Seller Handbook

Photos decide it

• Daylight, plain background, no filter. Personalized gifts sell on detail. A filter hides the exact thing the buyer is paying for.
• Show scale. A hand, a mug, a coin. “Small” means nothing on a screen.
• Show the back and the seam. Buyers who look closely are buyers who do not return things.
• If it can be personalized, show it personalized. A blanket with a real name on it outsells a plain one by a wide margin.

Titles people actually type

Write the title the way a shopper would say it out loud: what it is — who it is for — what makes it different.

Handling time is a promise

Whatever number you put on a listing becomes a date on the buyer’s order page and in their inbox. Pad it. A piece that arrives early is a five-star review; a piece that arrives one day late is a support ticket.

Your handling time and our shipping times appear together on every listing, so keep yours honest. See Shipping & Delivery.

Personalization is where the money is

• Copy the buyer letter for letter. GRACE and Grace are two different pieces. Check every detail against the order before you start, and if something looks like a typo, message the buyer first — do not guess.
• Personalized work cannot be returned for a change of mind — and that is exactly why one more careful read matters. Most personalization problems start as a typo that a second look would have caught.

Answering buyers

• Answer within one business day, even if the answer is “let me check and get back to you tomorrow.”
• If you are behind, say so before the buyer asks. Nobody has ever canceled an order because a shop was honest early.
• Never argue in a review reply. Fix it in messages; reply to the review in one calm sentence.

When something goes wrong

• 1Damaged in transitAsk for a photo, then replace or refund. File the shipping claim with the carrier yourself — do not make the buyer deal with the carrier.
• 2Lost packageWait out the carrier window, then replace or refund. Ettee Purchase Protection covers the buyer either way.
• 3Your mistakeReplace or refund, and don’t ask for it back. It costs less than the review does.

The buyer-facing version of these rules is on Returns & Refunds and Ettee Purchase Protection. Read them — that is what your buyer has read.

Selling into the holidays

• Gift demand does not build slowly in the fall. It hits all at once, weeks before the date.
• Small Business Saturday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, is one of the most important days of the year for independent shops. Have stock ready and your handling time honest.
• Post your cutoff dates early and hold them. Our published ones are on Shipping Deadlines.

Where to go next

What It Costs · Seller Community · Open a Shop