Etsy vs Shopify

[elaine clapper]

The gift shop/gallery brick and mortar store I where have sold my functional pottery for the past 10 years is no longer an option.  I  have participated in one or two juried art festivals a year (minus the COVID years). The art festivals are profitable but a lot of work.  Opening an online store is something I am considering. As a retired art teacher, I sell my pottery as a "hobby with income",  so I am not looking for high volume. I sell my pottery mostly because I truly enjoy working on the potter's wheel.  If I can recover my costs and create a healthy vacation fund I am happy.  I would appreciate opinions on Etsy vs Shopify, or any other online options.

[Callie Beller Diesel]

Online stores aren’t less work than doing festivals or fairs, they’re just a different kind of work. Certainly less physical labour in terms of not having a booth to set up or tear down. But you have to be good at figuring out software, taking images and promoting yourself online somehow. Some people are really good at making social media connections, some people would rather have a root canal than play games with the algorithms.

As far as my personal opinion on Shopify vs Etsy goes, they’re comparing apples to oranges. Etsy is an online marketplace, and Shopify is a website building platform like Squarespace or weebly. You don’t go to Squarespace expecting them to drive traffic to you. But I’m not of the opinion that Etsy does a stellar ob of driving traffic to a given seller, and they change their SEO requirements frequently enough that no one can really make a consistent living off of it. 

Shopify is just focused primarily on e-commerce, and has a bunch of features that let it handle shopping traffic and security built in. If you build your own website on Shopify, you pay them flat fees and you own it as long as you don’t do anything illegal and keep paying them. You’re in control of your own audience, for good or ill. You’re in charge of driving your own traffic, whether through social meda, ads, your email list, SEO or other methods.

If you open an Etsy shop, they also focus on e-commerce and transactions are secure. But ultimately, they own the platform and you are subject to how they want you to run your business. You don’t have to go too far to find the cons of using Etsy. Some of the complaints are from people who aren’t approaching selling there like running a business, but some are quite valid. The way they run their external ads is borderline usury, the requirements for things like top seller badges are unsustainable and the fee structure is unnecessarily complicated. My accountant *hated* their obtuse reporting. But the reason I left was because the traffic they drove to my site didn’t result in any conversions in a 1 year period. The customers who bought were all from my own efforts (social media and newsletter).

 

[neilestrick]

Once long ago Etsy was a good place for people to find your work. Now there's so much stuff on there and so much of it isn't really handmade that it's nearly impossible for your work to be found unless you have a very specific niche that people can search for. If you simply make good work that doesn't have unusual search criteria, it'll just get lost in the mix. A search for 'blue mug' will result in thousands of options. But if you have a blue mug with a mouse on it, then people can find you. Etsy works well as a shopping page that you can direct people to, though. Their interface is pretty easy to use, and everything is secure, but you may need to use social media and other means to direct people there. You'll have to math out what their fees  will cost you vs setting up your own shopping site.

[elaine clapper]

Thanks, some great info to consider.

[Callie Beller Diesel]

It’s worth noting that Etsy selling has never been a way for most users to make a full time living, but many do use it as a supplement or as one of many income streams. Also, don’t follow their advice on pricing your work. Because of how they structure their fees, you’ll have to start with your base price and add all the assorted percentages they charge. Use caution when using their forum for advice on running a business there. Many of the seller communities labour under the (incorrect) assumption that high prices will drive away customers, and that you have to have frequent sales and discounts. None of that is true. Cheap prices draw in deal hunters who will not treat you well. 

[Hyn Patty]

I think you got some great advice already.  I used Etsy heavily for years when it was new but they made so many changes, promoted free shipping and the like, and the fees got so high that I dropped them.  I use my own website on FASO (Fine Art Studio Online) so get you your own website.  Something within your budget that has ready to use templates can save you a lot of misery. 

You can always use places like Etsy, Ebay, or a gazllion other platforms for listing pieces to draw people in but ultimately I think you'll need to use social media as mentioned.  Instagram, Facebook, whatever.  I have almost two thousand followers on FB alone but I don't actually LIKE FB so I also do as much as I can with my website, an email newsletter, a blog, in addition to my art galleries and live events, workshops I host, etc.  It can go on and on but start simple and build a little bit at a time so you don't wear yourself out.  It's taken me years to build the following I have so keep client lists and try to invite your existing followers to your new platforms.  As they say, build your brand and carry it forward!

Good luck with it.  It's a lot of hard work whatever way  you go about it.  And if need be, HIRE somebody to do your website or photography for you.  You can always pay them in some of your work just until things are up and running.  Otherwise you'll have to learn how to do it all yourself like I have.

Edited January 19 by Hyn Patty

[Morgan]

Hard to add to what’s been said but ya apples and oranges.

i personally have both. I prefer Shopify but it is totally on you to drive traffic there, seo, marketing etc. Etsy does this for you (rather poorly)…but as Neil points out it is beyond saturated. If you don’t have tons of sales and tons of reviews it’s almost impossible. I did spend a good chunk on Etsy ads to get a small amount of sales and reviews (think like 300 sales and well over a 100 5 star reviews) so now I just let it ride if something sells on there, great, but I don’t care as my focus is on Shopify site. 

if you do try Etsy spend a ton of time on seo (look at competitors), have great pics, a lot of listings if you can, focus on good titles, tags etc. But again, Etsy is hard now but doable still if your willing to do it well, have a good product and so forth. 
 

In the end if I could have done it all over again I would have probably just focused on good content via social media/instagram/fb and invested time and money on meta ads, google ads and just drove traffic to my Shopify store alone and never bothered with Etsy. 
 

The vast chunk of my sales are from direct in person markets so that helps me not care so much about online sales…but ya if I never had to do another market I would probably die happy.

Edited March 19 by Morgan