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Yippee! You’ve made a sale in your Etsy shop! Unfortunately, the customer didn’t provide enough information to complete the order. Perhaps they didn’t include their color choices or maybe they didn’t give you their monogram. No problem, you’ve sent them a conversation through Etsy and will start their order as soon as you get the missing information. The problem is, the customer doesn’t ever respond to your conversation. What is a small business seller supposed to do now? Each seller will have their own policies, but today I’m sharing mine.
How I Deal with Etsy Customers Who Don’t Respond to Messages
- Send an Etsy conversation and wait 24 hours for a response.
- Send a 2nd Etsy conversation after 24 hours asking for the information to be provided. I add a note to the end of the conversation that if I don’t hear from the customer within 24 hours of this conversation, I will be forced to cancel the order.
- If I still don’t get a response, I cancel the order and send a 3rd conversation letting the buyer know that I’ve had to cancel the order. I invite them to replace the order when they’ve got all the information I need collected. I tend to say something nice in this third conversation like, “I know we can all overlook conversations when life gets busy. I hope you will place this order again.”
I also include text in my shop policies that states: “If I cannot obtain the information needed to create your order within 48 hours, your order will be canceled and you will need to reorder.”
Make Personalization Details Required
In case you didn’t know, in a recent update to Etsy, many categories now allow you to require the customer to fill out a personalization section before checking out. While this isn’t foolproof, it might help cut down on personalization and customization issues.
If you need a quick tutorial on canceling an Etsy order, head to this article on Etsy.
This post leads me to an older (but great) post on whether or not custom orders are worth your time or if you should stick to ready to ship products. Read that post here.
Hi Christine,
At the same time, I send the same message to their email. 99% of the time, they respond to the email, not via Etsy.
When you click the customer’s name at the top of the order details, you get a pop-up list with the email address at the bottom of that list.
Hi Patty! The only issue with doing that is that in cases of an issue with the buyer where Etsy has to step in you may not be covered by seller protection for email conversations. If you want to email, maybe send them an email that states: “I’ve sent you an important conversation in Etsy regarding an issue with your order. Please check it immediately.” (Or something similar.)
Good idea. Thanks for that, Christine.
My pleasure, Patty!
Hi Christine, what should I do about a customer who placed two orders for an identical item. It is personalized and the info seems incorrect for first and correct for second. I have emailed her through etsy asking for clarification, no response. In second email I said I was going ahead with one order and awaiting confirmation on second. If I don’t hear from her should I do one and refund the second? It supposed to read, (name) backyard bar and grill. The first one she wrote (name) backyard bard and grill. What do you think? Thanks
I’d sent both as ordered if the customer hasn’t responded.
Great article! Thanks for the information!
Happy to share!