Should i use etsy

However, the ones I recommend are fantastic and have all of the features built in. Sure there could be some bugs but that is a tradeoff that you have with owning your own site. When you host your own cart, you can add any feature you want through plugins. There are thousands of people who write plugins for various shopping cart platforms for free. A quick example is with the blog platform wordpress. No one is questioning your decision. Forgot to address your SEO point.

Most people improve the SEO for their site by pointing backlinks directly to products and product categories…So unless you these links point to your domain, all of your backlinking efforts will be for Artfire. Are you spending time building backlinks for your artfire store? You are in essence banking on Artfire for your search engine livelihood. Again, your situation is probably different since you have locked in the flat rate. One last point about open source.

One last note…Just wanted to thank everyone here for contributing to the discussion. It is not a redirect, it is a very cool remote-checkout piece of technology that they have designed themselves. The Rapid Cart offers instant check-out on the spot without redirecting to the AF studio. So, the buyer does not get sent back to ArtFire unless they wish to see more and in that case they can.

You can see my 3 different Rapid Carts on my website here just note — they are currently making some changes to the Rapid Cart to go with the upcoming new look of ArtFire and so this may or may not load for you right now as they will be pulling this code to replace with a brand new code :.

The same thing with the ArtFire Facebook Kiosk. Most people fail to understand this because they are the only company like this on the net at this point. Hi Nathalie. Rapid cart is just a piece object code that you can embed in your site. Everything is hosted on Artfire. Nathalie One more thing, as long we are having a technical discussion, the fact that Rapid cart utilizes a popup window means that users that have javascript popups blocked using Adblock or other browser plugins will not be able to shop properly.

So far the discussion has been about price and implementation. Can Artfire do the following? Flexible coupons and promotions. Can you do percent discount, fixed discounts, buy 1 get one free. Can you use custom variables with Google Analytics in order to track everything that you want? Full Analytics integration using custom vars via javascript. Can you track abandoned shopping carts and automatically send emails to try and recover lost sales?

Can you have separate logins for people who work for you with varying levels of access for when you have a staff? Can you offer different shipping options? Can you get creative with your shipping methods? Free shipping if you purchase Item X. I owned an ebay store once. I tried to set up my own but got almost no sales because ebay was regarded as more credibly, reliable and so on. I have a WordPress blog. With the plugins they have you can do pretty much anything you want on a website. You do need to pay for hosting with someone else though, so you need to shop around for prices the differences for the same thing can be extraordinary.

I totally agree with Evan, credibility is everything. Having the weight of a venue behind me is a big bonus and probably a deciding factor in buyer confidence. The real beauty is having two different outlets for your product and marketing to two different demographics. I have a stand alone website that I use as a gallery site for galleries and boutiques, and my ArtFire studio.

Since my jewelry trends to higher price tags, I find this to be a good solution for someone like me. ANSWER from Nathalie : Yes, you can set discount codes to kick in only after a certain threshold has been reached in terms of dollar amount, not in terms of quantity, but basically, it would cover both since the higher the quantity, the higher the total for the invoice and then code would kick in.

The system is quite versatile, so you can set up many different scenarios. You can select to have your discount codes visible to the public or not, so you can simply keep a discount code as invisible, and only your special customers know about it and can use it when they shop with you — without anyone else knowing about it. Not sure if this is something they will ever do.

But even on my own website, I do not have that. I use Mailchimp which is free and quite versatile. No need to reinvent the wheel. I would rather see the ArtFire staff work on things that I cannot find so easily anywhere else. Steve asks: 6. ArtFire does have GA access, and we also get internal ArtFire stats and incoming URLs, where you can see keywords used by shoppers to find you and where they came in from, etc.

You can select a number of things to export, which in turn could be imported into Quickbooks or other accounting software. Steve asks: 8. ArtFire is launching a brand new shopping cart within the next week or so along with the new site design, etc, and that new cart takes care of non-paying buyers aka NPBs.

I would suggest that you ask that question to ArtFire yourself for this type of more technical aspect. They have info posted on their blog here:. ANSWER from Nathalie : We have 10 images per listing, that is more than enough to show close-up views while keeping the page loading time as fast as possible.

Zooming in on pictures means loading larger images which in turn take longer to load on a page, and you know very well that Google is all about speed, speed, speed. There is nothing we cannot show on 10 images using close up angles, compared to klunky time-consuming loading of large images with zoom capability.

