Are Etsy Reviews Reliable? | 3 Things To Look For!

  • By: Reece Williams
  • Date: September 18, 2022
  • Time to read: 3 min.

Etsy is a marketplace for thousands of independent sellers. The bonus to this is you can find unique items that your won’t find anywhere else, the downside to this is you want to feel comfortable buying from a seller who you’ve never bought from before.

Reviews are the best way to separate the best from the rest, and from avoiding any negative experiences. But how reliable are reviews on Etsy? Other platforms such as Amazon are known for fake reviews from unscrupulous sellers who are after a quick buck.

Is Etsy immune from this? Or should you be worried about the reviews you are seeing on the listings?

Here are the 3 things you need to know about reviews on Etsy…

Are Etsy reviews reliable?

Firstly, lets answer the big question – are Etsy reviews reliable? Yes, Etsy reviews are reliable. Etsy has placed several barriers to prevent fake reviews from appearing on their website.

A review can only be added if it is from a transaction on either the Etsy website, or the Etsy app. This prevents anyone adding a review unless they have actually received the item.

You can find out more about the various reasons Etsy prevents people from leaving reviews in my guide on why you can’t add a review on Etsy.

Reviews have to be linked to a purchase

The first reason you can trust a review on Etsy is that a user can only add a review if they have actually purchased an item.

This sounds obvious, but on many sites outside of Etsy users can add reviews directly to a product without having to buy. This can be good, as a customer can buy an item in store, or on a different platform, however, this can be open to abuse, either from the seller themselves, or from others wanting to add negative reviews.

On top of this Etsy only allows you to add a review if you have actually received the item. They can do this by using estimated delivery dates from the seller and from the courier so that a customer can’t add a review until they have actually got the item.

Fake reviews can be removed by Etsy

Etsy has a team dedicated to finding and removing fake reviews. Any attempt by a seller to cheat the system will be found and any fake reviews will be deleted.

It is incredibly difficult to fake a review, so these cases are rare.

The main way a review can be “faked” is by giving away products – or heavily discounting them – to friends and family, in the expectation they will give 5 star reviews. These types of reviews can be found quite quickly by Etsy and will be removed.

Look for reviews with images

If you’re still unsure about reviews, then keep an eye out for images in reviews.

Etsy allows users to add photos to their reviews – this allows you to see the product in a buyer’s home. This can be great as it is often less staged than the photos provided by the seller, and can show what it will actually look like when its been shipped.

Etsy is also working on video reviews too, which will add an extra level to the reviews.

Conclusion

The vast majority of reviews on Etsy are reliable, and I would recommend anyone buying on Etsy to treat them as the truth.

Whilst there will always be those who try to cheat the system on the internet, Etsy has put in several barriers to it, and has systems in place for picking up and removing anything out of the ordinary.