Hey guys, I've just got back from Annecy in France, and found something that SHOCKED me 😂 I went to a souvenir shop while I was wondering around Annecy. I walked in and they were selling poster, which I recognised straight away! It was the artwork of one of you guys. So of course, I dropped our customer an email asking if they had arranged this with the shop. But NOPE, the shop had basically stolen their artwork from Etsy!! They hadn't even printed it in good quality. Literally screenshotted the art from Etsy, and printed it in poor quality to sell on to tourists. I actually couldn't believe it. I of course offered to beat up the shop owner for our customer, as that is the customer service we strive to offer at PrintShrimp. They had also ripped off other designs. So who knows, if you sell posters on Etsy, maybe your art has been stolen by a souvenir shop 👀 Check out a TikTok I made about it to see the stolen posters (and also drop us a follow while you're there 🤪) https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdPogLYF/

Finally reached 50 sales and have become a star seller. Want to thank everyone who has helped along the way thus far. Shout out to @Mihai Volintiriu especially! Hopefully things continue to snowball! Wish everyone else within this community great success with their shops too!

Does anyone know what is the best way to find out if images, quotes or words are copyright or trademarks? I don't want to risk using certain words or using images which might infringe someone's work or be trademarked.

Excuse the misspelling if any, I’m typing this as I remember it 🤣 This was probably my most stressful weekend ever since I opened my shop. I had 6 complaints in 1 day from different customers. This has not happened not even during the Christmas period. I will explain each of them as maybe they will give you some insight and help out through situation you will be put in by customers. One customer from France left a three star review because she claimed that the A3 poster I sent was slightly too big for her frame. I rode this rodeo before with another customer from France and I already knew what happened before even contacting the customer back. What she did, she bought a 30x40 frame and ordered A3 poster. That will never work as A3 is 2 cm longer than 30x40 frame. This happens as IKEA is advertising the 30x40 frames as ~A3 which is misleading. She eventually changed the review to 4 star, however she didn’t admit her mistake 🤷🏻‍♂️ Second one claimed that item is not as advertised although the poster looks exactly like advertised. She was expecting the colours to look a certain way when she clearly saw in the listing that they don’t but she ordered it anyway. I refused the return and advised her to open a case with Etsy for a refund. She tried to argue but haven’t heard from her after. Third one from Germany, was expecting to receive fine art as he complained that they are pixelated, although from the photos he sent they looked fine as large prints. Yes the pixels look more stretched compared to a small print, but on a large print they would look a bit bigger which is normal. He asked for replacement or refund. I ended up refunding as a replacement would look the same to him anyway. Lost £150 on this one but oh well. I printed on even bigger prints with no issues so I acknowledged the customer having different expectations. Forth one claimed that it was not what he expected. I asked what was he expecting and how can I help in this situation? He just responded “It’s just not what I expected” bruh 💀. I suspect either wrong size ordered or buyer’s remorse. I advised to open a case with Etsy for refund as I cannot accept this.

Hi all. For anyone that has seen my previous posts, I started my Etsy journey on April 11th and managed to get to 'Top 25 Etsy Sellers' in that time. Yesterday my shop was permanently banned for IP infringement - I appealed and I have received confirmation that the decision won't be changed. For context, I had received 2 IP infringement notices in that time. The final 'nail' in my shops 'coffin' came yesterday when I received an IP infringement notice for an image that I obtained from a very popular Public Domain use website, that clearly states the following - "The Artist died in 1917 so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries where the copyright term is the Artist's life". This is the only part of my cautionary tale that I actually feel was unfair; although Etsy weren't interested in my direct appeal. This is entirely my own fault. Rules are there to be followed and whilst I could link you to a LOT of other shops that are selling items that are either the exact same, or slightly different, it doesn't matter - rules are rules and I broke them. The cautionary bit - I have spent literally hundreds of hours on my shop since I opened it only 6 or so weeks ago, I was well on the way to Star Seller and had 5* reviews across the board. None of this matters as I was clearly in breach of Etsy's stringent rules. Please don't fall foul of these same rules - check your inventory regularly, make sure you remove anything that could be deemed to be someone else's intellectual property. They ain't f*cking around here! The future? - This has been a BLAST! I have managed to meet some really cool people here, Callum Massey, Tom, Max and Mihai (plus many others). I'll probably go and do something else with AI now (not Etsy, obviously) 😉 I wish everyone the best of luck and good fortune in their endeavours - please be careful and don't make the same mistake that I did. Cheers!