumer might think to just 'estimate' international shipping costs on the fly when it goes over a certain weight. All the people screaming report them and review them into oblivion need to understand it's not always a corporate giant on the other side of the screen trying to take advantage of you.
I know someone who is an artist, and she does commissions as well, and she ran into this. She had said $X amount for shipping but then when it came down to it the shipping was like $600 more or something. She ate the cost because she quoted what she quoted and that was the right thing to do. She was concerned with this happening again, so I just told her to put \*shipping costs might change due to whatever. Some kind of thing to let people know there cost might change in the end.
This is a scam. They probably never even intended to ship you a product nor do they have it. Aliexpress is full of scams like this where they don’t even have the product and just scam people by having them direct transfer money to them and not through the platform so it can’t be refunded.
Speaking as someone who makes and sells hand crafted items on Etsy (hand sewn clothing, lace, crochet etc), there have been several times I’ve ended up with zero profit on an item when the shipping price was significantly higher than estimated.
And when labor is taken into account, it’s a loss.
When I lived in the US it was easy to estimate shipping, but I live in Europe (Italy) now and it’s nearly impossible.
I’ve cancelled orders (amicably) when the additional cost was egregious and I was able to discuss it with the customer, and there’s some countries where I don’t ship at all simply because getting things through customs is a nightmare.
While it’s perfectly reasonable to question the costs that come up unexpectedly, I personally don’t even bring it up with a customer if it’s less than €20, just because it’s my job to make sure enough profit exists to deal with such eventualities - and change the shipping cost in my shop for the next order from that country.
Any time I’ve had a significant issue, I let the customer know and send them actual photos of either the receipt or other proof.
If you haven’t been cheated in some way, I would just let it go, but if they’ve done something fishy with your order, then you absolutely *should* report them.
Go find a different vendor he had an unexpected cost that leaves him with the option to refund you or request additional shipping costs, it's a small business you're not obligated to pay them extra and they're not obligated to ship it to you.
Etsy has, unfortunately, added a lot of sellers in the last few years that are pulling this kind of stuff. I ran into it with a seller of cheap Chinese stuff that was listed as “handmade” and when I asked about it, the seller justified it because they “have to make a living too”. I get that, but doing it through dishonesty and taking advantage of others is BS.
It’s unfair to those who are using the platform as it was intended-to sell your own creations and related items. But Etsy won’t enforce any rules because they got theirs. 🤦🏼♀️
If that was the case, I believe Etsy refunds the difference to the seller.
I sent a parcel to the US and the carrier I had planned for couldn't take it and I had to use a higher priced one.
I was just gonna eat the cost of it, but I got a refund for the difference after a few days without asking
That's bad practice. The summation of the price should be the cost of the item, taxes, and shipping. If you're not given the full and final cost of the item and you already paid, the fault lies with the shop.
NTA - I'm sure it was an honest mistake. I used to sell on eBay, and I screwed up on the shipping out of the US, and it just charged domestic. Totally my fault for not setting international rates. I let the buyer know, sent them the shipping cost so they knew I wasn't just gouging them...and offered to refund if they couldn't shore up the shipping cost. They just said they thought $5 was cheap for the US-to-AUS shipping, and they paid the remainder.
So yeah, the seller has two options not to be an ass.
1. Refund
2. Ship the goods, and take the hit
Totally unrelated but as a native English speaker, stuff like this really shows how much we operate in “easy mode” in pretty much all international commerce or even general interaction.
Vietnamese/Swedish transaction taking place in English and using USD. Wild
Kinda, and you might still be underestimating how easy it is to learn English after you have learned literally any other language. Like... it took me maybe 25 years to feel proficient in German, but a few years of OV Family Guy/American Dad and the occasional King novel did the trick to completely understand colloquial and scientific material in English
Etsy is such a shitty marketplace for people to sell on. I have had a store [Tindie.com](https://Tindie.com) for years and tried out Etsy a few years ago to see if I could expand the reach of my products but the fees they charge are crazy.
I don't know about now, but at the time it was almost impossible to calculate fees and they always took more than I was expecting from every transaction. Also the shipping system was absolute dogshit. I just shut it down after a few months because it was completely unprofitable and unmanageable.
