The daily work of selling signs on Etsy
Workshops that sell neon signs, wooden name signs, metal house numbers or personalised laser-cut pieces get most of their orders through Etsy. Each order comes with the buyer's size, colour and model choices, often a personalisation text, and Etsy's ship-by date.
As orders grow, moving that information from Etsy into the workshop's list becomes a job of its own: text is copied by hand, an option is missed, an order is entered twice or not at all. And production and shipping still have to be tracked in the workshop, outside Etsy.
How the extension works
The extension never reads or sends your Etsy password or session; it sends the orders it reads only to the SignFlow account it is paired with. Nothing has to be connected on the Etsy side.
- 1
Download and install
Download the extension package from the “Files” page under Settings in SignFlow. Until it is published in the Chrome Web Store, it is installed with Chrome's “Load unpacked”; the steps are on the same page.
- 2
Pair it with your account
On the same page, create a pairing code and enter it in the extension. The code is valid for 10 minutes and works once. The extension then acts with your permissions in that browser; you see your paired browsers on the same page and can remove any of them.
- 3
Pick the orders and import
Open Etsy's “Orders & Shipping” list, tick the orders you want, press “Read selected orders” in the extension and then “Send to SignFlow”.
What an imported order looks like
Files the buyer attached are uploaded to the imported order too. Amounts are in the buyer's currency, so they are not written into the order's price lines. An imported order starts at the first stage of your workflow, like one typed in by hand, and counts towards your monthly orders.
| On the SignFlow order | From Etsy |
|---|---|
| Order number | The Etsy order number (your own number if another order already uses it) |
| Order name | The first item's title, plus how many more items there are |
| Customer details | The buyer's name, email and phone (no customer account is created) |
| Product fields | The buyer's choices and personalisation, in the matched product template's fields |
| Description | Choices no field took, the personalisation and the buyer's note |
| Due date | Etsy's ship-by date |
| Tag | “Etsy” |
| Private note | Etsy amounts with the currency; only people allowed to read private notes see them |
One SignFlow order per Etsy order
An Etsy order number is imported once. Pick an order that was already imported and the extension skips it and shows the existing SignFlow order. Two people importing at once, a second browser or a double click never create a second order. While reading the list, the extension also shows which Etsy orders are already in SignFlow.
It remembers the product template per listing
- When someone sets a product template on an imported order, SignFlow remembers it for that Etsy listing, and the next order from the listing starts with it. The latest choice wins.
- Without a remembered template, an active template whose name appears in the item title is used.
- The buyer's size, colour and model choices go into the template's matching fields and the personalisation into the text field meant for it; the template's defaults fill what is left.
- A template is used only when its required fields are filled. Otherwise the order is opened without one and nothing is lost: what was read stays in the description.
After the import: tracking it in the workshop
Imported Etsy orders appear with the “Etsy” tag in the same list and production board as your other work, and you can filter by that tag. Design, production departments and packing work as on any order, and because Etsy's ship-by date becomes the due date, you are notified about orders that are due soon or late.