Persistent Processing Profile state mismatch: Bulk Editor shows “Processing time not set” and daily ETA recalculation adds incorrect processing days

[milkacsokii]

Confirmation

• I confirm this post does NOT contain sensitive data for my account.

Question / discussion

Hi Etsy Open API / Engineering team,

I believe I have isolated a long-running Processing Profile state-consistency issue that is affecting buyer-facing estimated delivery dates.

I am an Etsy seller rather than an API developer, but I have been systematically testing this problem since January 2026. After approximately 10 months of testing across multiple listings and three separate shops, I can now reproduce a consistent mismatch between the Processing Profile state visible in different Etsy interfaces.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help get this in front of the engineering team responsible for Processing Profiles / readiness states / estimated delivery date calculation.

### Timeline and original trigger
My main Etsy shop is approximately 13 years old.
For years, my normal processing time was 1–3 business days and estimated delivery dates worked correctly.
In mid-December 2025, because of my Christmas shipping shutdown, I changed my processing time from the usual 1–3 business days to approximately 3 weeks.

After Christmas, I gradually reduced it:

• approximately 3 weeks
• then approximately 2 weeks
• finally back to my normal 1–3 business days on January 5, 2026

January 5 was when I first noticed the problem.

Although the visible Processing Profile had been restored to 1–3 business days, Etsy's buyer-facing estimated delivery calculation did not fully return to the previous state.
Instead, Etsy began adding approximately 14 extra business days to the estimated delivery date.
The problem has persisted since then.

### Why the Processing Profile migration may be relevant
During 2025 Etsy moved processing times out of Shipping Profiles and into the separate Processing Profile / readiness-state system.
Before my Christmas change, I had not needed to modify my processing time since that migration.
The shop worked correctly after the migration until I changed the Processing Profile in December 2025.
The persistent ETA problem appeared when I later restored the processing time to its original value.
This makes me concerned that a previous or missing processing-time state may have remained somewhere in the system after the profile was changed.

### This is not limited to my old shop

Initially I assumed my 13-year-old shop had somehow developed an unrecoverable account-specific problem.
Because of this, I opened a completely new Etsy shop in early July 2026.
The new shop behaved correctly for the first two days after activating its first listing.
On approximately the third day, the same incorrect ETA behavior appeared.
I later opened another new Etsy shop in September 2026.
The exact same pattern occurred again:
Day 1–2: correct ETA
Day 3: incorrect additional processing time appears
This means I have reproduced the behavior in:

• my approximately 13-year-old Etsy shop
• a new shop opened in July 2026
• another new shop opened in September 2026

### Vacation Mode produces a similar reset/reappearance pattern
I can also reproduce a similar sequence by placing a shop into Vacation Mode for approximately one week.
After reopening the shop:
First approximately 2 days: ETA is correct
Around the third day: the incorrect additional processing time returns
This strongly suggests that some delayed or scheduled backend process is recalculating or restoring a different processing-time state after the shop/listings have been active for a period of time.

### The added processing time is no longer consistent

Originally the incorrect ETA was very consistently approximately +14 business days.
Today it varies between listings.
For example:

• newly created listings commonly receive approximately +14 business days
• some older listings receive approximately +3 business days
• others receive approximately +8 business days
• other listings may receive different amounts
  So I do not believe this is simply one old 14-day processing-time value being applied globally.
  However, the underlying UI inconsistency described below is consistent across the listings.

### The key reproducible inconsistency: Bulk Editor
This is the most important part of the issue.
For affected physical listings, a valid Processing Profile is visibly assigned in the normal listing editor.
The processing time is also recognized in Quick Edit.
However, if I select the same listing in:
Shop Manager → Listings → Bulk Editor → Change Shipping Profile
Etsy reports:
“Processing time not set”
This happens regardless of whether I select:

• one listing
• several listings
• all listings
  The Bulk Editor consistently behaves as though processing time does not exist.

### Controlled variation-level test
I performed an additional controlled test on one affected listing.
I enabled variation-specific Processing Profiles.
I then manually assigned the same valid 2-day Processing Profile individually to every variation and saved the listing.
After saving:

• the normal listing editor correctly showed the assigned Processing Profiles
• Quick Edit recognized the variation-specific configuration and displayed “Varies”
• Bulk Editor → Change Shipping Profile still showed “Processing time not set”
  So even after explicitly assigning a valid Processing Profile to every individual product variation, Bulk Editor continued to behave as though no processing time existed.

