I’ve been seeing this question asked a lot on Threads, my latest social media hangout spot. As a maker or artist, you want to start selling your products, but there are so many e-commerce options out there, you’re not sure where to start. Maybe you’ve heard chatter that Etsy is the standard platform for creative businesses but the fees are super high, or you’re trying to decide between Etsy vs Shopify or another e-commerce platform … or you’re just trying to figure out whether you really want to sell your products altogether. While some of my previous posts about Etsy might help you make that decision, I thought I’d address it directly as well.
My short answer is the same as it’s always been: Etsy is a great place to start your business if you are new to selling and/or you don’t want to shift too much of your energy and time from the “creativity” side to the “selling” side. (Not that the two are polar opposites, but you’ll see what I mean!)
Of course, let’s elaborate!
Before we get into it, I want to address the elephant in the room: the fees. Anytime I see someone hesitate or question whether they should start an Etsy shop, the fees are always the top concern. While I’ll touch on this more below, I want to explain a couple of things up-front. First, Etsy only collects those fees when you make a sale; you don’t pay a monthly subscription fee like you do with a standalone platform. It costs very little for your Etsy shop to just exist.
Another thing to clarify up-front is the difference between Etsy and an e-commerce platform like Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, you name it. Etsy is a marketplace, meaning its purpose is to bring buyers and sellers together; it’s the middleman. Same concept as AirBnB, Rover, or Poshmark. Thus, Etsy’s fee is their “cut” for being the middleman. Whereas Shopify, for example, is a standalone website with built-in e-commerce capabilities, like product pages and payment processing. Shopify’s purpose is to enable you, the seller, to sell your products online; it’s part of your own business and its tech stack, not a middleman.
Now that those 2 things are clarified, let’s get to it:
You should open an Etsy shop if
You are new to selling 🙂 A huge benefit of Etsy is all of the ‘out of the box’ features that come with it (that those fees go toward!). Etsy handles payment processing, collects and remits sales tax, facilitates shipping, gives you the ability to set up a variety of discounts, and more. These features are sometimes included in other e-commerce sites’ subscriptions, and sometimes they’re not. Etsy makes it easy to get started quickly.
You have a small budget. Compared to other e-commerce selling platforms, Etsy has a relatively low financial barrier to entry. There is a one-time $15 fee to open your shop, and you are charged 20 cents per listing, every 3 months (or if a listing sells and is automatically renewed). Then Etsy takes a cut when you make a sale, and that’s it. The cost to open an Etsy shop is $15 + 20 cents per listing + the time you spend setting it up. If you make no sales, that’s all you pay. Said another way, there is no monthly fee, so you’re not on the hook for a $30+ charge each month even if you don’t make any sales.
You want to get started quickly without having to figure out a ton of setup first. To preface, there are lots of great e-commerce sites that make it easy to set up; I’m not discounting those at all. But in my opinion, Etsy is the most intuitive for someone just starting out in e-commerce. Since Etsy was designed with creatives and artists (and vintage!) in mind, the learning curve is relatively low. And you don’t need to worry about additional apps, integrations, or plugins like you might with your own site.
You don’t have an established customer base, or aren’t prepared to build one on your own. A huge benefit of Etsy is its built-in customer base. People know to go to Etsy to shop. As a marketplace, Etsy’s entire purpose is to bring customers and sellers together. There is of course legwork you need to do as well, but Etsy takes care of bringing that traffic in, which is huge. If you do your part well – like mastering Etsy-specific SEO and providing top-notch customer service – then you can rely on Etsy to bring you most of your sales. Bringing it back to the fees again, you can think of them as Etsy’s “finders fee” – they get a cut for bringing you customers.
Conversely, if you create your own e-commerce website, you need to bring all your own traffic. If you have a customer base already (for example, tons of social followers that fit your target market), then opening your own site might be the right move. Or maybe you are really passionate about marketing and ready and eager to do that component of e-commerce. But if that’s not your thing, Etsy is the way to go.
You already have an established small business and want to expand your reach. Even if you are an established retailer with a strong customer base already, Etsy still may make sense for you as another selling channel. As I mentioned, an Etsy shop is relatively easy and affordable to set up, and if your SEO is solid, Etsy will bring you converting traffic. You can focus on driving traffic to your own site, and sales via Etsy are “bonus” sales that you wouldn’t necessarily have gotten otherwise. Said another way, you can “set and forget” your Etsy listings — just don’t “set and forget” your follow through with Etsy customers, so ideally, the next time they shop with you, they go to your direct site.
You are doing everything yourself and don’t have budget to outsource. There are plethoras of fantastic web developers and designers, marketing experts, advertising pros, and other e-commerce professionals that can both take things off your plate and do them well. And they charge accordingly, as they should. If hiring the experts is out of your budget, Etsy – and all of its included features and ease of use – is a good place to start.
Extra special bonus: when should you not open an Etsy shop? I’ve touched on some related points above, but I’ll elaborate here. (I’ll note that this is in reference to opening an Etsy shop as your primary or only selling channel.)
You should not open an Etsy shop if:
You already have a large customer base. Again, a huge benefit of Etsy is that it brings the traffic to you. And you essentially pay for that benefit via the fee you incur with each sale. Conversely, your own e-commerce site is a flat monthly fee so you get to keep all the revenue of each sale. If you don’t need Etsy to bring you traffic, then you wouldn’t want to lose out on that cut that they take, for a benefit that you don’t use. (Note: You’ll still likely incur payment processing fees and possibly others on your own site, so take that into account when you do the math!)
You aren’t willing to learn Etsy’s SEO best practices. As with the internet, SEO is how you get found on Etsy. Recall that Etsy brings traffic to the site and guides potential customers to items they want to buy. Thus, you need to do your part to get found. More than ever, Etsy is flooded with, frankly, crap that customers have to wade through, so you need to ensure that your products get found. That being said, if you aren’t willing to learn Etsy SEO, then would you be willing to learn web SEO, marketing, and advertising to drive traffic to your own site?
I hope this post answered some questions that you have about whether you should start an Etsy shop and the pros and cons of Etsy versus Shopify or another standalone e-commerce website. All of that being said, I generally recommend Etsy to any artist or maker who wants to start selling their products – it’s very low risk to try out, and if you hate it, you can always close your shop. And if you love it, Etsy may be a first step in the right direction for opening your small creative business.
Lemon Press Studio 