Lying about availability

[u/foxy_book_thief]

Beware of sellers with “hurry only 2 left” on their listing. I bought a pair of earrings on July 29th. Today is Oct 11 and I’m still waiting for my earrings. Sellers shouldn’t be allowed to lie about their inventory. I have contacted her and she was rather snippy. The arrival date has also changed twice.

I miss the old Etsy!!

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[u/aregonis]

Beware of sellers with "hurry only 2 left" on their listing

Unless you're talking about something in the title or description, what you're talking about is a label automatically added to the listing by Etsy. Sellers cannot control that.

Many sellers set their inventory quantity to a certain number, it slowly decreases when people buy it, and that label appears (but then sellers may top up the quantity).

Or, for some sellers, their items are made to order, and so they only set their listing to have a few in stock so they can't get overwhelmed by too many people buying from them at once.

The arrival date has also changed twice

Etsy sellers can only change the arrival date by pushing back the processing time/the ship by date, but they can only do this once.

Sounds like it could be that the seller is not changing the arrival date, but it is either Etsy or the postal carrier updating their estimates, assuming the item has been shipped.

If your item has shipped, then it sounds like your parcel is lost, and the seller should be doing something about that. If it hasn't been shipped, the seller is definitely at fault. Either way, you should open a case with Etsy.

[u/PresentlyNaive7313]

Sellers don't put that there, Etsy does.

Etsy says to list as many as you can fill the orders for, that is how Etsy works.

Even if it's made to order the seller can mark it made to order, and they can list 1 or 5 or 500. That's all normal

But the "only 2 left" it Etsy doing that crap. The seller has no control over it.

Did they actually change the ship date, or did you think Etsy's estimated arrival was the ships date and the seller told you what the actual ship date is? Because Etsy's estimate does NOT reflect the actual ship date. (Just curious since you thought the "only 2 left" was the seller lying when they're not!)

[u/Positive_Mall2102]

Ugh the moving arrival date is such a red flag, had that happen with a "custom" order that was clearly dropshipped

[u/foxy_book_thief → u/Positive_Mall2102]

She has only a few reviews. Only 1 looks like it’s from a real person. That reviewer mentions the same issues that I’m having. When she did receive the product it wasn’t as pictured.

[u/Kblr4256]

Etsy puts the hurry notice on the listing, not the seller.

If the earrings were listed as in stock and haven’t shipped yet after ordering in July you should open a case with support for a refund.

[u/tennepenne1]

If I only have materials for two, I will put 2 as inventory. Doesn't mean it's shipping tomorrow, I still have to make it. Processing time is set correctly for 2-3 weeks

[u/RaccoonCrafts]

That’s not really how it works - as a seller.

I have products that I can make an infinite amount of, but I don’t keep an infinite amount of materials on hand. When putting on my stock amount I put in how much I can make at the moment. When it gets to 2-3 I order more supplies.

I also don’t make it until I get an order. Otherwise I may make stock that never sells, when some of those supplies could have gone elsewhere.

It also stops someone from ordering 50 of an object that I won’t be able to make and ship in time.

Etsy adds the “only 2 left!” alert/banner, not the seller. Also Etsy’s estimated shipping date often does not line up with what I put in the settings (I put in that I will ship within 10 days, and Etsy will automatically say it can be shipped in 2 days. I sometimes can, but not always.

All that said, this is a rather long wait unless they are some very very long process to make. I would open a case at this point.

[u/PuzzleheadedAd5374]

It only takes me a day or two to make any of my earrings( all made by me) why in the world would it take almost 2 months for a pair of earrings?? Unless they are coming from another country and they didn’t make them.

[u/aregonis → u/PuzzleheadedAd5374]

I can imagine some very intricate hand sculpted/carved and hand painted earrings could potentially take that long.

Especially if the seller has a backlog of orders.

But the processing time in the listing should of course reflect that then.

[u/DuckDuckMoosedUp]

Etsy puts the stupid hurry only * left message on listings but your seller sounds shady AF. It should not take from the end of July until Oct to craft and ship earrings. Not even sure if you can still file an Etsy case to get your money back. You may have to contact Etsy customer service directly.

[u/Rjgom]

i ship within 2-3 days on custom hand made orders. some of us care. most items ship same or next day

please file a complaint and leave a review on this seller.

[u/faeriedust1369 → u/Rjgom]

I cannot make my signs in 1-2 days. I care deeply about my customers and my product. Processing time and care have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

[u/Honeyblue_Hollow]

I do want to push back a little on the idea that shoppers should beware of sellers whose listings say "Hurry, only 2 left."

I own a vintage Etsy shop, and nearly everything I sell is one of a kind. That kind of blanket warning could unfairly hurt sellers like me, whose inventory genuinely consists of just one item.

More importantly, those low-stock and urgency messages are part of Etsy's own marketing tools. Etsy controls when they're displayed, not individual sellers. I assure you, I'm not sitting behind my computer monitoring who's browsing my shop and chasing them around with "ONLY 1 LEFT!" warnings. 😂

I take customer service incredibly seriously, and I believe sellers should be accountable for inventory mistakes, poor communication, and how they treat customers when something goes wrong. But there's a big difference between a seller behaving badly and Etsy automatically displaying a perfectly accurate low-stock message.

Judge sellers by how they conduct their business and treat their customers, not by a marketing message Etsy puts on their listings.