📤 Publishing and importing on Etsy
In 30 seconds
- A product is published as a single listing; each variant is an option in that listing.
- Publishing is two steps: you create a draft on Etsy and then activate it with Publish on Etsy.
- If the shop sells in another currency, prices are published not converted: review them.
- Importing a listing creates the product, its design and a piece + variant per combination.
- Editing an imported listing doesn't touch its Etsy variations, prices or stock.
Before publishing, your Etsy store needs a delivery profile, a processing profile (preparation time) and a return policy: see Connecting marketplaces. Publishing and importing can be done by Workers, Administrators and Owners.
Publishing a product on Etsy
You publish a whole product: it becomes a single Etsy listing and each variant becomes an option in the "Variant" dropdown the buyer will see. A product with three variants is one listing with three options, not three separate listings.
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You start with the Publish button, from the product's Sales channels block or from the Publish tab in Marketplaces. A window opens to review and complete the listing:
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Title and description | What the buyer will see. They come pre-filled from the product. |
| Category | The Etsy category where it will be listed. It has a search box and a button to browse the full tree. |
| Shipping | One of your Etsy shipping profiles. |
| Returns | One of your Etsy policies. |
| Who made it / When | Details Etsy requires about the handmade product. |
| Tags (optional) / Materials (optional) | Keywords so people can find you. |
| Variants | Each with its title (click to change it) and its price. The title is what the buyer will see in the dropdown, so they must be different from one another. |
| Photos | Up to 20 images per listing. |
| Status | Draft or Published. |
With Status on Draft, when you confirm BolloPrint creates the listing on Etsy with all its variants, but buyers can't see it yet; you'll see it with the amber Draft label. To put it on sale, click the green Publish on Etsy button in Sales channels.
If your store is in holiday mode, Etsy won't let you activate the listing: BolloPrint tells you with a warning and the listing stays as a draft until you turn off holiday mode and click Publish on Etsy again. It will never tell you everything went fine if something failed behind the scenes.
If a listing is deactivated, sells out or expires on Etsy, it shows as Inactive in BolloPrint: nobody can buy it. The Reactivate button puts it back on sale.
The photos
The listing's general photos come from the design. In addition, you can assign each variant its own photos. A photo assigned to a variant gets locked (with a padlock) in the general strip, so it isn't duplicated; if you remove it from the variant, it becomes available again at the top. The "X / 20" counter counts the distinct photos.
If your shop sells in another currency
Your Etsy shop has its own currency, which may not be your workshop's or that of some variant (for example, workshop in pounds and shop in dollars). Then each price in the window carries the shop's symbol and, above the variants, the notice "This shop sells in USD: the prices you type here are published in USD, not converted. Please review them."
BolloPrint doesn't convert those prices: the figure is your variant's as is, so change it to the one you want to charge in the shop's currency before confirming. A variant in another currency without a price in the shop's currency isn't published: you'll see "The shop sells in USD and the variant is in EUR: set the price in USD."
Importing an Etsy listing
If you already sell on Etsy, you bring those listings in without recreating them: in Marketplaces → Import, choose the listing and click Import.
BolloPrint creates a Product, its Design (with the listing's photos) and a Piece + Variant for each combination in the listing. Before confirming you review the manufacturing details of each combination —material, finish, weight, time, dimensions and colours— with the same controls as when creating a design. If they're all the same, Apply to all copies the first one to the rest.
The photos work the same as when publishing: those you assign to a piece or variant get locked in the general gallery so they aren't duplicated.
The listing's currency is respected. If the listing is in a currency other than your workshop's (for example, dollars), the variants are created with their price in dollars, not converted. A catalogue can have variants in several currencies: in the variant editor you'll see its price in its currency and, next to it, the approximate equivalent in your workshop's currency at today's rate ("Price in USD · ≈ … at today's rate"). The piece's cost stays in your workshop's currency, and the margin is calculated with that day's rate.
Editing an imported listing
Editing a listing you brought over from Etsy doesn't rebuild it: it changes the title, the description and whatever you touch in the window, and leaves its variations, prices, stock, tags and materials as they are on Etsy.
If you changed the title or the description directly on Etsy, you'll see the Edited on Etsy warning before you overwrite it, so you can decide which version to keep.
To keep the listing up to date afterwards, see Selling on Etsy.