Physical product

Most Etsy listings are physical products - handmade, vintage, or supply items that ship to the buyer. The mechanics differ from digital listings primarily in the shipping, processing, and returns workflow.

Required vs. optional fields

• Required: shipping profile (origin, destination zones, handling time, ship cost).
• Required: category and at least one photo.
• Optional but heavily weighted: attributes, full 13 tags, materials list, all 10 photo slots, video.

Processing time

The number of business days between order receipt and shipment. This is what Etsy uses to tell buyers their estimated delivery date and what determines whether your shipment counts as “on time” for Star Seller.

Tracking

Always add tracking once you ship. Untracked shipments don’t count toward Star Seller’s on-time-shipping metric, and Etsy purchase protection often defaults in the buyer’s favor when tracking is missing.

International shipping

Off by default. To ship internationally, add destination zones to the shipping profile. Be aware of:

• Customs forms (Etsy auto-generates them for many lanes).
• Country-specific restrictions (e.g., wood, food, leather often blocked).
• DDP vs. DDU duties (Etsy now collects duties at checkout for many lanes, so the buyer doesn’t get a surprise bill).