### Daily ETA recalculation
There is also a highly repeatable daily timing pattern.
In my timezone (Europe), the buyer-facing ETA typically changes to the incorrect value at approximately 10:00 AM local time.
For example, today I completed the variation-level Processing Profile test shortly before 10:00 AM.
At approximately 10:02 AM, despite every variation having a valid explicitly assigned Processing Profile, the buyer-facing ETA changed again to the incorrect delayed date.
This behavior occurs repeatedly.

### Observable state mismatch
Based on the seller-facing behavior, the same listing appears to have two conflicting processing-time states:
Normal listing editor: Processing Profile exists and is valid
Quick Edit: Processing Profile is recognized
Bulk Editor / Change Shipping Profile: “Processing time not set”
Buyer-facing ETA after recurring recalculation: additional incorrect processing days are added
I understand that I cannot see Etsy's backend implementation, so I am not claiming that these are literally two separate databases or services.

However, the observable behavior strongly suggests that different Etsy systems are not reading the same processing-time state, or that one state is stale, missing, or not correctly synchronized.
This is particularly relevant because Etsy's Processing Profile architecture introduced readiness-state-based processing data alongside the previous shipping-profile-based processing-time model.

### Important additional reproduction evidence
I also have a repeatable seller-side action that temporarily causes Etsy to recalculate the ETA correctly.
This demonstrates that the existing shipping and processing configuration is capable of producing the correct buyer-facing ETA without changing the actual processing time.
After Etsy's recurring recalculation occurs, however, the incorrect ETA returns.
I do not want to publish the exact workaround publicly because I currently depend on it to keep my shop operational, but I am happy to provide the complete reproduction procedure privately to Etsy Engineering.

### Business impact
This has affected my main shop continuously since January 2026.
For approximately 10 months, buyers have repeatedly been shown estimated delivery dates that are later than the dates generated when Etsy is using the correct processing state.
I have spent months testing Processing Profiles, Shipping Profiles, listings, new shops, Vacation Mode, variation-level settings, and different editing interfaces trying to isolate the cause.
I even opened two new Etsy shops because I initially believed the original shop itself was irreparably corrupted, only to reproduce the same behavior in both new shops.

### What I am asking Etsy Engineering to investigate
Could someone please check the backend state of an affected listing and determine:

1. Why does Bulk Editor → Change Shipping Profile return “Processing time not set” when the listing and all of its variations have valid Processing Profiles?
2. What Processing Profile / readiness-state / processing-time source is Bulk Editor reading when it displays that message?
3. Is the recurring buyer-facing ETA recalculation reading the same source?
4. Is there a stale, legacy, null, or unsynchronized processing-time value associated with these listings or product offerings?
5. Why can a newly activated shop/listing initially display the correct ETA for approximately two days before the incorrect processing delay appears?
6. Why does a similar approximately two-day correct period occur after reopening a shop from Vacation Mode?
7. Why do newly created listings commonly receive approximately +14 business days while older listings can receive different additional processing periods?

I can provide privately:

• affected shop IDs
• listing IDs
• screenshots
• timestamps
• examples from all three shops
• the temporary ETA-recalculation reproduction procedure
• any additional tests Engineering would like me to perform

At this point I believe I have isolated the seller-visible boundary of the problem as far as possible without access to Etsy's internal processing-time state.

I would be very grateful if this could be escalated to the engineering team that owns Processing Profiles / readiness states and estimated delivery calculations.

[milkacsokii]

[milkacsokii]

Could you provide a shop_id, user_id, or application_id?

For the new shop that experienced these issues again by day 3, did you change the processing profile or vacation mode state before day 3?

[milkacsokii]

No, I didn't change anything!
The Processing Profile and Shipping Profile were set normally when the first listing was created. After the shop/listing was activated, I made no changes at all — no Processing Profile changes, no Shipping Profile changes, and no Vacation Mode. The ETA was correct for the first two days and changed to the incorrect delayed ETA on approximately day 3 without any seller-side action.

[milkacsokii]

Here is an additional example from the same listing on the same day.
At 10:01 AM Etsy displayed an estimated delivery range of Oct 9–26.
At 11:15 AM the same listing displayed Oct 9–15.
The configured Processing Profile itself remained unchanged between these two states. This demonstrates that the same listing can produce both the incorrect and the correct ETA depending on which processing state Etsy is using.
I can provide the exact seller-side trigger that forces the correct recalculation privately if it would help with debugging.