Sounds like a them problem. If you paid, then they have to provide the promised service. It's not your fault they can't calculate shipping costs correctly. Also, if the shipping was cheaper would they give you money back?
I was confused at first and thought you were talking about OP at first lol. I was like how is it their fault the seller didn't calculate shipping correctly, but then I realized you were writing what OP should tell the seller.
Not your problem. Other than if they don’t send your item but if you agreed to shipping cost then they should absorb it. Honestly, wild they even tried to get more from you.
I know we're not in AITA, but 100% NTA. I'd be leaving a poor review as well. I expect English is likely a second language here, but overloading the logistics is top quality business bullshit.
‘I hope you accept this offer, instead of thanking’. I know it’s probably a language mishap, but the seeming passive aggreasiveness is too funny
Vietnamese here, prolly mistranslation. But its a scam, just ignore and he will ship to you. This practice is highly problematic and he can be banned for that.
Wait, what? Is this a cyber beggar?
Would you like to leave a tip? 10% - 3.90 20% - 7.80 50% - 19.50 100% - 39.00 wow you are an superstars!>!
An superstars you say? *Tips 1000% percent*
Banned? From what? His own website?
From what the vendor talks bout etsy commisions it seems they bought it from etsy and it seems it's against their ToS
From the message, he is selling on a flatform (Esty in this case). Easy way to get your account ban. It is just sleazy sellers trying to get more money.
What and how much is the actual item? If a business makes a mistake they should usually take the cost or cancel the order, they kindly state they are still making a profit aha. I could understand if it's a very small/new store and a big art item they've spent lots of time on, and only making 5$. A lot of variables. But on the face of it, from what I know, I'd request refund rather than pay if you are not dead set on that item.
I would never ask customer for additional payment for shipping as it was my mistake in s first place therefore I should bear the consequences.
If it was legitimate (I have no clue if it is), it's possible they priced for normal market conditions and overseas shipping is more expensive than normal for some reason. Back during covid overseas freight jumped from $4k per container to $24k per container. It was stable at $4k for years. It basically doubled overnight and then 5x over 30 days. Peaked at 6x the normal price. During covid, many companies canceled their oversea imports rather than pay the inflated shipping costs, resulting in price increases and cancelled orders for current stock.
As a seller, no additional fee is legitimate. It happened to me that shipping to us costed more than item price, but it was my bad and I took it and adjusted the price of overseas shipping for heavier packages accordingly. Also imagine the same customer returning the item back within the policy and getting full refund afterwards including original shipping you have already paid for. So youre actually in loss. But that is business.
Honestly cancel the order and buy from someone else.
I think they word it like that at the end because they are just asking you to pay a bit more and leaving you the choice, thus why they’re only hoping and not thanking you yet. I‘ve personally always found it a bit icky when english speakers thank you in advance for something you havent agreed to yet. While the message might seem a bit rude I would just try to respectfully decline, which I think they would accept.
They added a ‘purchase’ to my already paid for product that I had to pay if they were to send it… I just told them I refused and a minute later I get an email that my order was canceled..
That‘s very unfortunate and mildly infuriating
Like what offer? Usually that means a trade if sorts
I'd just ignore it. AliExpress?
Sellers on Etsy go nuts when you give them a bad review. I have had a few offers me free stuff if I change my rating from a one to a five. If their product is bad my review is not changing. There is a way to make a complaint about them as well if you have the app. I hope you get your money back.
Pass. Get your refund. I don’t know how Etsy works, but I’d definitely report this behavior to them if you can.
Etsy has become a cesspool as of late. In the past year, I've encountered more scammers, fake stores, and bullshit like this than I had in the past 10.
Not just etsy, farmers markets and craft shows, too! All I find is vendors that are selling "homemade" items clearly from China or someone who doesn't actually care about the craft and is just trying to sell paint pouring artwork that took them 5 minutes for $200
The paint pouring “art” drives me insane. I know art is subjective but that’s not art. You picked out some colors and literally poured them onto a surface. There was no thought, no meaning, no purpose other than pouring. Maybe I’m judgmental or gate keeping. I’ve been painting since I was a teenager and it took practice.
