I’ve mentioned before that I belong to several of my local Facebook gardening groups. There’s truly nothing like the camaraderie they offer.

When asked where to buy gardening supplies, plants and/or seeds, my pat answer always includes Etsy.

Well, it used to. In the past few months, I’ve had two bad experiences on the platform and now I’m rethinking referring anyone to the site. I am also rethinking shopping on Etsy completely.

OK, here’s the story

The first was an order for bamboo that I placed in the summer. Tropicalbamboo.com, the site I usually buy my bamboo from, was out of the variety I grow so I went on an Etsy hunt and found a nursery that was selling it.

This was an actual nursery, not someone who grows bamboo starts in her backyard.

Shipping was quick and the packaging was beyond sufficient. That, however, is where the good stuff ends.

The plant was COVERED in bamboo mites

The infestation was so massive that it would have been impossible for the nursery to not notice it, yet they shipped the plant anyway.

Hoping it was going to a newbie? Maybe.

Yes, they were nice enough about refunding my money. But, really, they had no choice. My credit card company was more than willing to pursue the matter and notified them of that fact.

More recently, while shopping on Etsy, I found a home décor item that I fell in love with. I won’t go into detail on this one. The gist of the matter is that after a week of ordering it I started wondering what the hold-up was.

I checked my account at Etsy for a tracking number. There was none. The order page clearly stated “Not Shipped.”

I messaged the seller to cancel the order. Apparently, she doesn’t accept cancellations. Nor does she accept returns or give refunds.

Despite the fact that the item hadn’t been shipped yet, she remained insistent that I could not cancel

Over the course of 24 hours, I asked three times for a cancellation and she refused. The last email I received from her said that she had shipped the item.

After ignoring my order for more than a week, as soon as I tried to cancel, she shipped it.

Shady. Dishonest and truly sad for the Etsy platform.

I have had other slight annoyances with Etsy over the past year. And, I don’t want to paint all the sellers with the same, sad brush.

Since it’s shopping season, I thought it’d be a good idea to take a look at things to look for when you’re contemplating ordering gardening supplies or plants and seeds (or anything, really) while shopping on Etsy.

Where is the Etsy seller?

American buyers should pay close attention to the seller’s location while shopping on Etsy. While 62% of sellers are based in the U.S., the chances are good that you may fall in love with an item being sold from another country.

It happened to me when I ordered seeds last year. It didn’t even dawn on me to check the seller’s location. It happened to be Canada, I later found out.

This item I cancelled when I hadn’t received it in more than one month. It’s a good thing the gardening season is long where I live!

It turns out that shipping from Canada, regardless of the size of the package, is notoriously slow. Customs, and all that.

When Etsy first went live, it was an amazing platform for artisans to sell handmade goods and unique products.

Today, however, much of what is being sold (dishonestly, I might add), is factory-produced garbage made in China. Even seeds and plants that you may think are produced in the U.S. are oftentimes being imported from China.

These sellers, like they’ve done at Amazon, have flooded Etsy.

If you want American-produced gardening products and plants and if you want your item to arrive in a timely manner, choose a seller as close to your location as possible.

Read reviews but don’t base your decision to purchase on them

Etsy reviews of sellers are a lot like Zillow’s reviews of real estate agents: most are glowing.

Those glowing reviews make it challenging to not buy the item. After all, if everyone else likes it, you will too, right?

Don’t disregard reviews completely. Just use your own “gut” feelings alongside what you read when trying to gauge if a seller is reputable.

Check the shop’s policies

It’s amazing that in almost 2021, some sellers refuse to stand by their merchandise. No-refund, no-return and no-cancellation policies are far too prevalent on Etsy.

Yes, if an item is custom-made or personalized, I imagine it’s an appropriate policy. But that isn’t always the case with Etsy sellers.

I learned this one the hard way. The item I ordered was not custom made, nor was it personalized. I notified the seller of my desire to cancel my order before she shipped it and she still refused to cancel the order, reiterating her “policies.” 

It’s a bit like stealing, imo.

I refuse to do business with a seller with such horrid customer service. The first thing I check now when considering a purchase is for this particular policy. No returns? No cancellations? No refunds? No sale.

If more buyers refuse to shop with these sellers, things may change. In the meantime, be careful when shopping on Etsy.