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Terms & Conditions Generator for Etsy

Written for the Etsy seller: shared controllership, personalisation data, and the policies Etsy will not write for you.

Generate your terms and conditions Read the terms and conditions guide

Etsy’s own terms govern the marketplace, but a seller taking custom commissions is entering a separate contract with the buyer - about specification, approval, revisions and what happens when a custom piece is rejected.

Etsy sellers occupy an awkward position. Etsy is the controller for the marketplace itself, but the seller is an independent controller for the order data they receive and for anything they do with it afterwards - which is why Etsy requires sellers in the UK and EU to publish their own privacy policy in the shop’s policies section.

The data a handmade or personalised shop receives is unusually rich. Personalisation fields routinely contain names, dates, children’s names, memorial details and occasionally health references, all typed into a free-text box that was designed for engraving instructions.

Off-Etsy processing is where the seller’s own obligations bite. Downloading buyer addresses into a spreadsheet, adding them to a mailing list, or shipping through a separate label service are all processing the seller decides on, and none of it is covered by Etsy’s policy.

What a terms and conditions for an Etsy shop has to cover

Custom order process: specification, approval, revisions and lead time
Ownership of artwork and designs supplied by the buyer, and of your own
What happens if a custom order is cancelled after production starts
Made-to-order lead times and delay handling
Statutory rights preserved regardless of the custom nature of the work

How an Etsy shop actually moves personal data

Order and address data from Etsy

Buyer name, shipping address and order details, received as an independent controller and retained by the seller under their own retention rules.

Personalisation and gift messages

Free-text fields containing recipient names, dates, memorial wording and sometimes health or religious references - none of which the seller asked for explicitly.

Messages between buyer and seller

Held on Etsy but frequently copied into email or notes, at which point the seller holds a second copy under their own control.

Off-platform mailing lists

Adding an Etsy buyer to a newsletter is a new purpose that Etsy’s policy does not cover and that usually needs consent.

Shipping and label services

Address data sent to Royal Mail, Evri, USPS or a label aggregator, each an independent recipient.

Custom order files

Photographs and artwork supplied by buyers for personalisation, which may contain images of identifiable people.

Third parties the draft will ask you about

Etsy, Inc. · Etsy Payments · PayPal · Royal Mail or USPS · Printful or Printify · Mailchimp · Canva

The rules that apply

Etsy Seller Policy

Sellers must comply with applicable data protection law and, in the UK and EU, publish their own privacy policy in the shop policies section.

Independent controller status

Etsy determines the marketplace processing; the seller determines what happens to order data afterwards. Both are controllers for their own decisions.

Personalisation free-text fields

Whatever a buyer types becomes personal data the seller holds, including data about third parties and occasionally special category data.

Distance selling rules

Fourteen-day cancellation in the UK and EU, with a permitted exclusion for genuinely personalised goods that has to be claimed correctly.

Marketplace tax reporting

Etsy reports seller income and identity data to tax authorities under marketplace reporting rules.

What the generated terms and conditions contains

Who the contract is with and how it is formed
Your legal entity, and the exact moment acceptance happens - account creation, checkout, or continued use.
The service, the licence and its limits
What you are actually providing, what the user may do with it, and what they may not.
Price, payment, renewal and cancellation
Billing cycle, auto-renewal, price-change notice, and how either side ends the arrangement.
Acceptable use and enforcement
The behaviour that gets an account suspended, and the process you follow before you suspend it.
User content and intellectual property
Who owns what, the licence you need to run the service, and the takedown route for infringing material.
Warranties, liability and indemnity
Disclaimers that survive local consumer law, and caps that are actually enforceable rather than theatrically broad.
Governing law, jurisdiction and disputes
The law that applies, the courts that hear it, and any pre-litigation steps you require.

Publishing the document on Etsy

Paste it into Shop Manager → Settings → Policies
Etsy provides a privacy policy field for UK and EU sellers, plus fields for returns and exchanges.
Add the policy text to your shop’s About or FAQ section too
The policies tab is easy for buyers to miss.
Set a retention rule for personalisation data
Delete order spreadsheets and custom artwork once the return window and tax retention have passed.
Name your production and shipping partners
Print-on-demand and fulfilment services receive buyer data directly.
Separate marketing consent from purchase
Ask explicitly, outside the order flow, and keep the record.

Where this usually goes wrong

Assuming Etsy’s privacy policy covers the shop

It covers Etsy’s processing. Everything the seller does with order data afterwards is the seller’s own responsibility.

Adding buyers to a mailing list without consent

A purchase is not a newsletter subscription, and Etsy’s terms restrict marketing use of buyer data.

Keeping personalisation data indefinitely

Memorial and children’s details sitting in a spreadsheet years later have no remaining purpose.

Claiming the personalisation exemption too broadly

It applies to goods genuinely made to the customer’s specification, not to a stock item in a chosen colour.

Print-on-demand partners undisclosed

Printful, Printify and similar receive the buyer’s name and address directly and are recipients the policy should name.

Frequently asked questions

Do Etsy sellers need their own privacy policy?

In the UK and EU, yes - Etsy requires it in the shop policies section, and independently you are a controller for the order data you receive and everything you do with it off-platform.

Does Etsy’s privacy policy cover my shop?

Only Etsy’s own processing. Your spreadsheets, your mailing list, your shipping partners and your customer notes are yours.

Can I email Etsy buyers about new products?

Not on the strength of the purchase alone. Etsy restricts marketing use of buyer data, and UK and EU marketing rules need consent or a correctly-applied soft opt-in.

Do personalised items have to be refundable?

Genuinely personalised goods made to the customer’s specification can be excluded from the fourteen-day cancellation right, but the exclusion does not cover faulty goods or stock items in a chosen variant.

Are terms and conditions legally binding?

They are when the user had a genuine opportunity to read them and took a positive step to accept. Clickwrap - a ticked box next to a visible link - holds up far more reliably than a "by using this site you agree" line in the footer.

What is the difference between terms of service and terms and conditions?

Nothing substantive. "Terms and conditions" is the more common phrasing in the UK and Commonwealth markets, "terms of service" in the US and in SaaS. The clauses do the same job.

Can I limit my liability to zero?

No. Most consumer regimes void attempts to exclude liability for death, personal injury or fraud, and unfair-terms rules strike out caps a court considers unreasonable. A cap that is drafted to survive review is worth more than one that is struck out entirely.

Do I need terms if I sell nothing?

If users can register, post, comment or upload, yes - the terms are what let you moderate, suspend and remove content without being in breach of contract yourself.