Selling on Etsy – Is it worth it?

As a creative, you’d probably prefer to spend more time on your craft than marketing your goods and services. The prospect of having to manage your own eCommerce website may be even less appealing.

If you are just starting out in business, selling on Etsy is an attractive option compared to the costs of building and running your own eCommerce site.

Easy setup

It’s easy to set up a shop on Etsy and keep costs low. Etsy also makes it easy to add and edit listings and update your shop. With its large, established following, using the right keywords, you can set up a shop and have potential customers browsing your wares instantly.

Etsy is a great place to evaluate your product before investing more time and resources into a website. When it comes to starting a handmade shop there is so much to learn and to do. If you are selling on Etsy, you can start earning money and get to know your clients before you add more to your plate.

Downsides to Etsy

I mentioned at the beginning that you would probably prefer to work on your craft than get your hands dirty with marketing. Well, sorry to say, you will have to learn how to market your products.

You see, despite Etsy’s built-in customer base, there are hundreds of sellers competing with each other for each product. Customers are loyal to Etsy, not to you. So, unless your product has a unique selling point that is instantly apparent, you will need to market your goods to drive people to your Etsy shop.

Etsy doesn’t allow for branding, so it’s difficult to set your shop apart from other sellers making it hard for shoppers to get to know you and your brand. If they don’t recognise your brand, how can you establish brand loyalty?

Marketing is important

This is where social media marketing comes in. If you still don’t want to run your own website, you will need to have at least one social media platform where you can establish your brand, build customer loyalty and drive sales back to your Etsy shop.

Etsy doesn’t provide for the capturing of customer email addresses so you can’t build an email list and keep in touch with your customers. You can do this through social media though. You don’t have to spend all day on social media either. Half an hour each day, posting your listings and responding to queries can help drive engagement.

Once you get the hang of it, you might discover that it’s just as easy to drive customers to your own eCommerce site where you aren’t competing with others.