The day finally came, it was time to start listing all our great t-shirt and sweatshirt designs on Etsy. We had been waiting to list because the bank account we set up with Chime needed money in it and it took several days to make the transfer. I didn’t want Etsy to try to draft the account for the listing fees and no money be there. That could cause a suspension. So we had been waiting patiently.
Finally, the money posted to bank account and I was so excited to go on Printify (the print-on-demand company we chose to print our designs) and click the “publish” button. I published the first listing and all was fine. There were some things about the platform I didn’t realize and some things I had to learn about Etsy too, but I was moving along. I published the second listing, then third, forth, fifth, and boom. SUSPENDED!!
Well dang, this is what I was afraid of. In doing the research to start this business I joined several (well, maybe more than several) Facebook groups and watched umpteen videos on YouTube. Everyone was talking about how all new accounts get suspended. Of course, I thought that wouldn’t happen to us, why would they suspend our account, right?
Well, it’s true, almost all new Etsy accounts get suspended. There’s not a lot you can do about it. And our account was no exception.
I don’t understand why they don’t tell you what’s going on when you sign-up. When you first sign-up, why don’t they put your account on-hold with an explanation that they have to verify your identity and make sure you’re not a bot, scammer, or someone who’s going to do harm to the platform. Why are they not up front about what they’re doing? Why do they feel the need to make you think you might have done something wrong and then give no explanation, not even an email, as to why they suspended your account?
They could have allowed us to work on the platform but not list. We could have been putting up draft listings while the money was transferring to our account. We could have been learning how the platform works. We would have known that we were just going through the normal verification process. Why can’t they give new accounts just a little respect instead of treating us like criminals before they even know us?
We were suspended for a total for 6 full days. Our account came back online exactly at the hour it went down. I was excited to find that I hadn’t done anything wrong, that it was normal. Of course, it would have been nice to know that 6 days earlier.
When an account is suspended, the system gives you messages on your dashboard and allows you to “file an appeal” (again, making you feel like you did something wrong). So I went through the prompts and filed the appeal. Problem was, when I gave them my account email I think I entered it incorrectly. I forgot when we set-up our gmail account we had to add the word “shop” to the end of our company name because the company name alone wasn’t available. So, I doubt that appeal was ever connected to our account.
Two days later I went to the case history for the account and saw there were no messages. I filed another appeal, explaining that I think I used the wrong email the first time. I got a reply within an hour which confirmed that I messed up the first time. I don’t know if that delayed our account coming back or not. Here’s a copy of the message I received from the initial appeal:
I felt a lot better having received some sort of communication but the only thing we could do was continue to wait. During that time I was making sure all the listing mockup photos were ready for each design so I could get as many listings up as possible once we were back online.
I hate that I’m so impatient, I found myself going to the Etsy account multiple times a day to refresh the screen. I hoped each time that the big red message at the top of page saying we were suspended would disappear. It was Columbus Day and I kind of figured that Etsy was on holiday but I refreshed anyway. And finally at about 5:00 p.m., the suspension message disappeared! And all the listings were back in our shop!! YAY!!
I checked the email account and I had a message:
I am definitely happy that episode of this journey is over. Since then I got really busy and we now have 48 listings in our shop. We don’t have many people visiting yet, but from what I understand it just takes time. And in the meantime, I think we have enough Christmas listings, I’m going to get started with some everyday designs, the kind of stuff that people give as gifts. Gotta be ready when 4th quarter shopping kicks in, even though we may have gotten in too late, I still think we have to try.
Until next time,
Reba
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