If you ever find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the barrage of messages and notifications on Etsy, or you are being hounded by a scammer, there’s one quick and easy way to silence them all: blocking.
Blocking is a feature that helps keep your Etsy feed tidy by stopping them from appearing in your feed but can you silence them from your messages and even block them from seeing your account?
In this post we will show you how to block someone from Etsy no matter what your issue.
Can You Block Someone On Etsy?
Etsy does allow you to block someone, and you don’t need to provide any explanation as to why you want that profile blocked from viewing your account.
Once you block someone they will no longer be able to follow you or see your profile.
You cannot, however, block someone from sending you a message. You can only block someone from following you which has nothing to do with actually ‘blocking’ someone, it’s more of hiding your favorites from them.
How to block someone on Etsy
When you block someone on Etsy, you can no longer follow them or get notifications about them.
To block someone:
1. Click on the person’s account picture. (This is different from their shop).
2. Click “Block This Person”
3. A notification will pop up to double check you want to block the person. Hit confirm.
What happens when you block someone on Etsy
When you block someone on Etsy, you are essentially telling Etsy that you no longer want to have any news about them.
Blocking a user on Etsy stops them from viewing your activity in their feed. Basically, the user will not be updated by what you’re doing but other than that, not much will change.
What Does Blocking Do?
If you’ve had enough of someone on Etsy, there is a simple way to block them.
Blocking someone on Etsy is an effective way to keep them from
Blocking a user on Etsy will not stop them from sending you messages, leaving comments on your items, or buying your products so it is not as good as the block features on other platforms such as Facebook.
How To Block Someone From Messaging You On Etsy
If You Block Someone On Etsy Can They Still Message You? Unfortunately yes.
If you are an Etsy shop owner and you are encountering unwanted messages from a buyer or prospective buyer, you might want to block them from messaging you.
As we’ve seen above, simply blocking the user will not prevent them from sending you DMs via the Etsy messaging system.
So what can you do?
You can block them from messaging you in a roundabout way by marking the conversation as spam. This way Etsy will send the messages directly to your spam folder and you will not have to see them.
If you mark the message as spam, then you won’t get any future notifications for that message chain. But you would still get notified if a new message from that person comes through which is annoying.
If you reply to them telling them to stop contacting you, and they continue to message you, Etsy considers it harassment and may ban their account.
Once you’ve sent them the “don’t contact me again” message, you can’t message them again or reply to their messages.
In that case you can report the person to Etsy and they will review and potentially ban the user from their site.
How To Block Someone From Viewing Your Etsy Shop
Unfortunately, it is not possible to block someone from purchasing or seeing the items in your Etsy shop.
As Etsy can be browsed without having to be logged in or even owning an Etsy account, anyone can see your store and there is no way to block someone from viewing your products.
The only case where someone can be completely banned from viewing Etsy is through an IP blocker. In rare cases, Etsy will do this to specific IP addresses due to violations of their policy.
Can I Stop Someone from Making a Purchase From My Etsy Shop?
Let’s imaging a scenario where you sell something to a buyer who then leaves you a 1 star review. You refund the order to make things right and ask them to change the review. They do.
Now fast forward a few weeks and the same person buys something else then leaves you another 1 star review. Rinse and repeat.
How do you stop this kind of toxic buyer from doing the same thing again and again? Do you just accept the 1 star reviews and not offer a refund?
Or can you block the buyer from your Etsy store to save the headache?
You can’t block people from buying from you, but Etsy has a liberal cancellation policy which can really help you in this case.
If this person orders from you again in the future, make a note and then cancel the order.
You can refund their order and send a message indicating that you cannot fulfill the order so have cancelled it according to the policy.
How To Report A Buyer On Etsy?
There is no quick and dirty way to report a buyer on Etsy but you can send a message to Etsy support to tell them about the problem you are facing.
According to the Etsy House Rules, the following is not acceptable:
- Abusive, threatening, defamatory, harassing, or otherwise in violation of the Anti-Discrimination Policy.
- Obscene or vulgar.
- Unsolicited advertising or promotions.
If you receive an inappropriate message, report the content to Etsy.
This is easy to do, just go to your Direct Messages , open up the message and click the “Report as inappropriate” function to bring it to Etsy’s attention.
Make sure to keep records of all communications with the person you wish to block and the steps you have already taken.
I recommend keeping screenshots of everything in case the Etsy seller support asks for them.
How To Block Someone on Etsy – FAQS
Why Might You Want To Know How To Block Someone On Etsy?
If you’re a seller on Etsy, you may have experienced some unwanted attention from buyers.
Maybe they won’t stop messaging you after they bought a product from you even though you already gave the a refund, or maybe they’re leaving negative reviews for no reason.
Here are some of the reasons you might want to block on Etsy:
- Inappropriate comments or language
- Harassment/not taking no for an answer
- Threatening comments or messages
- Scamming by trying to get refunds and free products
In cases like these, you may want to block the buyer so they stop hassling you.
Given that you cannot actually block someone on Etsy easily, the first thing to do if you have issues with someone on Etsy is to ask them to stop contacting you.
If this gets you nowhere, then you can report their messages as spam and hope that helps.
Your last resort is to contact Etsy support and ask them to intervene on your behalf. They will contact the person for you and ask them to leave you alone. If all else fails, Etsy will consider banning the person from the site entirely.
The only issue to remember is that anyone can create an Etsy account with a new email address so if someone is determined to harass you, you might be better off just ignoring them.
What Exactly Does Blocking a Person on Etsy Do?
As blocking someone on Etsy really only stops you from “following” them and seeing news about them in your feed, you may wonder what the point of the block feature is.
For sellers, it can still be a useful tool – it blocks people from seeing your activity, for example when you favourite items . This can help stop competitors from seeing what supplies you purchase, for example.
How To Block Someone On Etsy – Final Thoughts
The nature of Etsy as an online marketplace and not a social media site means that features that we are all familiar with such as blocking are not as well developed.
As you can make a purchase on Etsy as a guest (without even having an account), there is no real way for a seller to block a purchaser from their site.
Many sellers have requested this feature from Etsy in recent years and there is a good chance that at some point safeguards will be put in place to stop scammers and aggressive behaviour on the site.
For now, you need to use the work-arounds in this post and do your best to ignore the keyboard warriors or potential scammers that come your way.
