This is a great example and this scenario where the issue is covered by the print on demand platform with a refund or replacement happens much more frequently for me vs. having to refund the customer out of my pocket. As long as you're prompt and helpful with the customer like you were, you'll satisfy 99% of customers in my experience. Also that's awesome you had such quick success with one of your designs! I've had some that "flash" as well and then trail off, either because the trend was quickly over or because a bunch of copycat designs popped up and made mine stand out less. But when it happens I think it helps get you pumped up to keep creating designs so it can happen again!

@@PODinsights ok so what about selling in the eu and uk, they have a 14 day cooling off period which means we have to offer a refund for no reason in the first 14 days, this is what im afraid of starting pod on etsy, do you only sell to the usa, have you made a video on shipping profiles, please direct me to that video

Do you think that had something to do with algorithms why it dropped all of a sudden? curious to know how to keep your sales up. more advertising... etc... or is it out of our control?

Hi. Im sure we r not in the same nische, i wonder only how do you sell product, via Shopify, your website, Etsy?❤

I'm glad it was helpful!

I'm glad it was helpful!

I'm glad it was helpful!

Thank you so much!

You make a great point, not everyone does apparel so some products might be re-sellable if you get returns which makes it less of an issue. Also since you already handle shipping for the items you make yourself, that's another thing that is less of a problem for returns. You have the right mindset for sure! Keeping customers happy is a big part of being successful and I believe we should be looking for ways to accommodate customers vs. only focusing on profits. Thanks for your support!

Hi! I do have a video about shipping profiles: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nNSYltuf39PSfZs.html When you publish a listing from Printify, you have the option to select an existing shipping profile at the bottom of the page where the publish options are. I do not recommend creating a new shipping profile for every listing, because if (when) you need to make changes to your shipping rates or countries, you will have to update dozens of profiles vs. just a few. I have my shipping profiles set up by product type (t-shirts, mugs, sweatshirts & hoodies, phone cases, etc.). All you need to do is edit one existing shipping profile to be the one that you want to use for a type of product, and then apply that one to all future listings of that type of product. To offer free shipping, you would need to build your cost of shipping into the price of the product and then edit the shipping profile to indicate free domestic shipping. I hope that helps!

Hi! When you go back to your settings > policy settings page, do you still see your previous returns policy as well as the new one, or just the new one? Mine is only showing the new one on the settings page, and my shop page now says "See item details for return and exchange eligibility" since I published the updated policy. Maybe the policy was created but not published? Let me know if that helps at all!

Hi, you can certainly create a custom return policy and specify details like that! I think the more you to do set clear expectations for customers, the better.

Hi! I stopped selling to the EU earlier this year - I removed all EU countries from my shipping profiles. I never got enough orders from EU countries to justify figuring out the regulation about required returns. About 95% of my orders have come from the US, about 4% from Canada, Australia, and the UK combined, and about 1% from all other countries. I don't know enough about the regulation to give a definitive answer, but I do find Printful's statement about it interesting. Printful's return policy for the EU states that made to order print on demand products are excluded from the EU regulation, so they don't accept returns for EU customers. This does not guarantee that Etsy or the EU would agree with them - but it's interesting because I would assume Printful had lawyers review the regulation for them and apparently they feel that print on demand products fit into the exclusion for products that are "made to the customer's specifications". So in theory, no print on demand products are subject to the EU regulation according to Printful's interpretation. Here's the page where they state that: www.printful.com/policies/returns If you're located in an EU country as a seller, I'm curious if Printful's interpretation of the regulation would hold up. I can definitely believe that AOP products could be considered "made to the customer's specifications" because they are cut & sewn from scratch for each order. But I'm not sure if a standard t-shirt that is printed to order would fit that exception. So in theory, you might be able to say "no returns" as your standard policy and explain in your listings that because each item is made to order, you do not accept returns - and then still be lenient about giving refunds if a customer is insistent. But for my own shop I wasn't making enough sales in EU countries to put that to the test.

