How To Appeal And Reinstate A Suspended Etsy Shop

My buddy Travis and I have been building our Etsy shop, Swell Scenes, for over a year. We’d been experiencing steady growth leading up to November 2024. In our first year, we hit Star Seller status with over a thousand sales and hundreds of 5-star reviews. Everything seemed on track—until our shop was suddenly suspended by Etsy. This is the story of how it happened, the appeal process, and how we managed to get our shop reinstated.

Building Swell Scenes

Swell Scenes specializes in POD posters, framed and unframed, in various sizes. We create location-based art, surf designs, wildlife illustrations, and abstract artwork. I’ve got a background as an animator, storyboard artist, designer, and web developer. While Travis has a similar background in art, design, marketing, and management. We both share a passion for art and our personal interests. We use Illustrator, Photoshop, and MidJourney to bring our ideas to life.

In October 2024, we hit $12K in revenue (about $4K in profit). It wasn’t yacht-buying money, but it felt like we were building something sustainable. We were especially excited for the holiday season, expecting our best quarter yet. Then, one morning in November, I logged into Etsy to find all our products deactivated. Our shop had been suspended. No warning. No email. Just gone.

The Suspension Bombshell

At first, I assumed it was a mistake or a glitch. I hadn’t received any warning emails from Etsy. When I filed an appeal, I learned the shop had been suspended for IP infringement.

We’re the first to admit we’re not perfect. Early on in our Etsy journey, we created a few fan art posters featuring fictional landscapes inspired by some of our favorite games and movies. At the time, we didn’t realize this was considered IP infringement, and a few of those products were flagged and removed. That was on us—a common rookie mistake among Etsy sellers. We took it as a learning experience and stopped creating fan art for Etsy. By the time our shop was suspended, it had been over six months since those incidents, so we didn’t suspect IP infringement as the reason for our suspension.

Here’s the kicker: the claims that lead to our suspension weren’t valid.

The Invalid Claims

Iowa Poster: We made an abstract design featuring the state of Iowa, as part of our Abstract State Series. Somehow, the University of Iowa flagged it, even though the poster had zero connection to the school. In fact, the university was not even mentioned in the product description or title.

Dinosaur Posters: We’d designed cute illustrations of dinosaurs for kids’ bedroom decor. In our product titles, we used the words “Dino” and “Buddies,” not realizing they were trademarked together. Despite our art being entirely original, the Dino Buddies brand flagged all six of the products.

Etsy has a system where too many IP strikes within a short period—even erroneous ones—can lead to a shop’s suspension. We racked up seven strikes in one month, not out of deliberate wrongdoing, but due to unintentional mistakes in the naming of our product titles. And just like that, our shop was shut down. To make matters worse, our other shop, Swell Pets, with no IP infringements, was suspended by association.

The Nightmare Appeal Process

After our initial appeal was denied, the only way to reinstate the shop was to have the brands formally withdraw their claims by emailing Etsy’s legal team directly. It felt like a long shot, but I reached out to Dino Buddies’ CEO, explained the situation, and—thankfully—he was incredibly understanding. He emailed Etsy’s legal team to formally withdraw the claims.

But Etsy claimed they hadn’t received the emails.

We went through this process multiple times, with the Dino Buddies CEO resending emails, me providing screenshots as proof, and Etsy continuing to deny receipt. It was maddening—and the canned and repetitive responses from Etsy were anything but helpful.

The Power of Kindness

Throughout this process, I learned the importance of staying kind, courteous, and responsive—even when you feel slighted or unheard.

It wasn’t easy. There were times I wanted to write scathing replies out of frustration, post Reddit rants, or vent my frustrations in any way possible. But I reminded myself that the person (or team, or bot) reading my appeal likely wasn’t directly responsible for the situation. By staying professional and patient, I was able to keep the lines of communication open and build goodwill with key players like the Dino Buddies CEO, who went above and beyond to help us.

Kindness and persistence paid off in the end, and I truly believe maintaining a respectful tone made the difference between being ignored and being heard.

A Rollercoaster of Challenges

While navigating this mess, we faced personal challenges. Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit Florida hard, displacing my family and turning our town of Sarasota into a disaster zone. On top of that, a Chinese company stole our product photos and listed hundreds of our designs on Amazon. It was like getting hit from all sides.

Thankfully, we had our own website as a fallback. Built on WooCommerce, it allowed us to keep some sales going, though it couldn’t match the traffic we’d seen on Etsy. It also gave us a platform to fight back against the stolen products on Amazon. Slowly but surely, we started rebuilding.

The Christmas Miracle

After months of back-and-forth with Etsy, we made a breakthrough. The Dino Buddies CEO realized that by CCing us in his withdrawal emails to Etsy, it had prevented the emails from being delivered to Etsy’s legal team.

In a Hail Mary attempt, I requested the Dino Buddies CEO send a fourth email, and provide me with the ticket IDs within Etsy’s support system, to which he promptly complied. Then, I referenced those ticket IDs and showed proof of compliance in my appeal communications with Etsy. The next day, I received that same familiar response from Etsy, that no emails had been received. It felt hopeless.

The following day, on December 18, I decided to check our Etsy shop page one more time. To my shock, the suspension was lifted. Later that evening, we received an email confirming our shop’s reinstatement. It was the only Christmas gift I wanted, and Etsy delivered.

Lessons Learned

If you’re a seller on any online marketplace, here are a few takeaways:

1. Be Persistent: If you’re in the right, don’t give up. Keep fighting for your business.
2. Get a Self-Hosted Website: It’s your safety net. Diversify your sales channels and don’t rely solely on one platform.
3. Trademark Your Brand: Protect your business and prepare for larger marketplaces like Amazon.
4. Understand Marketplace Rules: Learn the nuances of IP policies to avoid unintentional strikes.

2024 was a challenging year, but it taught us resilience. Here’s to hoping for a swell 2025! Happy New Year!