Etsy Forcing Many Stores Into Vacation Mode, Stopping Crucial Holiday Sales
The Etsy community forum is being flooded with sellers whose stores have been forced into vacation mode with no warning or explanation, bringing a sudden stop to sales in crucial final days to meet holiday shipping deadlines.
Sellers report the sudden notifications about their stores being temporarily shut down contained very little information or confusing explanations saying Etsy was reviewing their documents to verify their identity or business details when the seller had not uploaded any new documents for them to review and their previous documents had already been verified.
Kokolokogifts
My shop has been put in vacation mode without any warning, email, or message. My account is in good standing—I’m a best seller with no violations, no late shipments, or issues.
I’ve also uploaded all proof of ID and reviewed my legal and tax info months ago. It has all been verified already.
My shop is my full-time income. I'm a single Mom, and this is a huge financial loss for my family, especially during the Christmas season!
FTUStudio
My shop has been in forced vacation mode for over 4 days now, and I have no idea why. I’ve contacted Seller Support multiple times, but all I get are generic replies telling me to "check my email" or "wait for an email"—but there’s no email at all.
I have no overdue orders and didn’t upload any new documents. This is happening during the busiest time of the year, and it’s so frustrating to be left in the dark like this.
I’ve seen other sellers dealing with the same thing—it seems to be a global issue. Does anyone know what’s going on? How long does this really take?
Etsy, please give us answers! This is affecting our businesses and families, and we deserve some transparency.
To make matters worse, moderators in the Etsy community are quickly and actively closing and locking posts about this problem, directing sellers to contact support privately for help and preventing further public discussion.
KinsmanTradingCo
As many other sellers have reported, my store was also shut down on Dec 14th and put into a forced vacation mode. After attempting to reach Etsy with no success or response, I turned to the forums here.
An Etsy mod closed my thread (which stops users from responding) stating that they would reach out to me. Etsy did indeed reach out to me and requested documents including my driver's license and a copy of my business registration which I promptly provided.
Finally, Etsy emailed me around 2am this morning letting me know that my identity has been verified and I can start receiving payments again. Problem is though, my store is still in VACATION mode... Under business verification documents it states that there is "Action required" but it gives me no information on what else I need to do or provide.
I have given Etsy everything they have requested, I can clearly see the documentation that I already uploaded in my Legal / Tax Information tab, everything matches as it should. I have no problems with any other platform I sell on or payment processing accounts (Stripe, PayPal, etc)...
Please also keep in mind, I've been selling on Etsy for years now. My name has not changed, my bank account, EIN, my driver's license, everything is the same. Everything I've provided Etsy with is information they already had.
I don't know what happened here, if this was some kind of massive hack or attack, but I am just thankful that many of my loyal customers were able to find me on alternative platforms. If I was relying solely on Etsy as my only source of income, this would've absolutely devasted my family financially right before Christmas.
Etsy, PLEASE, get this issue resolved. I have been a loyal seller (and shareholder) for years, but something is very much broken on Etsy's end and needs to be fixed....
And not only does being put in forced vacation mode stop new orders coming in, it also freezes payouts for recently completed orders too, causing even more of a cash flow crunch for affected sellers.
SoarForge
Our store has been put on Vacation mode late last week but there was no notification/email about it. The dashboard home says:
"Your shop will stay in Vacation Mode while we review your info. This means you won't be able to receive new orders until we finish verifying your info (which usually takes up to 48 hours after you uploaded your document). No need to do anything else right now—we'll reach out if we need more details from you."
Payouts of the outstanding balance is also frozen.
We didn't receive any requests for ID documents recently and our credit card and ID's etc are also all up to date. We also raised a case with Etsy support but haven't heard back yet.
Meanwhile, in the few threads that have not yet been locked to replies, sellers are sharing suggestions or workarounds that worked for them - but of course, there's no guarantee these suggestions will solve the issue for others.
EmeraldRoseGraphics
My partner found someone talking about this happening to them on a reddit sub and they recommended removing any expired credit or debit cards on your account (even if they aren't saved as you default card). I did this and 2 minutes later the vacation mode was removed from my shop.
Everyone saying there's nothing to do is wrong. This happened to a bunch of us in another thread. most of us got back up and running after a few days.
1st: Open a ticket saying that you were put on vacation mode without communication and that you want to know what to do next. some people opened up multiple tickets. I opened 4, and emailed the ceo directly.
It appears that there is some technical issue. it will most likely be resolved within a few days, and your shop will suddenly be back up without any explanation as if nothing happened. Best of luck though. I hope it gets resolved faster than mine.
With many new legal and regulatory mandates coming into effect like GPSR in Europe and Beneficial Ownership reporting in the US, not to mention tax updates that may impact sellers in different locations, it's understandable that Etsy may be in a position to need to collect and review additional documentation from many sellers before the end of the year.
However, it is absolutely not understandable and not acceptable for Etsy to bungle their compliance responsibilities while putting accounts on hold and causing serious harm to the small business sellers on their site in the process.
The lack of transparency and communication is very troubling and the loss in business would be harmful at any time of year, but particularly during the crucial weeks and days leading up to holiday shipping deadlines - especially when Etsy has poured so much money and resources into positioning themselves as the go-to site for unique and wonderful gifts for the season.
That's certainly not the way to "keep commerce human."
Has your Etsy shop been forced into vacation mode with no explanation? Let us know in the comments below!
