- If you've clicked on this video,
you're probably about so start a start a handmade business
and you're trying to decide if you wanna sell on Etsy
or have your own website, or possibly both.
And you're probably finding a million blogs
and a million videos out there on YouTube
that are telling you the X reasons
why you should never use Shopify and sell on Etsy instead,
or the X reasons why Etsy sucks and you should sell
on your own website instead.
And look, I hate this type of advice,
because it's very black and white.
Often, it's serving the interests of the person
who's creating the content
because they are selling you a service or programme
or course that has to do with the platform
that they are telling you to use.
And so it's not really serving you in understanding
what could be best for your business.
My approach is to show you
that there's no one size fits all,
that you can be extremely successful on Etsy
and you can also be extremely successful
on your own website.
It's more about finding the best fit.
So this week,
I made a video that is going to help you decide
what is the best selling venue to use for your business.
We're going to go through four selling scenarios,
help you find the one that best matches your business
and goals, then talk about which selling venue
can work best for that specific situation.
Ready? Let's dive in.
(percussion upbeat music)
Bonjour, my name is Deb and I am the founder of Tizzit.co,
a membership community for makers and handmade shop owners,
just like your very fabulous self.
You can learn more about our community, Tizzit HQ,
via the link below this video,
but for now let's jump straight into today's conversation,
"Should You Sell on Etsy or Your Own Website?"
Before we talk about our four scenarios,
I want to be sure that you understand
that you can be successful on whatever platform you choose
if that platform is a good match for your business goals.
What I honestly see every day with the makers
I work with inside Tizzit HQ is that there's no rule
for choosing the best selling platform,
you can make any of them work, it's all about finding
what's going to be right for you in your specific situation.
I also want you to know
that I won't be talking about selling platform pros and cons
in this video because I already have
an Etsy pros and cons video that I'll link to below for you
to watch next, it takes a close look at all the great things
about Etsy and all the not so great things about Etsy,
which is very valuable and helpful information
you will want to have before making your decision.
What I want to do in this video
is actually run you through the four selling scenarios
that you may be evaluating.
Selling on Etsy only.
Selling on Etsy now, building your own website later,
selling on Etsy and on your own website from the get-go,
and having only your own website and no Etsy.
And for each, why it could be a good fit for your business,
and why it might not be a good fit.
You can look at each scenario and decide for you
which selling scenario is going to be the best match
and be the most successful for your business.
Now on to our selling scenarios.
The first one is selling on Etsy only.
Selling on Etsy only is a great option for you
if you are totally tech-averse and pretty much
want to avoid any technical setup tasks
or having to deal with technical site issues.
If you are one of those people
where building your own website
would pretty much prevent you
from even starting your business,
because that's just not something that you're willing to do
or learn to do, then Etsy is a good fit for you.
Etsy is also a good option
if you're looking for a way to get set up quickly
and don't want to worry about ongoing site maintenance,
figuring out how to take payments safely, and all of that.
One of the best things about Etsy
is that they take care of all of this for you,
you can just sit back and focus on your business.
Having Etsy take care of everything
is a two-sided coin however, so you need to make sure
that you're okay with having all your eggs in one basket.
What I mean by that is that you have to make sure
that you're okay with Etsy calling the shots.
If you're only going to be selling on Etsy,
you have to understand that it is their business
and they get to do whatever they want.
And so you have to accept they might add some elements
to the terms and conditions
that you might need to adapt to, things like that.
This is not necessarily a problem,
it's just something that you need to be okay with
if Etsy is going to be a good fit for you.
If you are okay having all your eggs in one basket,
it's a good idea to compensate for this fact
by not having all your marketing eggs
in one basket and not just relying on Etsy SEO.
This means that you don't want to only rely on the traffic
that they send you from Etsy SEO and Etsy search traffic.
You should be willing to drive your own traffic
to the platform using social media
or Pinterest or other external sources of traffic.
If you're willing to do that and not just rely on Etsy SEO,
then this selling platform could be very successful for you.
If you're considering selling on Etsy,
you will definitely want to go and watch
the pros and cons of Etsy video after you watch this one,
there are a lot of reasons it can be a great choice.
Now, there are also very important reasons
that you may not want to sell on Etsy.