@@PODinsights Hi Geoff. Thank you for that elaborated answer. I think I'll follow your suggestion. Unfortunately I cannot add any knowledge here since I'm from Switzerland which is in Europe but not within the EU. I have a T-Shirt with a German word play, so I hope to sell in Germany to (not just to the few Swiss guys). Many thanks and best regards

If you are not in the EU but are selling to EU customers, that EU law doesn't apply to you. It's an EU law, for EU customers buying from EU stores.

Hi! On your Etsy seller dashboard, you go to the orders page and then open the order, and on the order record there is a button at the top that says "More Actions". One of the options there is "Refund" and it will take you to a page to complete a partial or full refund. Thanks for asking about this, I think I should make a short video showing where it is!

@@PODinsights Thanks so much...yes...a video on this would be great!

I wonder how this would work as a US seller too. My shop is half pod half I make and ship it. It’s an art shop and I wanted to expand my products and to international countries and I’ve heard eu law is you have to require returns up to 30 days. I know on Printify you can change returns in the settings to go to your address. This way too you can see the issue.

Hi! Great question and I have to give the disclaimer - I'm not an expert on the EU regulation nor am I qualified to be giving legal advice, but I can offer a couple thoughts. On most POD platforms you can set a custom return address for your business so that print providers will print the shipping label with your return address instead of the default one, so if you want to (or are required to) accept returns, you can have them come back to you instead of the provider. I know both Printify and Printful allow you to do this in your shop settings. At the same time, it's worth noting that Printful's return policy for the EU states that made to order print on demand products are excluded from the EU regulation, so they don't accept returns for EU customers. This does not guarantee that Etsy would agree with them - but it's interesting because I would assume Printful had lawyers review the regulation for them and apparently they feel that print on demand products fit into the exclusion for products that are "made to the customer's specifications". So in theory, no print on demand products are subject to the EU regulation according to Printful's interpretation. Here's the page where they state that: www.printful.com/policies/returns I personally stopped selling to the EU earlier this year - I removed all EU countries from my shipping profiles. I never got enough orders from EU countries to justify figuring all this out. About 95% of my orders have come from the US, about 4% from Canada, Australia, and the UK, and about 1% from all other countries. If you're located in an EU country as a seller, I'm curious if Printful's interpretation of the regulation would be accepted for selling print on demand products.

@@PODinsights Printify only allows you to use your own EU return address when you're in the UK or Germany. I'm in the Netherlands, so that's another thing I have to work around. They don't make it easy ;)

​@@PODinsights I deem it problematic to refer to Printfuls (or Printify's for that matter) own Returns policy as a guide to which kind of refunds Printfuls CLIENTS (i.e. dropshipping merchants) are legally required to offer, because it's Apples and Oranges, and here is why: 1. When Printful fulfills an order for a merchant, it's a B2B transaction, which is AFAIK - but I am not a legal expert and this entire comment is not legal advice - not subject to the same Right-to-Withdraw legal requirements. And ... 2. Even if the same Right-to-Withdraw law (incl its exceptions) did apply to B2B transactions, Printful can indeed claim that the manufactured goods were "clearly personalized" to meet the buyer's individual specifications, the buyer in this case being the merchant. And such a claim would be easy to defend in court, since Printful has no direct access to the audience for which the goods were manufactured (but the merchant has).

Hi There! Is there an Etsy policy resource you could point to that specifies this? The Star Seller Program does not count 4-star reviews as 1-star. The average star rating for the program adds up all your reviews for a three month period and divides by the number of reviews, according to the information provided by Etsy. The requirement for the program is to have 4.8 stars or better average. That would mean a 4-star review is better than a 1-star review because if you have one 4-star review and one 5-star review your average is 4.5. But if you have one 5-star review and one 1-star review, your average is 2.5. I haven't been able to find another place in Etsy resources that indicates something different.