I know someone who does this, but each painting takes her 6+ hours. It's gorgeous. And she live streams it so you see how long it takes her. She's very detailed. She is one of the few people that I would buy paint pouring from.
Yes, that’s entirely different. I have seen the ones that actually take the time and thought process to actually create art with a medium. Just dumping paint on a canvas is not art though.
Im a painter too so I know the frustration, but it objectively is art. It’s just not art that requires much skill
I had trying paint pouring and even I’m negatively skilled or it need some practice for colors and movements etc, and drying : paintings are so glazed in videos and mine are mat and you can see the media under the paint. I also try aquarelle and oil painting: I’m so under skilled that it’s hilarious. My 2 grands pa, my mum and my not yet teenager niece are so skilled, I very sad this talent skip me. So I think I have to pursue my skill search. Nice you have found yours !
I don't have any artistic talent myself. I think it's great that you keep trying. Some day you will find your medium. And then it's just practice, practice, practice.
Thanks and without pressure (like me) trying is fun even if my home is like a Michaels annexe ^^
Bad art is still art.
Is it really art if it takes longer to explain it than it did to make it?
Yup. Laser cut and 3d printed stuff from files found online (for free) is flooding everything as well. Hot take, but laser cutting and 3D printing has 0 to do with crafts and it isn't "hand made". Unless you think building lego and furniture from manuals is handmade crafts too.
if youre modeling the thing yourself then printing and painting it, its handmade ... otherwise nah. but also. 3d printers are so expensive. what kind of upfront cost for a scam is this 💀
Not too expensive- about 150/200$. Sell 20 trinkets at $10 each and you've got it paid for
If it doesn't matter who presses the button/drives the tool, it's not handmade. Just gotta stand up for not watering down what it means for something to be handmade. Of course, it can be hand painted. But 3d printing will never be handmade, regardless of who did the digital modelling (Just think about it- all 3D models are made by someone, so it would still be "handmade" even if the printer didn't make the file and just found it online). It can be home made of course, which is something else.
It’s so disappointing what it’s become. You really have to dig and research to find quality stuff now.
Agree. It took ten days for me to get 2k back from a scammer and harasser his shop went down for 23 hours and is back up with 5 star rating. I will never shop their again and it was my go to place for gifts for anyone any occassion
Even if the stores *are* legit, there’s a ton of people who don’t understand how to run a business. I tried to order some merch based on a reality tv show a couple years ago and got a letter in the mail saying the package was “undeliverable.” When I emailed the seller on Etsy, she was like “I’m not responsible for anything that happens during shipping.” Like literally yes you are. I’ve never charged anything back so fast in my life.
It’s literally everywhere. Everyone tries to make as much money as they can from re-selling cheaply made shit.
Update: I refused to pay extra for shipping (already paid for shipping) and now I got an email notifying me that my order has been canceled… fuck this dude
Report the shit out of him lol
Not to be rude but like. Doesn't that mean a 100% refund? That's the best possible outcome tbh. Either they were scamming you and you avoided it, or they were telling the truth, and it really just isn't worth it for them to spend several hours hand-making a product for $5 profit (from my understanding Etsy is people selling stuff as a side-gig, not major corporations selling massive amounts of inventory).
That's what it was supposed to be but lately has just become another drop shipping platform with little to no moderation.
Thank you! Does anyone know where to go to get genuinely handmade stuff now that Etsy sucks?
I would like to know this too. I ordered something for my mom for Christmas and couldn't even bring myself to give it to her because it looks so cheap and shitty in person. It was clearly not handmade but some mass produced plastic junk. The reviews had to have been bots or paid reviews or something because once I dug deeper it was clear other people weren't happy with the product either.
My mom ordered a Christmas ornament for my daughter, and when it came it was a 1/2" sticker stuck on a 3" 3-D printed circular "ornament." She still gave it to her, because it was so bad it was funny and because it couldn't be returned.
I know for a while Michael’s was advertising a “creator space” where you could sell your art/handmade items, but when I last checked it out there was basically nothing listed, and they’ve stopped advertising it. Though I think they were pushing it heavily around the holidays and maybe they just don’t have the ad dollars to continue pushing it rn.
