What should I do on Etsy if an international package is returned unclaimed?

Hi! If an international order is returned to you as “unclaimed / not picked up,” the safest, most common Etsy-friendly approach is to message the buyer politely, confirm you have the package back, and offer two options: (1) reship if they pay a new shipping charge, or (2) refund the item cost (and keep the original postage) since the original shipping service was used and the non-pickup was on the buyer’s side.

A practical way to handle it:

• Option A (Resend): Tell them you’re happy to resend, but they’ll need to cover reshipping (and any extra postage cost difference). On Etsy, many sellers do this by creating a custom listing for the “reship fee” (shipping-only) so everything stays documented and on-platform.
• Option B (Refund): Once the package is back in your hands and the item is still sellable, refund the item price (and usually any taxes you received, if Etsy included them in what you collected). It’s normal to not refund the original shipping because it was already spent on the first shipment. If you also got charged a return-to-sender fee by the carrier, you can mention that you can’t absorb that either (just keep it factual and calm).

A couple of Etsy-specific notes that help protect you:

• Keep all communication in Etsy Messages and reference what tracking shows (“held at post office,” “returned to sender,” etc.).
• If the buyer opens a “not received” case, tracking that shows the parcel reached their country and was available for pickup (but not collected) generally supports that you shipped correctly—these situations are commonly treated like buyer delay/refusal rather than a true “lost package.”

If you want, paste your current return/refund policy wording (or tell me if you accept returns), and I’ll help you phrase a clean message to the buyer plus a simple policy line to prevent this going forward.