Is Etsy Lying About Frequency & Amounts Of Seller Offered Discounts?
Sellers have noticed Etsy seems to have a strange habit of stretching the truth in on site messaging about discount frequency and amounts - and they're worried it could reflect badly on their businesses and create negative buyer experiences.
Etsy seller and ecommerce consultant Cindy Baldassi recently posted about the issue on her Tumblr after a seller reached out to her about the misleading messages added to some listings:
Etsy Misrepresenting Frequency and Discount Level of Seller Sales
A few weeks ago, Cat from the Etsy shop Artsy contacted me about text Etsy had added to some of her sale items. Featured in green right below the sale price, it said “Rarely on Sale! First sale in 6+ months.”
Might be a good nudge to encourage orders, right? The problem was, it wasn’t true. Cat offers regular sales, and was worried that her repeat customers would think to she was lying to them.
Baldassi then pointed to a Reddit post where other sellers were discussing the issue, also expressing concerns that buyers might believe there were being less than honest with their claims about how discounts.
The seller shared a screenshot showing of an item with a 10% discount with an Etsy-added message saying "New markdown! Biggest sale in 60+days", even though they had run a 25% sale for labor day.
While the icon at the beginning of the message could just be meant to grab visual attention, it is similar to icons Etsy and many other companies use to denote the use of AI - which could certainly explain the inaccurate and confusing information being displayed.
Others chimed in saying they had also seen some wildly inaccurate messaging about discounts being added by Etsy.
I have noticed that. One shop I follow offered a 25% discount. the next weekend, it was a separate sale at 15% discount, and it listed it as the biggest sale in 60 days...
I don't mid the idea. I do mind the straight up fib.
I just saw a listing the other day that said it was their biggest sale in 60 days when a couple days prior it was $1 less. I thought it was a glitch, but apparently not!
It's understandable that sellers are concerned about how this will reflect on their reputations and businesses as buyers may not realize Etsy is responsible for adding those messages and that the information being presented is incorrect and outside of the seller's control.
There are of course multiple ways this could come back to bite the seller in terms of reviews or lost sales, but it's particularly concerning now that Etsy is testing a new way to collect feedback from buyers about their support experiences - both from Etsy and directly from sellers - with new surveys after a buyer requests help with an order.
Liz Morton
While Etsy says the results of these surveys will not be displayed publicly on listings or impact visibility (at this time), sellers can expect feedback received will likely at the very least filter down into new policies or requirements in the future as Etsy continues to try to find ways to keep buyers coming back to the site.
Having this kind of misleading messaging on item pages is likely to lead to more buyer help requests, which in turn will feed into those surveys, with possible future policy and/or seller account impacts.
Bigger picture, Etsy could be courting regulatory trouble for false advertising - especially if they are using artificial intelligence to generate these messages as the FTC under Lina Khan has been particularly interested in companies engaging in deceptive practices around their use of AI.
Have you seen misleading statements about discount amount and frequency on Etsy listings? Let us know in the comments below!
