I am a month late bringing you this information, but as of August 2021 some sellers began noticing a new dispute system.

The new Etsy dispute system appears to force the buyer to contact the seller BEFORE officially disputing. HOORAY! Personally, I feel like ALL disputes, even credit card disputes, should require the buyer to contact the seller first, but that’s not how most disputes work, unfortunately.

After an Etsy user shared this information on Reddit, a fellow Reddit user took the time to look into the actual code of Etsy.com and he discovered a script is being used for “A/B Testing” which appears to coincide with an additional script called “Case Redesign”.

If you’re not familiar with what “A/B” means, it typically means a split testing group, which basically means some people will get Option A and other people will get Option B. So this would explain why some people are seeing the Case Redesign and other people are not.

IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW: A/B testing does not mean Etsy will, for sure, change the dispute system, but it is very good to see that they are testing out this Case Redesign! Fingers Crossed that this will indeed become a permanent new feature because it would greatly help Etsy sellers!

If you want to look at the Etsy website scripts you can view them here.