Etsy is one of the most popular online marketplaces where individuals and businesses sell vintage, handmade, custom, and other unique products. While it might not be as big or as popular as Amazon or eBay, the platform is well-known for providing users with a lot of useful tools for running their own shops.
Instead of creating your own website, Etsy allows you to market and sell your products on an already established massive marketplace. While it might seem a bit daunting at first, the large number of site visitors gives new business owners a better chance to get their products discovered and earn some repeat customers for their merchandise.
There are several good reasons why people decide to open an Etsy store rather than build their own website, most of which revolve around the intuitive tools that users are provided.
Service Overview
Let’s see what Etsy provides for its merchants before deciding whether to add your items to this online marketplace.
Products
Etsy is well-known for being the place where people go to find custom goods, like handmade items, vintage items, craft supplies, and so on.
While these product categories can encompass a wide variety of different items, there are strict rules about what can not be sold on this platform.
The site stipulates that you can’t sell the following items on the Etsy marketplace:
- Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, drug paraphernalia, medical devices and items making medical claims;
- Animal products and human remains;
- Hazardous materials, recalled items, and weapons;
- Items that promote, support, or glorify hatred and violence;
- Illegal items, items promoting illegal activity and highly regulated items;
- Internationally regulated items;
- Nudity and mature content.
As long as none of your products breaks any of the mentioned regulations, you’re free to sell them on Etsy.
Tools
Etsy has a variety of useful tools that allow you to easily create and manage your own shop and products.
Design – The drag-and-drop placement allows you to easily organize your products on your page, the banners let you draw attention to any sales that might be going on, and all of the various available patterns and colours can help give your page a bit of flare.
Shipping – You can set delivery dates for your packages, add a tracking option for any product, cancel a sale before it’s shipped out, purchase and print shipping labels, and do virtually everything that you might need to ensure that your package reaches its destination.
Management – The organization and sorting tools allow your customers to navigate through your product list a lot more easily, the inventory management tools allow you to keep track of how many items you have in stock, and the listing tools allow you to draw attention to specific products.
Inventory Management – Aside from tools that help customers find specific products more easily, Etsy also has management tools that help you keep track of your inventory. As soon as the products and their numbers are logged, the site automatically keeps track of how many are left based on the number of purchases. You can check on the state of your inventory at any time, and you can also set “low inventory” markers that automatically notify you when a certain item is almost out of stock.
SEO Tools – Etsy provides you with search engine optimization tools that can help you introduce certain keywords into your product titles and descriptions. These keywords can help you improve the chances of your product being discovered by giving it a boost in search engine results.
Analytics – You also get access to optimization tools that give you a rundown of how often your ads were clicked, how many hits you got a day, how often site visits lead to purchases, and so on. You can use this info to learn how to make modifications and improvements to the products you sell, the keywords you use, and so on.
Mobile-Friendly – All of the product pages on Etsy are automatically calibrated to adjust to phone and tablet screens. This allows any curious customers to scroll through their phones and simply pick out the product that they want from just about anywhere.
Integrations – Etsy has a long list of extensions and tools that you can add and use on your page, like Zoho CRM, Microsoft SharePoint, Dropbox, and so on.
Security – A large marketplace like Etsy holds information on the credit card details of millions of customers, so it obviously needs top-notch security to make sure that all of those details are safe. You benefit from that security since potential customers won’t get scared about their info getting leaked, which can happen with smaller and less well-known online shops.
All of these tools are available through the standard plan, so you’re automatically granted access to all of them once you create your Etsy page.
Plus Tools
If you don’t want to use the basic tools that Etsy offers, you can choose to pay $10 a month and get the Plus package that comes with a few additional perks.
These additional perks include more customization options for your shop, like new banner templates and featured listing options.
You can also create a custom web address that will make your shop easier to find and remember.
And finally, you also get an email service that will allow you to inform any customers that left their information about any special deals that you might be promoting right now.
Support
If you have any questions about the site or if you’re having any issues, you can contact the Etsy help staff either via email or phone. Just keep in mind that the site hosts an estimated 1.8 million sellers, so you might be on the line for a while, and the email response might not arrive on the same day.
However, the forums are a great place to go if you’re looking for some help or are in need of some advice for your products. You also get access to the Etsy Success newsletter and the Seller handbook, both of which are full of useful tips that you can use to improve your sales.
Prices/Fees
The standard Etsy plan doesn’t have any monthly fees that you need to cover, however, there is a 20-cent listing fee. The listing will remain active for 4 months or until the specified items are all sold out, after which you’ll need to pay the listing cost again.
While Etsy doesn’t have a monthly payment that you need to make, the site takes a 6.5% transaction fee. Paypal also charges a standard fee on top of the Etsy commission. The standard fee is 3.49% plus a fixed amount for every product that’s purchased.
The fixed amount is 49 cents if the transaction is in US dollars, but the value changes if another currency is used.
Marketing
Etsy has both on-site and off-site ads. On-site ads will promote your products on the Etsy marketplace, while off-site ads will show your items on other sites.
Etsy ads work on a bidding system which you can take part in every day. You can use your Etsy ads tab to select how much you want to spend on an ad bid for that day. The lowest bid is $1, and the highest bid is $100 a day, at least in the beginning. The threshold will grow incrementally as you spend more and more on ads, and in time you can spend up to $1k a day if you get a good return on investment.
While Etsy will display all of the products that you paid to be advertised, the highest bidders will get priority, so their products will be shown first. Keep in mind that your ads will get bumped up if you’re targeting a specific keyword that people happen to be searching for that day.
Aside from the daily ad budget, you also have control over which of your products will appear in the ad space and which keywords they’re marketed under.
You can also choose to opt out of the program at any time, although any seller that’s made more than $10,000 in a fiscal year is automatically enrolled in the program and can’t opt out. Luckily, this isn’t much of an issue since, as we’ve already pointed out, you can simply set your daily bid at a single dollar if you don’t want to spend a lot of money on marketing.
Additionally, Etsy ads are click-to-charge, which essentially means that you’re only charged for an ad if someone found your products by clicking on a link that took them to your page.
Company Background
Etsy is one of the largest eCommerce sites on the web whose aim is to make transactions between sellers and buyers seamless. It operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, France, and India.
Etsy was started in 2005 by Robert Kalin, Chris Maguire, and Haim Schoppik. Since then, Etsy has had an estimated 100 million items in its marketplace and over 13 billion dollars of Gross Merchandise sales in 2022.
User Reviews
Consumer Affairs collected 102 reviews and gave Etsy a pitiful 1 out of 5 stars, with a lot of people being unsatisfied with the shipping and the state of the products upon arrival.
Merchant Maverick gives it a more favourable 2.5 out of 5 stars, with the main concerns being about the numerous fees and the poor customer service.
The best Etsy score puts it at 3.5 out of 5 stars, and this comes from Sitejabber, where people seem to have the opposite opinion on their customer service.
User Reviews
Review Summary
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