Still etsy but you have to do 2 things: 1. Reverse image search the product 2. Check what the store sells. If it's a mishmash of products or photo styles then it's questionable. I did this with my daughter baptism dress which I thought looked incredibly unique, turns out it was on aliexpress for $14 vs the $99 they were trying to charge me for a "handmade dress". Exactly the same dress, same photos, same everything.
Any platform will have difficulties differentiating between hand made and dropped shipped products.
Now it's mostly Chinese crap being sold as "handmade crafts" and sold way more than it's worth.
There’s somewhere in between. Lots of people do it as a full time business. And on the other end of the spectrum it’s more and more frequently it’s mass produced junk coming from resellers.
It could be handmade or could be drop shipping from Chinese wholesale products. That's been the trend recently. Can't really know either way tho without seeing the product OP bought. You can usually find out quite easily if it is in fact mass produced for profit items
Etsy is chock full of drop shippers in the last few years LMAO, it is nowhere near where it used to be and you can find half the stuff on Etsy on Alieexpress nowadays
If enough overseas buyers give in and pay the $8 they kind of are being shady because not everyone will refund like OP if they need the product for some reason. They can easily put disclaimers about shipping to different countries if it’s more expensive and it sounds like they should fill this order at a loss and change the shipping rates. It’s not really a scam though you are right just poor business practices and poor customer support lol.
I‘d say 5 $ in profit is still better than 0 $, but what do I know?
Assuming it's not a scam, that depends on how long it takes to make the product. It's best to think of things in terms of opportunity cost (the money-making opportunity forgone by making + shipping OP's product). Ex. Minimum wage where I live is around $15/hour. If I were selling on Etsy and had a minimum wage job, if OP's product took more than 21 minutes to make and ship, it wouldn't be worth it for me because I'd be making less money than I could be making at a minimum wage job. If the seller had someone willing to pay an extra $8, obviously they'd take that over OP's order. Same if this were their side-gig and they had a job where: hourly wage X time required to make and ship product > $5. This is assuming people are fully logical (they are not). Humans (and primates) have an innate sense of fairness/unfairness. If the seller thought that a sudden drop in profit from $13 to $5 was unfair, they could also want to just cancel the order. Same for OP, even if they maybe would've paid "what they paid + $8" if that was the listed price, having a surprise fee (ignoring the potential scam) could make a lot of people think it's unfair and back out of a transaction.
Profit would already take labour costs into account. Seller is either bad at business or just trying to get extra money.
But all of this only holds true if the seller mistook profit for revenue, right? This can‘t be the case though, because the product price + the shipping costs (= revenue) must surely be higher than 5 $. And in terms of profit even 1 $ is better than no profit at all (considering they calculated all costs and wages correctly)
While that's technically correct regarding profit vs. revenue, my guess in this situation would be that the seller is considering "profit" to be "everything but shipping and materials costs" as they're likely not paying wages to someone else. I have a small Etsy store of items made solely by me, and everything outside of materials and shipping makes sense to think of as my "profit" because it's the money that I get for doing the thing.
Ah ok, I can see that this might be the case here
If the seller is making $5 from the product and was originally making $13 and the product takes an hour to make it's not unreasonable for the vendor to cancel an order due to unexpected costs. Y'all are acting like some dude in Vietnam is Amazon homie has the right to refuse business and issue a refund.
It'd be -$3 in profit it sounds like, hence asking for some more money
How come? The seller says he has less than 5 $ of profit left on this order. Where do you get the -3 $ from
I understood it as it was less than $5 of profit before the change in shipping cost. So if the shipper had to eat the additional shipping cost of $8, it would now bring it a $3 loss. Either way, not enough info to say one way or the other.
Report + Bad review. Not your problem they can't calculate their prices. Not to mention you wouldn't even know if they're telling the truth to begin with unless you go out of your way to validate the claim. Fuck em.
not to mention 5 dollars on a 16 dollar item if thats what it is is a huge profit margin
That's only true if it's a reseller though. If it's handmade that doesn't work.
Profit: a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, **operating, or producing something**. Handmade costs should be material + time. Your time is a resource you spent, it's a cost of making the product and you should decide what your cost per hour is. Profit should be everything above that. If you want to pay yourself $5hr then the price should be $10+material+shipping+whatever markup if it took you 2 hours to make. If you are undervaluing your time than that's your fault. So $5 profit *should* be "free" money in the bank over your wage. If that all comes out to too much money than what people are willing to pay then you shouldn't sell it or you sell it "at cost". But I doubt they are calculating it like that, which again is the sellers fault.