First, you may not want to sell on Etsy exclusively
if this Etsy shop would be your main income,
or the main source of income for your household.
That's only my opinion, but the reason I say that
is because, again, Etsy can change things,
they can close shops and change rules and fees.
And we don't want you to have to take that risk
if it represents 100% of your income,
or if you want it to become 100% of your income.
Now some people are less risk averse than others,
and if you're happy with taking that risk, then go for it.
But generally speaking, if you want this business of yours
to become the main source of income for you,
for your family, selling exclusively on Etsy
might be a little risky because you want to have
a bit more control over that income.
The next reason you might not want to sell on Etsy
is that your products aren't a good match.
You may do some research and find that your products
are not necessarily a fit for the Etsy platform,
or that the Etsy competitors in the niche
that you want to sell in are massively underpriced.
An example of your products not being a fit
would be if you sell very, very high end
or very customizable products.
These just won't work as well on a platform like Etsy,
they often require your own website to be presented properly
to your customers with absolute control over the brand
and the customer experience.
I also want to talk about another situation
you might encounter where you find massive underpricing
in your niche on Etsy.
There are always people underpricing in every niche on Etsy,
sadly, but there should also be people
who are competing at the right price,
at the price that you want to charge
so that you can actually make a profit.
If you do the research, and you realise
that everyone is selling something for five dollars,
when you're like, I can't possibly sell this
for less than 30, it's going to be hard to make Etsy work.
And in a case like that, it may be worth considering
another platform or your own website
where your customers won't be influenced
by the other prices that they see,
because you don't want to be part of this race
to the lowest price.
Moving along, the third reason not to sell on Etsy
is if there's any chance that you might go
against Etsy's terms and conditions.
Obviously, you should always respect
the terms and conditions when you sell on Etsy.
You wanna be 100% Etsy suitable
if you're only going to use platform.
I'm not talking about things like copyrights
and using Disney characters and stuff like that,
because of course that's not okay
and you should never do that.
What I'm talking about is that your products
fall within Etsy's terms and conditions,
as in the product, the design is handmade by you,
you don't sell any of the items on their prohibited list.
And if there's anything that you sell
that could conflict with the terms
then definitely consider selling
on your own website instead.
Next, you need to look up all the specifics for your country
things like fees, requirements, and payment integrations,
and determine if they work for you.
You don't wanna get caught off guard
after setting up your Etsy business
and find out it doesn't work for your country or currency
or makes shipping or receiving payments difficult.
And then finally, take into consideration
if you are selling locally or nationally.
If you live in a small country
that doesn't have many people shopping on Etsy,
and you're not interested in selling internationally,
then Etsy isn't a good strategic fit for your business.
Keep in mind that Etsy has a lot of customers
everywhere in the world, but there are also some countries
where Etsy isn't big yet, and people don't really know Etsy,
so they wouldn't necessarily come to Etsy
to shop for your products.
Obviously, it's going to be a lot harder for you
to make the most out of it in that case
and you might be better off using a local
or national marketplace
based in your own country or building your own website
if that's the case.
Next, let's talk about selling scenario number two,
sell on Etsy first then get your own website.
I see a lot of people that decide to start on Etsy
and then further down the track
they have a plan to eventually get their own website.
And as with everything, this can be good or bad decision
depending on your reasons for doing it.
It's good if you want a quick way to set up
and test out products and ideas,
without necessarily committing straight away to a website,
which is time commitment
and a bit of a money investment as well.
Selling on Etsy first can also give you a confidence boost.
It allows you to get set up quickly
and see if you even like running a handmade business,
see if people are buying your products
and experimenting with different products,
and essentially kind of dip your toes in
to see if it feels good before you commit to a website.
Now there are also reasons people open an Etsy shop first
that aren't so good.
The first reason is if you are opening an Etsy shop
because you want quick results
and you think it will be easy and fast.
I sometimes see makers thinking
they're going to get a quick start on Etsy
so they get sales to start coming in,
and then they plan to make their own website.
And sure, of course, you can get sales fast on Etsy,
but that's not guaranteed.
You still have to do the work. (laughs)
You still have to do your Etsy SEO and your marketing.
So if you expect Etsy to be easy and fast
in order to make sales, it may lead to disappointment
because you'll still need to do marketing
as much as if you're working on your own website.
