Etsy is an online marketplace for handmade, vintage, and supplies that has been growing in popularity over the past few years. It’s a great place to start selling your crafts, whether you want to make a little extra cash or go full time in your new business. But is it the right platform for you?
Is selling on Etsy worth it?
Want the short answer? Yes! Etsy is the best place to start and grow your business. There is no other platform that gives you access to so many buyers for such low fees. Unless you have a huge audience on social media or a large email list built already, Etsy is one of the cheapest and fastest platforms to start on. Let’s talk about why that is.
Pros
Etsy has tons of buyers
In 2022, Etsy had over 90 million buyers to the platform. These buyers are searching for just about everything! So no matter what you make, you can find your audience on Etsy without spending tons of time marketing on social media.
Easy to Set up Shop
Etsy is very easy to set up and start your business on. You can have a shop opened in just an hour if you have some products ready to list. I recommend having separate business bank accounts, but you don’t need anything other than that to get started.
Simple Ads System
If you decide you want to start advertising your products, Etsy has a super easy simple. It’s not required to run your shop or to get a lot of sales, but it’s a much easier option than paying for Facebook or Google Ads.
Cons
High Competition
Yes, Etsy is saturated. But so is the entire internet. The high competition is always in the con category. But you won’t find any less competition on social media or for google searches.
Slower Email List Growth
Etsy customers are just that…Etsy’s customers. They don’t (and will never) make it super easy for you to grow your business email list through their platform. That doesn’t mean you can’t grow an email list for your business through Etsy. It’s just a lower percentage of your customers that will opt in compared to if you were selling on your own website.
Simple Ads System
Oh, you read about this under pros right? A simple ads system is good and bad. If you want to advertise on Etsy, you can’t control your cost per click or keywords that you bid on. Just your daily budget and what listings you’re advertising.
It’s a Wash
There are some things about Etsy that aren’t in either the Pro or Con category. Let’s talk about those too.
Fees
Etsy’s fees end up at around 10% per sale if we want to think about this simply. Compare that to the Home and Kitchen category of Amazon at 15%, Etsy certainly wins this category. When you add FBA fees on Amazon, they can charge up to 30% per sale.
There are definitely platforms with lower fees, but the problem you run into then is traffic. Etsy is the platform with the lowest fees that can bring you the traffic you need to run a profitable business.
Free Shipping
Etsy does encourage free shipping on their platform. And there are many Etsy sellers who were upset when this was instituted. But the issue here is that it’s not Etsy that recommends this…it’s buyer behavior everywhere. If you run your own website or sell on any other platform, your buyers will still want free shipping. So factor that into your decision about where you’ll be selling in your business.
Summary
In the end, Etsy is the best platform to start or grow your small business on due to their low fees and high traffic on the platform as a whole. Want to learn more about how to sell on Etsy, learn more in my free Etsy seller Facebook here or listen to The Handmade Shop Podcast.