Steve asks: That could be something that they can add at some point. LOL …. For your last question 11 , you can create a free shipping code that applies to one type of item one category, like all necklaces, or all rings, or all bracelets , or specifically selected items you pick them and they go on a special list and the free shipping or discount code applies only to those items that have been selected by the seller.

You can limit the use for a period of time expiry date , you can limit the use to one coupon per person, you can limit the use by a total number of uses like times and then the coupon is no longer valid, for example …. I could never have that much flexibility on my own website — I certainly do not have the coding genius in my brain to set that up…. Nathalie Well answered!

All of the features mentioned above come standard with many open source carts. Do you per chance work there? Steve, I subscribe to your newsletter. We are all Artfire Mavens and they came here because of my post about this topic in the Maven forum area.

Hey Jim Just wanted to thank you so much for doing this as it has been a fun discussion. Artfire seems like a great service and good luck to you all! Interesting article. I have shops on both Etsy and Artfire. That rate was open to everyone who chose to sign up during that promotion. You have quite a few misconceptions about Artfire.

I can honestly say that Artfire is an amazing venue, far and above the features offered at Etsy at a much lower price. They offer much more customization than the look of Etsy. The difference between Artfire and Etsy employees is night and day. At Etsy, you are subject to the whims of the admin. There is no customer service at all. I did not post my Etsy or Artfire site because I fear retaliation from Etsy, that speaks volumes.

That is a good reason to open your own website and not be concerned about what a venue will do. But to lump Artfire and Etsy together is ridiculous. I sell on both, I have successful sales on both, they are nothing alike. And by the way, I do make my living from my art. It can be done. Yes, we are passionate… as much as the ArtFire team is. They do care and they do love what they do. They are serious business people and they are creating this hybrid space where no one has ever gone before.

You know, when people start selling what they make online, the vast majority does not realize what it takes to do this. Things change quickly online even truer these days compared to just 5 years ago. By the time we create our goods, and wear all the hats as all micro-entrepreneurs do , there is no way we can keep up on all that is going on when it comes to selling online. But for setting up and selling online quickly without needing any knowledge what-so-ever, ArtFire is by far the most educational and well thought out hybrid webhost.

We are all strong supporters of Artfire. Shop owners had their real names published without their permission. Apparently, they learned nothing from the fiasco 6 months earlier. They still are. In all three events, they cancelled, banned and booted shop owners that were outraged enough to speak up about it. Members have become afraid to voice their opinion on the forums as shops are often closed at the whim of admin, presumably between their taking turns videoing each other dancing and playing with plushy toys.

Speaking of plushy toys. You cannot call Etsy. They have a plushy phone booth photo on their blog. Customer service must be handled through the proper channels. Email again. Complain in the forum. Get told in said forum that you cannot discuss email with Etsy admin, even if you have never received any.

So Steve, I absolutely agree with the title of your post. Etsy stores are at a disadvantage. As for the rest of the title, the closest you will come to having your own domain is having a studio on ArtFire. Roxi Yes, I had heard about these fiascos being alluded to on the forums but not in so much detail.

Perhaps people are deathly afraid of getting banned so there is very little mention about this. I also agree with your last statement about Artfire, but services like BigCommerce will handle all of the store backend and front end stuff for you AND allow you to have your own domain and own all of your URLs.

However, the service does cost more at 25 a month. Right now Artfire is a great deal but I suspect that that will have to change later. When I subscribed to this discussion I had no idea what to expect! A few disclaimers before I wade back in. I do not work for any of the sites listed. I AM a hobbyist crafter who has friends that make a living selling handcrafted items.

I make my living helping solopreneurs and micro businesses understand finances, grow their profits and laugh. I agree Etsy has basically turned into EBay with a thin veneer of handcrafted to fool the unsuspecting. However Etsy started out with a very different mission, one that appears to be similar to ArtFire.

I think most posters here would agree that Etsy is a prime example of that. Unfortunately unless you own the majority shares of the company in question it can happen to any company. The current owners may want to move on, their investors start demanding more, the current owners need more capital and give up majority stake… I could go on all night. The message I took away from the original discussion was twofold.

I would add even if that basket is your own site. Diversifying sales channels is as important as diversifying a stock portfolio. Second understand the risks you are taking while leveraging the benefits. As long as a venue is truly profitable for you, keep using. But be ready in case you have the carpet pulled out from under you.

When I shop at Ebay or Etsy, I never know what to expect. Agree about your statement about diversification. Most larger shops have presences on Amazon, and Ebay in addition to their main site. I have 3 studios there in addition to my own website too. I am learning to keep my site updated myself, but it is tons easier to list my items to sell in my ArtFire studios.