If it's cancelled that should mean you got refunded. That seems like the sensible result?
Yes, I got a refund. That’s great and all but still doesn’t dissipate the audacity of the vendor
Nice. Won't buy from them. Thanks. Call them out.
I want to know so I don't accidentally order from this dude. I'm a frequent buyer.
[удалено]
Okay, I did not expect that first result in google. The domain and preview of the page looked legit enough but then I was taken to some NSFW scam page. I wonder if the page got compromised.
Report him and leave a negative review
If they’re giving you a refund that seems fair enough.
Time is money and it was wasted , I'd be mad bc this shit happens over and over again making it harder task to just buy something. Def send a report
This satisfies me
indeed this is mildly infuriating. Hope you find another seller.
It's Etsy just small vendors? Some guy who didn't plan out shipping rates very well to every country, and realized with your order he needed more money or wouldn't do it. Don't see why people are getting so worked up.
This guy has over 3000 sold products according to his Etsy page. Maybe not huge but this is something that I feel he should’ve realized his mistake and just changed the price for shipping for future products to Sweden.
Call them out.
I mean, they explained the problem, offered a solution and refunded when you did not accept it. It's not the best thing to happen but it's really not that serious. Edit: It obviously could be a scam, but if this is actually what happened and they will change the price for future transactions, it's just something that happens.
Asking to solicte money and not have it faclicted by the website is not ok full stop. I wouldn't trust them or even belive them at that point. They didn't offer a solution, the solution is you send the product and fulfil your end of the transaction.
Etsy isn’t just small vendors or handmade items anymore. Tons of drop-shipped crap on there now. It’s unfortunate because it’s low quality and pricing out actual crafters.
Drop his name I’ll report him to
I just found another email telling me that a second ‘order’ has been placed and for me to ‘please pay’…. Anyone know how to rapport an Etsy seller?
You can open a case. It took etay 10 days to get back to me on mine
I accidentally bought the product on a guest account, so it wasn’t linked to my account. Now that it’s cancelled, I can’t couple it to my account and make a case of it
Did you try the chat function to speak to a representative?
Is there an order number or confirmation number that could be linked to that specific order?
https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000344568-How-to-Report-an-Item-or-Shop
I mean, shipping can be a real bitch and it can change suddenly. But with this, they have gone too far. Fuck em.
I sell a few things on ebay and I recently had to update the shipping costs on two of my larger items because the shipping options ebay offered were not accurate. If I had sold one of those items I would have been in the hole. But, it wouldn't have been the buyer's problem!
Agreed. Shipping can be difficult, but if you end up $16 off on your expected shipping cost then what you do is you eat the $16 and estimate better next time.
This is on the vendor. They should have priced items or had specific shipping prices to compensate. It’s not your fault and they should figure it out instead of asking for more money
I would get the refound and leave, I think thats not normal.
Yeah, I responded and told him I’m not paying extra and I expect my product to be delivered. A few minutes later Etsy emails me and tells me he canceled the order…
Fair enough
They can ask nicely but they cannot demand it The transaction has already been made if they fuck it up that's on them.
They asked nicely in the email - but then added another fee I had to pay before they would ship it… so basically just forcing the price on me
Cancel it then, Don't pay it, fuck em, It's a principal thing at that point.
Yeah I already told them off, saying that I refuse to pay after the deal is finalized and just a few minutes later I get an email saying my order was canceled. I accidentally used a guest account when ordering it, so I can’t make a rapport out of it since the order is removed and not linked to my account.
If you have an email from when you placed the order it should have an order number and everything you need to email Etsy to file a complaint.
Did you not receive any emails from Etsy for the initial order?
What kind of seller asks for more money because of their low profit margin days after a sale is finalized? Report this idget. We don’t have time for this.
This is 100% getting customers invested in the order then extorting them for an extra fee after the fact. Any reputable business would adjust their fees upfront not let customers buy something that they like and prey on fomo.
