Every now and then you’ll get an Etsy order that’s marked as a gift, and it might make you wonder if you should do anything about it.
Etsy gives customers the option to mark an order as a gift, but how is that different from a normal order?
The only difference between an order that’s marked as a gift on Etsy and a normal order is that the gift receipt will print without the price breakdown, and it might have a message from the buyer printed on it. If the seller has enabled gift messages and gift wrap services, the customer will be able to choose those, but those are optional and don’t need to be turned on for the “mark order as gift” option to show up.
Table of Contents
- What options are available to customers?
- What should a seller do if the order is marked as a gift?
- What if the buyer contacts you about the order?
- What if the gift receipt has the buyer’s name on it?
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What options are available to customers?
Etsy orders are automatically included in the “mark as gift” option, so sellers can’t turn that off. If the customer chooses to mark the order as a gift, the receipt will print out with a little message to “enjoy your gift from–” with their name, and the price of the items won’t be on the receipt.
Sellers do control whether they want to offer gift wrapping and the gift message (read more about that in this article: How To Offer Gift Wrap On Etsy.)
If a seller has turned on the “Offer gift message” option, the customer will be able to choose to write a little note that will print out on the gift receipt.
The seller isn’t responsible for printing the message out on a separate card or anything like that, it will just print out on the receipt.
What should a seller do if the order is marked as a gift?
There’s nothing that the seller needs to do if the order is marked as a gift unless they offer gift wrap and the customer purchases that. Other than that, the order should be sent as usual, and the packing slip should be included so that the recipient will know who sent them the gift.
Some sellers will write out the message on a gift card or a different card and enclose it in the order, but that’s not something that you’re required to do.
The gift receipt with the printed message is enough unless you want to take the time to write out an extra message.
It’s important that the gift receipt is sent with the package, though, because the person receiving the package won’t know who it’s from if you don’t include that.
If there’s no message on the gift receipt, you might get questions about the order from the recipient.
Before giving out any information about the buyer, read the next section for some warnings!
What if the buyer contacts you about the order?
I’ve heard of situations where people have contacted the seller to ask who bought the thing they received, and since that falls under customer confidentiality, sellers shouldn’t be telling anyone that.
It’s usually okay to contact the buyer to ask them to tell the recipient that they sent the gift to them, but on the other hand, this can get tricky.
It can put us in a difficult position because there are situations where creeps and stalkers send people gifts that they don’t want, and it puts us in the middle. It’s better to stay out of it if you get a question about that, but if the gift message that the purchaser put in the message seems weird to you, you can always cancel the order.
If it seems like the person who received the gift is creeped out about it, you can contact Etsy support to ask what they think you should do to handle the situation. If the customer feels like they’re being harassed, encourage them to contact the police in their area to file a report.
This won’t happen very often, but if anything seems weird about a gift order, you can 100% cancel the order without it affecting your shop quality score, so don’t worry about that.
What if the gift receipt has the buyer’s name on it?
Sometimes people will mark an order as a gift by accident, and the gift receipt will say “A gift for you from –” with their name on it. Don’t worry about that too much, it’s usually a mistake. Just fill the order normally and send it on its way.
I have heard of people who use gift receipts so that other people in their household won’t see how much they’re spending on things, too, so there are a lot of motivations.
It’s not up to us to worry about that kind of thing even though it’s a little weird, just send the order and move along to the next one!
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