Products · Product
Etsy
Raised as a usability problem by 35 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2010–2026), in 26 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Handmade products are hard to find among cheap goodsUnreviewed
20102026- Hard to find production partner info, and handcrafted items are too hard to find2023-02-08
- Hard to find real handcrafters among resellers; interest list sharing now frustrating and non-intuitive2019-09-06
- Handmade items are nearly impossible to find amid mass-produced goods2017-11-25
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 33 complaints
- Ads are almost impossible to tell apart from real results2026-01-20
- Screen grays out on load with no way to dismiss or interact2025-12-31
- Google login button caused a redirect loop; user couldn't tell which login method they had2025-07-28
- Search returns unrequested results and injected sponsored products that are hard to block2025-04-23
- After solving the puzzle successfully in Firefox, gets redirected to a blocked page2025-02-06
- Orders placed while logged out don't appear in account; users must find and claim via email link2024-07-09
- Hard to find production partner info, and handcrafted items are too hard to find2023-02-08
- Commenter found the interface too confusing to shop with2022-04-11
- Product descriptions auto-translated into their language with no obvious way to turn it off2021-05-23
- Shoppers use the cart to save items for later, and Etsy's favorites and lists didn't stop it2021-05-02
- Free shipping threshold pushes shoppers to spend more than intended2021-03-04
- Favoriting adds items without prompting to sort them; the prompt vanishes after seconds2020-04-13
- Hard to find real handcrafters among resellers; interest list sharing now frustrating and non-intuitive2019-09-06
- Handmade items are nearly impossible to find amid mass-produced goods2017-11-25
- Wrong-zip-code order rejected, and resolving it meant lengthy back-and-forth with seller2017-05-19
- Customers can't find a PayPal payment option on the custom storefront2017-05-03
- Hard to find items and tell real listings from fakes2017-05-03
- Product links opening in new tabs made many users give up and leave the site2016-06-19
- Search and discoverability make handmade products hard to find among cheap goods2016-01-15
- Search is so bad that users can't reach the items they want2015-09-14
- Search returns irrelevant results because items carry dozens of conflicting tags, forcing users to wade through pages2015-02-23
- Loses their place in the scroll when returning to the page2013-01-07
- After a few loads, the user is far from the top and can't easily get back to the search box2013-01-07
- Returning from an item drops you back at the start or causes a jarring reload and scroll jump2013-01-07
- Can't tell how many results or how much effort browsing will take2013-01-06
- Scrolling to browse results is slower and more tedious than clicking pages2013-01-06
- Users lose their place in the scroll when they return to the results page2013-01-06
- Listing options are hidden under a link labelled About, which is counterintuitive2012-01-13
- Search input and browse dropdown are too small to use comfortably2012-01-13
- New items fly in from the top left and keep loading, which is jarring and annoying2012-01-12
- Site changes too frequently, has many glitches, and is confusing2011-08-22
- Developers get inconsistent or no warning before breaking API changes, causing interruptions2011-07-21
- Search is lacking; hard to find specific items among random collections2010-05-20