If you can’t place an order on Etsy, or if your payment is declined, there are a few reasons why it might be happening.
If you can’t check out on Etsy, or if your payment is declined, it could be because of a problem with the payment method, a difference between with the information on file with the bank and what you’re entering, your location, or a problem with the shop that you’re trying to purchase from. The only way to find out for sure would be to contact Etsy directly, because sellers don’t have access to customer payment information.
Table of Contents
- How do I know if my order went through on Etsy?
- Problems with payment methods on Etsy.
- Problems with the shop itself.
- Your location might be blocked by Etsy.
- Your payment processor might have blocks in place.
- You might be entering the wrong information.
- Etsy might be acting glitchy.
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How do I know if my order went through on Etsy?
If the order that you placed on Etsy goes through with no problems, you’ll get an email telling you that you placed the order with information about when it will ship.
If you don’t get the email, you can check in your personal profile to see if the order is there.
I wrote a more thorough article about how to do that here: How To Find Your Etsy Purchase History
If you don’t get any message, your order isn’t showing in your purchase history, OR you see a message that says something like “Your order is processing,” it might have been sent to Etsy’s verification system for some reason, or the order might have been declined.
Problems with payment methods on Etsy.
If there’s a problem with the credit card that you’re trying to use to buy something on Etsy, they’ll decline the payment, or they might give you a “payment processing” message while the payment is being verified. This usually resolves itself pretty quickly, but it can take up to 72 hours, and sometimes longer.
I know of some transactions on Etsy that took a week, then they were eventually approved or declined.
It doesn’t usually take that long, but if Etsy decides that there’s a reason to look at the payment they’ll delay things.
One thing that you can try is to place the order with a different payment method, and if that goes through, contact the seller to have them cancel the first order that’s still processing.
If Etsy won’t let the seller do that because of the payment processing message, they’ll be able to cancel it later if the original order does go through.
If you do get a message that the order is processing, the seller won’t be able to do anything about it, or give you any information about why the payment has been held, because that’s something that Etsy does and sellers don’t see.
Problems with the shop itself.
It’s unusual, but it’s possible that the reason you can’t place an order is because of a problem with the shop itself. If the shop has been suspended by Etsy, or if the shop owner has turned on vacation mode, you won’t be able to complete the checkout process.
This actually happened to me once when I turned on vacation mode at the same time a customer was checking out.
They put the items they wanted in the cart, but by the time they went to check out, I had turned the shop off and they couldn’t check out.
That’s one thing that could have happened, but it’s also possible that the shop was suspended by Etsy, which is more serious.
If Etsy suspends a shop it could be because they’re overdue in paying their bill to Etsy, or because they’ve violated the terms of use in some way.
If you have something in your cart and return to check out later, the shop might have been suspended and that means you won’t be able to check out.
If that’s what happened you’ll be able to go to the shop homepage and see if the link works. If you get a message that says the shop isn’t selling on Etsy and to contact them if you have questions about your order, it’s probably been suspended.
If you see a “this shop is on vacation” message it’s just a vacation mode situation, which is temporary.
You’ll be able to click a box to be notified when they return from vacation.
To see the full Artisan Shopping Directory sections, including signups for discounts, click here.
Your location might be blocked by Etsy.
Another reason why you can’t place an order and check out on Etsy could be your location. Since Etsy has to comply with US laws about trade embargoes, they can’t allow purchases to be made if you’re located in a country that has trade restrictions with the US. That means that if you live in certain places, you might not be able to check out on Etsy at all.
In addition to this, Etsy won’t let you use your account if you’re traveling in certain sanctioned locations.
So for example, if you’re traveling to Cuba, you won’t be able to use your Etsy account to check out, since the US has a trade embargo with Cuba in place.
There’s nothing that you can do about this because it’s a legal issue and Etsy can’t make exceptions.
Your payment processor might have blocks in place.
Related to the trade embargo and location situation I just mentioned, it might be that you can’t check out because your credit card company has its own blocks placed on certain accounts or locations. If that’s the case you’ll need to check directly with them, but it might be difficult to figure out if it’s Etsy or your payment company that’s blocking the payment.
Sometimes it might not even be a trade embargo reason, but something as simple as the credit card company thinking that there’s something wrong with the transaction.
I’ve had my credit card company block transactions for no good reason, but they decided to do it. In my case, it was for things I was buying from companies I’d purchased from before, so I never got an explanation about why they thought there was something fishy about the order.
But something did trigger it, so that happens every now and then, and it could be the reason why you can’t order on Etsy.
You might be entering the wrong information.
Another reason why your order won’t go through on Etsy is that you could be entering your payment address incorrectly, or you could be missing some information that Etsy needs. You might have forgotten to click the final “buy” button in the shopping cart, and you never really placed the order!
It’s actually pretty common that people think they’ve finished checking out but they didn’t actually finish the process, so make sure that you’re completing the process.
That’s a simple fix, so make sure that you go back to check everything if you get a message about checking your address and checkout information, and that might be all you need to do to get the order to go through.
You can also send the seller a message to see if they got the order, because if it didn’t go through it won’t show up in their orders.
Etsy might be acting glitchy.
The final reason why you might not be able to check out is that Etsy could be acting glitchy, and it could be a technical issue that will be fixed if you come back later.
Etsy tends to have problems with the checkout pretty frequently, so it wouldn’t surprise me if a customer contacted me to say they couldn’t check out.
It’s pretty likely that if they just wait a little and then come back, it will work fine and their order will go through.
If this happens and you’re missing a button to click, or if you do click the button and it doesn’t work, you should contact the seller to let them know.
We can post about any problems that we hear about in the Etsy help forums, and the technical issues forum is the only one they do monitor!
You can also check to see if the seller has their own website, because you might be able to go there to bypass the Etsy payment system completely.
If the problem is with your credit card or your location it won’t help, because you’ll still have the same problems there. But if the problem is on Etsy’s end, you’ll be able to avoid the glitches.
Be careful if the Etsy shop was suspended, though, because that means they did something to be suspended! If that’s what happened, it might be better to buy from someone else.