Anyone else selling on Etsy?

[Wasteland Pottery]

Hi there, I’m new on the forum. I have two links  I would love to share, one for my Solo Exhibition for the Ottawa Guild of Potters, and the second for my Etsy Shop, where I am just starting back after 2 year reprieve as I was doing my BFA at UOttawa. 

https://ottawaguildofpotters.ca/events/celebrating-clay/

I am curious is there are any other sellers here on Etsy and how you find the experience overall?

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing and for your support! 🍄 
 

Edited Saturday at 04:51 PM by Callie Beller Diesel
Etsy shop link removed per TOU

[Callie Beller Diesel]

Hi and welcome!

Appologies; I had to remove your shop link per our TOU. But if you’d like to discuss the value of using Etsy as a marketing platform, we’re happy to help!

I’ve gone back and forth over Etsy over the years, and while I think that there’s some specific use cases where it works, today I would say that you’re better off putting most of their seller’s handbook advice into your own website. (Ignore the stuff about sales and discounts).  You’ll own your digital assets that way, and not be beholden to someone else’s TOS/TOU’s, banking snafu’s or funds reserve holds. 

Personally, I got off Etsy before the pandemic. I’d done some data analysis, and it turned out that all the traffic I got there that resulted in actual conversions was coming from my instagram or my newsletter. At the time they didn’t clearly delineate their fees and Canadian taxes and they started charging a percent on shipping fees charged tot he customer. I figured if I was the only one who was providing paying customers to my page, I might as well direct my audience to my website and save my accountant some quarterly frustrations. 

If you are comfortable and fast with Etsy’s SEO and are getting conversions, not just views, and if you can afford to have 30% of your sales held if a customer cancels an order, it can be a nice small income stream. But the audience on Etsy may not be the same one that will pay 80% of your bills, and can be high maintenance in many people’s experience.