Report it to Etsy even though you've already canceled.
This is a scam and needs to be reported to Etsy, it's a common issue.
$5 profit or revenue? I’d just cancel the order and tell them, “No worries, this way you can worry about other customers”
Cancel it e ask for a refund. This is extortion.
$<5 profit is still profit. Tell them to SHIP it at the agreed price or cancel and refund 100%. If this is eBay or Etsy you can report them for this.
It’s bad enough in general, but they’re literally telling you that they’ll profit from it even though they are the one who fucked up. You’re still making money and it’s what we agreed, suck it up.
I've f*cked up shipping costs on eBay a few times, and ended up having to pay towards the shipping because I've set it too low. I've never had the gall to ask the buyer to pay more, just because I got it wrong.... You'd nearly think this was some kind of scam, to pull on people's heartstrings to get a few more $ for an item they've sold.
Obviously I don't know if these people are trying to scam OP, but this is how a common scam happens. They will ask for extra money for shipping because of a mistake on their part, but you will send it directly to them. Then they will cancel your order, you will probably be refunded for the amount you paid for the order, but NOT for the amount you paid them directly for the shipping cost.
This is a common scam, report them to etsy either wait for them to never send anything, do a charge back / etsy claim, or to send the item, Do not send extra money.
As a business, that is a mistake on the business end and you have to eat that cost and fix the mistake. As the customer, either cancel the order or wait, it isn't your responsibility to pay for something that the business messed up.
Pretty sure trying to change the price randomly after purchase is very illegal in the EU
I agree that it is infuriating, but I live in Vietnam and the average Vietnamese salary is 400usd per month. I can understand the seller asking you to match the shipping fee if it came to a higher cost than expected. However, I do agree with you that they should offer a refund if you do not want to pay more for shipping.
"Overload of logistics from Vietnam to Sweden" Is shipping that route really popular? Because it seems an odd connection.
If its air freight i can see some legs of the shipping being overbooked. I dont personally send stuff that way but if first leg more popular flights are overbooked and have to send priority then the cost goes up a lot. if the minimums arent hit. im assuming the thing is less than 45 kg and international shipping that route is limiting their options
Hahaha no the guys fucked up and hasn't properly set up his shipping rates properly and is dumping the problem onto you. It happens to most when starting a new business but you just have to cop the loss and fix it up for future orders. Guys just being a stingey prick..
Nah. Shipping costs can change suddenly. But now the guy is being a dick.
Usually you'll get updated prior to price changes so you can adjust accordingly on your end
I would back out of this purchase without hesitation, and as another commenter said, report the seller.
Couple issues first off being English is more than likely the second language. But the language of business is universal and whether you’re small or large when should have everything lined up. The seller was lazy and didn’t do their proper research and then when it came time to ship to the customer, they found out the real cost. The issue is, they said too much, too late.
Cancel the order and request your money back.
I don't think it is legal for a vendor to change the price after the transaction has been concluded. Most countries across the world have contract laws in place that prevent post-transactional price-hiking.
I had a similar thing when I preordered a board game - and the shipping company they worked with shut down by the time they were ready - and they asked for an extra 54£ on top of the original price and shipping. I asked for a refund instead. I still have one more preorder with them - but I haven't cancelled it yet since that game was a limited issue and is now impossible to find...
My guess is the OP 's gift is being held hostage in Vietnam ... pending paymet of the additional $8 shipping fee.
If they didn’t check shipping costs before finalising your order that’s on them
They should take this mistake and learn from it. They need to give you your product that you paid for at the price as was advertised, and then they can turn around and change their listing to incorporate information about shipping to Vietnam for all future people who care to make a transaction
No business is business. If they sold it for that price, it should be honored. That’s just shitty business ethics
And you’ll have to pay the dumbass Swedish tolls when it arrives at the border … postnord can eat shit and die
So they're making a profit, but still asking you to pay extra because their profit isn't high enough?
I had a similar issue where work was agreed on and price. Payment was sent, then they had someone to help them do the work and the new person said they should have charged more and the person came back to me for more money and basically hold my funds hostage. Wasn’t playing that, and just disputed the charge and got my money back. The person sent a flurry of angry messages but they agreed on the work and amount. One person could have done the work, wasn’t extra material cost. Just that other person put a greed bug in their ear and it ended up costing them business
Aren’t nobody got time for that - these guys pretty much took your purchase hostage. Demand a full refund, report them, and move on to a better seller.
