2024-10-23

The new digest 21-27 October

Ukraine

This week users from Ukraine are experiencing a massive issue accessing the site: Etsy shows that users are accessing the site from the under-sanctioned territory. For some reason, Ukrainian providers are recognized by the website as, pardon me, russian ones. It is not quite clear what is the cause of such a massive failure: either Ukrainian backbone traffic does pass through some russian nodes, or Etsy has put the pool of IP addresses into the sanctions lists. In any case, the issue still occurs. Some providers have managed to fix the problem, while others are still experiencing it. If you are experiencing an inability to log in to your account, please use mobile internet, it usually helps.
Great news: Supernova Airlines has been authorized to operate flights to Lviv and Kyiv. Supernova Airlines is a newly established subsidiary of the NOVA group of companies, which aims to provide fast delivery of mail, e-commerce, and cargo via mainline routes to and from Ukraine. The airline reported, “Supernova Airlines plans to start flights from Prague to Kyiv and Lviv as soon as the airspace is opened.” This, of course, does not mean that flights will start next Monday – but now we have hope! According to unconfirmed reports, Nova Poshta’s cargo will be sent via this route.

FedEx prices have gone up as planned – in some places, the delivery cost has increased by 75 cents, for other tariffs the price has increased by several dollars. In general, price increases before Christmas are common and expected. Unfortunately, after the end of the high season, prices usually do not go back down.
The shipping services have posted delivery deadline schedules, i.e. the date after which they do not guarantee that shipments will arrive on time. For most services, even express delivery in the U.S. ends on December 16, so even a “two-day delivery” that you order on December 20, for example, is not guaranteed to arrive before Christmas. Consider the timing when calculating your sales – and of course, whenever possible use the warehouse services. Shipping from Ukraine, unfortunately, may not make it to Christmas – customs jams happen every year, especially after 11/11.

Things are getting tighter and tighter in the fight against spammers. This week we have seen that not only buyers’ messages get into spam – we are used to this – but also sellers’ messages! That is, you are communicating with a client, you send a photo or a link for approval – and your email ends up in the spam folder, the buyer doesn’t see it. This results in a lot of broken deals. Speaking of photos: an error often appears lately, when you can’t send any photos in private messages. We are waiting to see what else the high season will bring us – this time of year problems are more the rule than the exception.
About Etsy Events: on the 25th and 27th of October a live event from Etsy, the Seller Preview Holiday Pop-Up is taking place. For three days in a row, sellers can meet, share experiences, preview the upcoming season’s trends, and have an active social life. The location of the event is New York City, click for more details
Another event is easier to attend as it’s happening online: on October 28th, Dayna Johnson, Etsy’s Trend Expert, is hosting a Q&A session. If you’d like to attend, you can sign up here

Etsy is cutting off the option for its U.S. sellers to use other postal representatives. From now on, you can automatically purchase labels for your sales on Etsy only through two certified providers – Shippo and ShipStation, the other integrations that were made before Monday are still working, but will not be renewed. That is, other than selling deliveries from Etsy itself and two services, all other shipments can only be done manually, which is quite inconvenient. However, the integrations from Seller Online are still working! We provide delivery in the USA and Europe, automatically receive information about addresses and recipients, send track information, and make the delivery process convenient, comfortable, and automated.
Last weekend Seller Online took part in the Craft Show in New York State, presented its developments in the field of handmade, and got into several news and reviews. This kind of activity is new for us, but we see great prospects and will develop this field. The next major show we plan to take part in will be held in February in Philadelphia. This will be a large gift show designed primarily for wholesale buyers – boutiques, hotels, and specialty stores use it to find vendors. We hope to be able to offer our clients new opportunities to participate in such shows shortly: presenting their goods, organizing their remote or in-person participation, and new perspectives on working together.