[milkacsokii]

I have noticed another important difference that may help isolate the issue.
If I perform an equivalent listing update through Bulk Editor, it does not trigger the ETA to recalculate.
This is especially interesting because Bulk Editor consistently reports:
“Processing time not set”
even though a valid Processing Profile is visibly assigned in the listing editor.
Based on this behavior, my current hypothesis is that the recurring automatic ETA recalculation — which in my case typically happens at around 10:00 AM Europe GMT+2 time — may be reading the same missing, stale, or unsynchronized processing-time state that Bulk Editor appears to be reading.
By contrast, I am able to trigger the ETA recalculation through a different seller-side editing path. When that recalculation occurs, Etsy appears to recognize the configured Processing Profile correctly and produces the correct estimated delivery date.
The attached screenshots show the same listing on the same day:
The correct ETA appears within 5–10 minutes after the forced recalculation.
10:01 AM: Oct 9–26 — incorrect ETA
11:15 AM: Oct 9–15 — correct ETA
The Processing Profile itself was not changed between these two states.
However, the correction is only temporary. At the next recurring automatic recalculation, the correct ETA is overwritten and the incorrect delayed ETA returns.
I obviously cannot see Etsy's internal implementation, so I cannot confirm that Bulk Editor and the automatic ETA recalculation literally use the same data source. However, the observed behavior is highly consistent with them reading the same incorrect processing-time state, while a different Etsy process recognizes the valid Processing Profile and calculates the ETA correctly.

[milkacsokii]

Additional reproducible evidence from today, October 8:

At 09:55 AM (GMT +2), this listing showed the correct ETA: Oct 13–15.
I made no changes at all today!
At 10:00 AM, the same listing had automatically changed to the incorrect delayed ETA: Oct 10–27.

The same thing happened across the affected listings in the shop at approximately the same time.
I intentionally did not perform any seller-side workaround today, so this change occurred entirely without seller action.
This is consistent with the recurring daily recalculation I have been observing at around 10:00 AM GMT+2 time, which appears to overwrite the previously correct ETA state.
If I were to perform the operation that forces the system to calculate the correct ETA right now, the ETA valid as of 9:55 a.m. would be displayed—that is, October 13–15. If you’d like, I can perform the operation so you can see the “magic.” But for now, I’ve deliberately chosen not to make any changes so you can see what happens when I do nothing.

[openapi-support[bot]]

Thank you for the thorough write-up and for the time you put into testing this across your shops. Our team looked into it, and the behavior you’re describing is expected.

The estimated delivery date (EDD) buyers see isn’t a direct calculation from the processing time in your Processing Profile. Etsy may also take your shop’s and listings’ past shipping behavior into account so buyers get accurate delivery estimates. This is described in our Help Center article on setting up estimated delivery dates. It doesn’t change your processing time or your ship-by dates. Because of this, a buyer-facing EDD can differ from what your Processing Profile alone would produce. Newly created listings and recent settings changes, including reopening a shop from Vacation Mode, can also cause temporary differences in the displayed EDD. This is not a sign that your Processing Profile is stored incorrectly.

Your configured processing times are still applied as set. The ones that matter for fulfillment, like your ship-by dates, haven’t changed.

Sellers who consistently ship within their stated processing time and upload tracking promptly generally see their EDDs reflect that over time.

Thanks again for the detailed report.

[milkacsokii]

Thank you, but this does not address the core issue I reported.
I understand that Etsy may use historical shipping behavior and carrier data when calculating buyer-facing estimated delivery dates.
However, my report is not simply about the EDD differing from the Processing Profile.
The key reproducible inconsistency is:

• Listing Editor: valid Processing Profile is assigned
• Quick Edit: processing time is recognized
• Bulk Editor → Change Shipping Profile: “Processing time not set”
  This remains true even when the same Processing Profile is explicitly assigned to every variation.
  In addition, the buyer-facing ETA changes automatically at approximately the same time every day. On October 8, the same listing showed Oct 13–15 at 09:55, and without any seller action changed to Oct 10–27 at 10:04.
  This also reproduces in newly created shops where no Processing Profile, Shipping Profile, or Vacation Mode changes are made after activation: the ETA is correct for approximately two days and then becomes incorrect on day 3.
  Historical shipping behavior does not explain why Bulk Editor reports that processing time is not set when a valid Processing Profile is clearly assigned, nor why two different Etsy editing paths appear to produce different ETA states for the same listing.
  Could this please be reviewed by a human engineer specifically for the Processing Profile / Bulk Editor state mismatch rather than treated as a general EDD behavior question?