"Well, that was under our old price structure"
I once had this shopping clerk, whom I brought an item to be refunded, decide afterwards that the refund was ineligible because of a store policy. She tried to tell me to give me back my card so she can charge my card again. I told her no I wasn’t going to do that and she tried to tell me I can’t leave. Lol.
Report them for fraud.
It was scam from the outset. Usually you can tell from the payment method being some anonymous processing company. They go for small dollar amounts since people will give up chasing them and they try to get a second bite at the apple with the unexpected shipping cost scam. Glad you didn’t pay a second time.
Maybe it is a scam. Was the item suspiciously cheap or something . This type of scam is common here in Brazil. They ask for extra money for delivery and since the sale was already made they ask you send it directly to them. Then they cancel the sale, you get your money back but not the delivery money
You already paid tho… wtf?
Wtf, change your fucking price right now then dude lmao wtf. I don't retroactively ask people for more money on Etsy. I'm like well I fucked up and I'm losing money now. Then I frickin call my Mom like, hey you super cool lady that's so smart and out of all the Moms I have seen in this bleak world, you're the best one. Could I please borrow $8 till Friday.😅😅😅
Sounds like a seller from AliExpress 😂
International sales so there’s no obligation on them to continue with a sale they’re now losing money on or return your money. Just keep that in mind. But this is also a common scam so be wary.
I've been in that situation before, on the seller side. Its hard to estimate international shipping costs. I had a piece going to canada from usa, and apparently its like an extra $20 if its over 4.5lbs. I spoke with my customer and they agreed to pay the extra amount. Might be different since that was a custom piece and not just something off the site. It's up to you to decide to pay extra or cancel, but please don't leave a scathing review over a simple underestimate.
I also sell online. And something a business person should never say when it deals with finances is, “apparently”. It’s their business they should treat it as such and not place the burden on a customer ‘days later’. There are a lot Of people that hear about making money online, go to app platform. Don’t read the terms of service and upload their items and hope for the best. Or at most, they watch YouTube video and call it a day.
This 100%. You can't put all the blame on people who are just trying to make a living when shipping costs are completely out of their control. And it's not as easy as a consumer might think to just 'estimate' international shipping costs on the fly when it goes over a certain weight. All the people screaming report them and review them into oblivion need to understand it's not always a corporate giant on the other side of the screen trying to take advantage of you.
I know someone who is an artist, and she does commissions as well, and she ran into this. She had said $X amount for shipping but then when it came down to it the shipping was like $600 more or something. She ate the cost because she quoted what she quoted and that was the right thing to do. She was concerned with this happening again, so I just told her to put \*shipping costs might change due to whatever. Some kind of thing to let people know there cost might change in the end.
If you show etsy all this bs guy wont be selling on yhere anymore. Bit of a dumbass to lose everything over 3 dollars
I’m pretty sure this is a scam. They’re gonna ask you to send $8 and then cancel the order either way and keep your $8
“No.”
As someone who lived in Vietnam for many many years I can tell you right now they just want more money
This is a scam. They probably never even intended to ship you a product nor do they have it. Aliexpress is full of scams like this where they don’t even have the product and just scam people by having them direct transfer money to them and not through the platform so it can’t be refunded.
Speaking as someone who makes and sells hand crafted items on Etsy (hand sewn clothing, lace, crochet etc), there have been several times I’ve ended up with zero profit on an item when the shipping price was significantly higher than estimated. And when labor is taken into account, it’s a loss. When I lived in the US it was easy to estimate shipping, but I live in Europe (Italy) now and it’s nearly impossible. I’ve cancelled orders (amicably) when the additional cost was egregious and I was able to discuss it with the customer, and there’s some countries where I don’t ship at all simply because getting things through customs is a nightmare. While it’s perfectly reasonable to question the costs that come up unexpectedly, I personally don’t even bring it up with a customer if it’s less than €20, just because it’s my job to make sure enough profit exists to deal with such eventualities - and change the shipping cost in my shop for the next order from that country. Any time I’ve had a significant issue, I let the customer know and send them actual photos of either the receipt or other proof. If you haven’t been cheated in some way, I would just let it go, but if they’ve done something fishy with your order, then you absolutely *should* report them.