I have dealt with site outages for my main website that have been very frustrating. With my son deployed in Iraq this year, one outage lasted for days because he was not able to access things to do the fix. I have learned SO much about writing my descriptions and whatever else I need to do to get products ranking high on search engines from the tutorials available, and forums with seller workshops where I can get personal guidance and critiques if I want them.

Most of my sales have come from off site searches and non registered customers. It has been much easier to get sales through my ArtFire studios than from my own website, so I am now using my own site more to keep information about my teaching and lecturing, and have links to my ArtFire studios for my sales. Just another happy ArtFire seller…. Sue Patchtique Your statements are actually what I expected to hear about when I first write this article. The reason those sites are hard to maintain is because you have to manage your server in addition to your site and that is not for everyone.

With Bigcommerce, you can always issue redirects from all of your pages to your new site and transition to a different platform if necessary. Steve, interesting discussion. I used to sell on Etsy, Artfire and Zibbet all temporarily closed due to fire and death.

But I think many of us are a bit hesitant to take on the responsibility because we fear we might muck it up despite your assurances to the contrary. I hope that everything turns out well and that you will be up and running soon enough.

Very interesting discussions. I do understand that having your own website is the only way to completely control your own online presence.

However, many, if not most of us are more interested in just making our stuff, not worrying about website building. Also, there is the issue of trying to build any kind of SEO presence online when you are brand new. Etsy and eBay are household names and generate huge amounts of built in traffic for newcomers. Artfire provides education that can be used down the road when and if you decide to become completely independent.

In the meantime, every seller should purchase their own domain name and then forward it to whatever venue they are using. Then at least, if that venue stops working for you, with one click you can forward the domain to another venue. For me ArtFire has been hundreds of times more successful in terms of profit than my stand alone website.

Oddly, Etsy was the exact reverse. I made a LOT of sales but very little actually ended up in my pocket. I thought your article was great, and wow! I just wanted to let you know that all Artfire studios now have a new look and a new shopping cart.

If you go to any Artfire studio you will see the new look. Artfire sellers can now accept ProPay, but there is a fee for any seller that wants to offer ProPay as a payment option that will have to be paid by the seller. For some reason Etsy seems more like a community, more focused on presenting the kinds of things I am looking for, easier to communicate with the sellers, seems to have more friendly and approachable sellers, and is easier for me to find them by searching and browsing.

Every business should have a well designed website today in order for them to compete with other online businesses. Driving more people to visit your site will definitely make you earn more money. I agree with you that having your own site is definitely the way to go long-term. Overall, someone mentioned above that I totally agree with, i. Having your own site plus utilizing the different platforms Amazon, Ebay, etsy, artfire would be a balanced approach that could get your sales sail through….

There are advantages and disadvantages to using an established selling platform. I feel that you will do better financially having your own site if you have the resources and ability to advertise your site and drive a suitable amount of targeted traffic to your site.

If any of the above is a problem for you I suggest you stick with the already established selling platform or you will fail miserably. Just my opinion, of coarse. I just registered my domain name and am searching for a free website shop template to open my own website with, and minimal monthly fees.

I just located another one that seems as though it will upload all my date from etsy into a free webshop template called makerspot. Leanna Richmond, my advice would be to not have duplicate content on your own website. If you have the same content on your website as your Etsy shop your website products will probably not show up on Google.

If your website is not found within the first two or maybe first three pages of the search engines nobody will ever visit your website unless you spend a lot of time and effort marketing your website. Not only will you find lots of helpful tips here, but becoming a frequent commenter will raise your profile in the community, driving fellow sellers to your page and upping your visibility. As you connect with other sellers, you may find excellent ways to co-market, like joining or making a treasury or Pinterest group in which products are curated for a feature.

Tips for eCommerce Sites Value usability over design. It should be easy to add products into your cart, and users should trust the security of their financial details when going to payment.

The fewer clicks required to buy, the better. Last but not least, build in automated upselling with related or complementary products.

Build your site around sales and marketing. Give every product on your site an alluring and keyword-rich description, for both sales and SEO purposes. Create a content strategy as well, using a blog with articles you can share across the web. Be clear on your policies. Will you take returns? How long will it take to ship each product, and how much must the buyer pay of those costs? The Takeaway Whether you decide to work just on Etsy or on an eCommerce platform as well, there are many paths to entrepreneurial success in the craft world.

