Post a question

One person, one address: hello@nearmakers.me.uk. Expect a reply within a couple of days.

I am a maker and I would rather not be listed here.

Say so and your shop will be excluded — no argument, no form. Only your shop name, id and public link are held, but that is not the same as agreeing to it.

My town returns almost nothing.

That is usually the true answer. Buying local means a handful of names, and the page says “that is all of them” rather than implying there is more below. Widening the words helps more than widening the place: “ceramics” will find people that “speckled stoneware mug” never gets to.

It would not accept my place.

Etsy parses the location text itself, and when it cannot resolve the text it returns nothing — the same answer it gives for a real place where nobody happens to be selling. Measured on 20 August 2026: “Bristol” returns 854 results, “Zzqqxx” returns 0, and neither is an error. So this page cannot tell you which of the two happened, and does not pretend to. Try the town on its own, then the county, then the country, and try wider words. What it will never do is quietly drop the location and search the whole marketplace — that would call two hundred strangers local.

Why do I get told about makers rather than items?

Because the hard part of buying from people near you is finding out they exist. Etsy ranks by relevance across the whole marketplace, so small local shops sit below big ones wherever they are. Once you know a maker, their catalogue is on Etsy. The reasoning.

What does “ships to” do?

It filters to listings that will actually post to that country. Someone two streets away who does not ship to you is not local in any sense that matters. It is optional, and it is a two-letter code like GB or US.

Do you know where I am?

No. You are never asked and nothing is inferred — no map, no coordinates, no IP lookup. A place name here is a search term, the same kind of thing as a keyword. Every field kept.

How do I stop everything?

Delete everything on your account page removes every place, every maker remembered and your address in one transaction, immediately.