You may not use Etsy to direct shoppers to another online selling venue to purchase the same items as listed in your Etsy shop, as this may constitute fee avoidance. This includes posting links/URLs or providing information sufficient to locate the other online venue(s).

An Etsy account may not be used for the purpose of redirecting traffic to another web location. This includes shops in Vacation Mode. Please contact Support to have your account closed if you are no longer using it.

You may not engage in any activity to avoid Etsy’s fees (“fee avoidance”). This includes but is not limited to: completing a transaction off-Etsy once it has been initiated on the site, listing an item below its intended purchase price or canceling a valid completed transaction.

A team may not be used for the sole purpose of redirecting traffic to another web location. Etsy reserves the right to refuse links on any profile page or team page for any reason. Unsolicited promotion or advertisement from representatives or affiliates of outside services, websites or other products is not allowed. If your company, organization, or institution wants to start a team, you must get permission through Etsy’s partnerships and sponsorships program by contacting teams@etsy.com.

About account closing:

Without limiting any other remedies, Etsy may, without notice, and without refunding any fees, delay or immediately remove Content, warn Etsy’s community of a user’s actions, issue a warning to a user, temporarily suspend a user, temporarily or indefinitely suspend a user’s account privileges, terminate a user’s account, prohibit access to the Site, and take technical and legal steps to keep a user off the Site and refuse to provide services to a user if any of the following apply:

Etsy suspects (by information, investigation, conviction, settlement, insurance or escrow investigation, or otherwise) a user has breached this Agreement, the Privacy Policy, The DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy, or other policy documents and community guidelines incorporated herein; Etsy is unable to verify or authenticate any of your personal information or Content; or Etsy believes that a user is acting inconsistently with the letter or spirit of Etsy’s policies, has engaged in improper or fraudulent activity in connection with Etsy or the actions may cause legal liability or financial loss to Etsy’s users or to Etsy.

Oh I LOVE this policy:

Re-Posting Content: By posting Content on Etsy, it is possible for an outside website or a third party to re-post that Content. You agree to hold Etsy harmless for any dispute concerning this use. If you choose to display your own Etsy-hosted image on another website, the image must provide a link back to its listing page on Etsy.

Also, if your listing is pulled for any reason, you agreed in the ToS that you would still pay the fees for the item even though you now can’t sell it.

So all of that said, anybody posting on Etsy that owns their own website, please be careful. I was informed that my account was closed in accordance with the Terms due to owning an outside webshop that sold items that were available in my Etsy shop even though I had many of each item as they were handmade doll items from the same patterns and materials.

Would I ever recommend anybody to use Etsy to sell? No way. Their policies are absolutely ridiculous when you read through them all (including the Do’s and Don’ts because you agreed to them!), their search function is terrible, and the site has been really overrun with supply sellers and vintage items.

Jeanette