While Etsy does not allow reselling artist-designed products, it does allow you to add a designer as a shop member. These two things sound contradictory.
If you hire a designer to design your Etsy products, is that not reselling?
I started researching Etsy’s policies to gain more clarity on this topic. After my research, I came to the following conclusion:
Etsy never says you can’t hire a designer.
It also never says you can.
However, Etsy does briefly mention something important regarding designers, but it’s tucked away in their help article, Adding Shop Member Roles.
This gray area is exactly where many shops face suspension risks because Etsy does not have a clearly worded, dedicated policy on hiring a designer.
Is it mandatory to disclose the designer in your Etsy Shop?
Before we discuss what Etsy mentions on this topic, we should first check whether it is even a mandatory requirement to disclose the designer working for your Etsy shop. According to the help article, Adding Shop Member Roles, “You must list all of the people involved in your shop in your About section, along with the roles each shop member plays in your business.” Therefore, if you take help from a designer, you must disclose it in your Etsy shop.
How does Etsy define a Designer?
In the help article, Adding Shop Member Roles, Etsy defines a Designer as
“A person who has come up with an original design, pattern, sketch, template, prototype, or plan to be produced by in-house shop members or a production partner.”
The Further Clarification
The policy goes on to clarify that “Using mass-market templates or outsourcing all design work does not meet this standard.” This clarification is important as it alludes to what is not permitted when you hire a designer.
What is not allowed when you hire a Designer?
1. Outsourcing all design work
If you hire a designer who does all the design work while you only handle the business side, you face suspension or takedown risks. For instance, you just take the graphic design from the designer and put it on T-shirts to sell. Here, only the designer is deciding on all design aspects, including graphics, theme, colors, layout, and wording, and you are just listing the product.
Why is it risky?
If you only list products without any involvement in the design process, it equals reselling that Etsy rules do not allow. You can refer to the Etsy Rules and Regulations help article ‘Does Etsy Allow Drop Shipping or Reselling?‘ for more information.
What is the right way?
The whole idea here is that you must be involved in the design process. You can not have a ‘Do whatever you want‘ approach with the designer. Your role can be at least one of the following:
| Role | Job | Example | Relationship |
| Creative Director | You are giving specific directions to the designer. You are telling the designer the specific design aspects you want, such as theme, colors, layout, and wording. | You are telling the T-shirt designer you want a retro-themed disco cat shirt. | “Josh helps me turn my creative ideas into lively T-shirt designs.” |
| Co-Designer | You contributed to the design alongside the designer. OR You are creating the final design with inputs from the designer. | You designed the typography part of the T-shirt design. OR You take multiple graphics from the T-shirt designer and combine them to create a final T-shirt design with wording. | “Sarah and I work together to create the final design.” OR “Sarah helps me with T-shirt graphics, and I create the final design.” |
2. Mass-market templates
What this means is that you cannot use a design that the designer is selling as a template to multiple buyers. For instance, you use a publicly available t-shirt design template from a designer.
Why is it risky?
If you are using templates, you are violating Etsy’s Creativity Standards for the ‘Designed By a Seller’ category, which states that the seller’s designs must be original.
What is the right way?
You should not use non-exclusive, publicly available templates to design your Etsy products. You should hire a designer to create a custom design and get exclusive commerical rights through a contract to preserve originality.
In a nutshell…
You can sell a product designed by a designer if:
1. You are involved in the creative process.
AND
2. You own exclusive commerical rights to the design.
How to add a designer to your Etsy Shop?
- On the home page, click ‘Edit shop.’
- Scroll down to the shop members section and add the designer’s photo, name, role, and relationship.