Brittany Klontz. Starting or Growing a Business? Check out these Offerings. Liked this article? Try these:. The more you detail about your store, your purpose of business, your uniqueness in the process of making, and your talent, the more traffic and conversions you get.

Etsy lets you create a very personalized storefront. It is so easy to set up a store on Etsy. Explore what you can sell on Etsy to become a brand. It becomes more hectic when you have your independent store to manage. If you are also selling on other marketplaces, too, like eBay, Amazon, and Walmart.

The listings details on Etsy are usually more lengthy; it asks you to fill up every single aspect of the product. If you are a full-fledged seller managing all of your stores, building a brand and storefront on Etsy will eat much of your time.

Above is a bestseller in Jewelry Category MignonandMignon, you can see how patiently she has curated her store about and policies. You are sure to reach out to the niche customer base because all Etsy deals are Art, Handcrafted, and Vintage products.

You can try integrating your Etsy store to your independent store; this will help you manage the cumbersome task of selling. Moreover, based on a particular factor, it compares your listings among the listings of your product category. It then chooses the best one to pop up on the first page when the buyer searches for a query.

If you master the game of Etsy SEO and get all your Etsy listings right with optimum keywords and relevancy, you can get the first place.

As soon as the buyer makes a search, Etsy processes it on two factors — Query Matching and Ranking. Most of the sellers who have left Etsy are stating that they have been unhappy with the frequent changes in the SEO algorithm of Etsy. If not keyword optimizing your listing components like Title, Description, Shop About section. You are likely to suffer, and your listings will not show up in the search results.

If you want to build your brand, you will mention your website and other social media platforms; where people will reach you and see your creations that are not available on Etsy.

Now that you have collected some ideas about how good the Etsy Marketplace can be for your online creative storefront; Checkout the video to get a review on all discussed above. Totally empathizing with all the sellers who have left Etsy for the reasons mentioned above.

You can decide, as Etsy always keeps evolving to be a better platform for both sellers and buyers. Still pacing toward the most popular marketplace of the world. If you have something unique to offer, and you want to come up with a brand out of your creativity. Etsy is definitely worth your try and time.

Update your shop with products regularly. Uploading new products never lets Etsy forget you. You will always be in the eyes of the random browsers, gaining a fair chance to grab their attention.

You are going to become an Etsy seller, or most probably have already set your shop on Etsy. You are not earning any penny, which means you are slightly losing it. You need to make your own decisions and make them quick. Keeping notes of all these points and plan ahead of your competitors to boost your sales. You will find yourself is Etsy reliable or not. Tired of reading and researching?

Treat yourself with this informative Podcast answering Why should you care about Etsy! Listen Now! You can sell your creations on Etsy and generate backup earnings, while your site flourishes on Shopify. We have all that you need to create your own Shopify store. Visit our site and check out more. Someone will always offer a similar product cheaper than you. Depending on the quality of that lesser-priced item it can devalue your business and can certainly slow sales. No listing alerts for items selling out — occasionally there are businesses who sell multiple items within a listing.

An example could be a short run of screen-printed t-shirts. Again Etsy may address this in one of their more premium seller subscription packages going forward. Occasionally I think this can mean that potential customers click away empty handed.

Slaves to the Etsy search algorithm — Etsy has a duty to their customers to provide the best way to find products and so occasionally this means that the algorithm the mathematical system they create to predict better matches for you in your searches can change.

As a customer this is often a wonderful change, because it does deliver easy to find relevant search results for products I want to buy. For the seller however, this means learning a new way to set up the SEO usually of their listings to maximise their chances at being picked as a relevant listing when a customer searches for their products.

I think it can also feel deflating to a start-up struggling to get their first sales. Negative feedback plague — This is one of the greatest sticking points I and my coaching clients have with using selling platforms like; Etsy, eBay, Amazon… the negative feedback plague.

There are unfortunately a few out there who do go around giving far less in terms of ratings than they should. I generally find that this kind of thing only happens on sales platforms. I have literally not come across it on my own website and neither have my coaching clients. When you start out my best advice is to start somewhere where you feel you can comfortably set up your shop in a way that is both easy for you to use and for your customers to buy from.

A successful start-up will require work on your product, understanding your customer and how to market to them, as well as having the right ecommerce platform to facilitate sales. Choosing an Etsy shop over a website, or vice versa in itself does not lead to a successful business start-up. How to sell on Etsy with an awesome product listing. Any purchases made via this link make a small donation to the running of this blog.

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