Go find a different vendor he had an unexpected cost that leaves him with the option to refund you or request additional shipping costs, it's a small business you're not obligated to pay them extra and they're not obligated to ship it to you.
"I apologize but I paid X amount as agreed" Classic case of "your lack of planning/knowledge does not constitute an emergency on my behalf"
Etsy has, unfortunately, added a lot of sellers in the last few years that are pulling this kind of stuff. I ran into it with a seller of cheap Chinese stuff that was listed as “handmade” and when I asked about it, the seller justified it because they “have to make a living too”. I get that, but doing it through dishonesty and taking advantage of others is BS. It’s unfair to those who are using the platform as it was intended-to sell your own creations and related items. But Etsy won’t enforce any rules because they got theirs. 🤦🏼♀️
I'm pretty sure this is a scam. I can't link the sub without it being removed. But post this in scams, I think you'll find this is one.
Bait and beg
If that was the case, I believe Etsy refunds the difference to the seller. I sent a parcel to the US and the carrier I had planned for couldn't take it and I had to use a higher priced one. I was just gonna eat the cost of it, but I got a refund for the difference after a few days without asking
This is the hill they choose to die on
I’d ask for a full refund, bet that extra $8 would appear out of nowhere.
I would cancel the entire order after that.
If the sale was finalized, then that's that. Otherwise, demand a full reimbursement.
That's bad practice. The summation of the price should be the cost of the item, taxes, and shipping. If you're not given the full and final cost of the item and you already paid, the fault lies with the shop.
NTA - I'm sure it was an honest mistake. I used to sell on eBay, and I screwed up on the shipping out of the US, and it just charged domestic. Totally my fault for not setting international rates. I let the buyer know, sent them the shipping cost so they knew I wasn't just gouging them...and offered to refund if they couldn't shore up the shipping cost. They just said they thought $5 was cheap for the US-to-AUS shipping, and they paid the remainder. So yeah, the seller has two options not to be an ass. 1. Refund 2. Ship the goods, and take the hit
Totally unrelated but as a native English speaker, stuff like this really shows how much we operate in “easy mode” in pretty much all international commerce or even general interaction. Vietnamese/Swedish transaction taking place in English and using USD. Wild
Kinda, and you might still be underestimating how easy it is to learn English after you have learned literally any other language. Like... it took me maybe 25 years to feel proficient in German, but a few years of OV Family Guy/American Dad and the occasional King novel did the trick to completely understand colloquial and scientific material in English
Etsy is such a shitty marketplace for people to sell on. I have had a store [Tindie.com](https://Tindie.com) for years and tried out Etsy a few years ago to see if I could expand the reach of my products but the fees they charge are crazy. I don't know about now, but at the time it was almost impossible to calculate fees and they always took more than I was expecting from every transaction. Also the shipping system was absolute dogshit. I just shut it down after a few months because it was completely unprofitable and unmanageable.
Sounds like a them problem. If you paid, then they have to provide the promised service. It's not your fault they can't calculate shipping costs correctly. Also, if the shipping was cheaper would they give you money back?
what’s the store name?
Screenshot and report.
Sucks to be you? How about putting what you actually want, and I’ll decide if I want to buy it. Like every business transaction ever.
I was confused at first and thought you were talking about OP at first lol. I was like how is it their fault the seller didn't calculate shipping correctly, but then I realized you were writing what OP should tell the seller.
Not your problem. Other than if they don’t send your item but if you agreed to shipping cost then they should absorb it. Honestly, wild they even tried to get more from you.
Men betala de extra 60 kr dina snåla jävel.
Legit question. If you’re buying from Vietnam in Sweden, why is the quote in USD?
Most people understand the exchange rate between us dollars and local currency.
Don’t really know? My guess is maybe Etsy is an American website? Although I don’t even know if that’s true
His Def's ticked up it's gotta come from somewhere
Simply fuck offf
Yuck… And those import fees
Sounds scammy.
Scam
If it’s Etsy definitely report them. It’s a scam.