So what you skip by using Etsy is the setup and the tech,
not the marketing, you still need to get your business
off the ground marketing-wise.
I also wouldn't recommend setting up an Etsy shop
if your long term vision is to only sell on your website.
If you're committed to making your handmade business
succeed long term from the start,
as in this isn't an experiment but a long-term career choice
and your goal is to sell on your own website,
then start there and go straight
to what you want in the end.
Because if that's the case then starting on Etsy first
is essentially just a chunk of time and effort
that you're going to spend getting it up and working
instead of putting that time and effort
into your long term goal of a website.
I'm saying this because I want to make sure
that you don't feel like you have to start on Etsy first,
you definitely can skip Etsy
and instead get working on your own website straight away.
Next, let's talk about our third scenario,
you want to sell on Etsy
and have your own website right from the start.
This is a good strategy if you plan to consider Etsy
as an income stream inside of your business,
but you don't see it as the main part of your business.
So essentially, if your main goal is to grow your website,
and your sales and revenue on your website,
but you're happy to maintain an Etsy store on the side,
then this is a good plan.
What works really well in this case
is that you will have your products on Etsy
but you won't drive your own traffic to Etsy.
You're not going to use social media, Pinterest,
and all this stuff to drive people to Etsy,
you're just going to let Etsy SEO
bring your Etsy customers to your shop.
It's almost like Etsy becomes a marketing source
to help you get customers that might be on Etsy
to buy from you.
And then once they know that you exist,
they might start going to your website after that.
So you will let Etsy SEO find Etsy customers,
and you will focus your marketing time and efforts
on social media and Pinterest and all of that,
to send traffic to your own website instead.
Selling on Etsy and your own website
is not a good plan though if you have very limited time.
Let's face it, it will take a fair amount of your time
to run those two platforms from the start,
especially if you have limited experience.
And I just want to be honest,
you don't want to undertake both at once
if you don't have the time to do it
because it can be a lot of work.
It's also not a good idea
if you plan to do what I call double marketing.
What I mean by this is if you want to use social media
for your Etsy shop and also send people
from social media to your own website as well.
Not only is this a lot of work
but it can often be counterproductive.
It's just better to do what I was saying before,
which is if you're going to start with both
at the same time, put all your effort
to grow in your website, because you own it.
And then just use Etsy SEO for Etsy marketing,
and consider Etsy as a little add-on essentially
to your website.
And now on to our final selling scenario,
selling on your own website only.
This is a good option if having your own website
is your long term goal.
If you know this is what you want,
then by all means this is a good option for you
and you should dive in.
There's no reason for you to do a detour via Etsy,
just work on your website straight away.
You will have to bring in your own traffic,
either organically or with paid ads,
so you need to be willing to put your time and effort
into creating your site
and into marketing it to find that traffic.
Having your own website is also a good option
if your brand or your positioning demands it.
This is related to what I was saying
just before about the product fit.
Sometimes your product is not going to be a fit for Etsy,
maybe you are selling super high-end luxury products
that won't stand out
in the price-competitive Etsy marketplace
or that needs to be presented visually in a certain way
that only a custom layout ad website design will allow for.
Creating your own website is also the way to go
if you want to be in complete control
of your brand and your shop.
As I said above, if you sell on Etsy you need to be okay
with Etsy making the rules and calling the shots.
If you prefer to have control
and you don't want to be constrained by Etsy's rules,
having your own website will be a much better fit for you
and your business.
That said, there are also reasons you should pause
and reconsider having your own website.
First, and most obvious, is if you are tech-averse.
Setting up and running your own website
does requires you to step into the technical side of things.
And so if you don't like figuring things out,
like payment systems or page layouts,
having a website may not be for you.
The second reason to reconsider having your own website
is if you aren't committed long-term.
Setting up successful website takes time and a bit of money.
If you aren't sure you are in this for the long haul,
you may want to consider setting up a shop on Etsy first
as a trial to see if you enjoy being a handmade seller
and if your products are successful,
like we talked about just before in scenario two.
Remember, it will take time for your marketing
to be effective and drive traffic to your website,
so you have to be willing to one,
put the work in to create the website
and two, put in the marketing effort long enough for it
to pay off and start generating traffic and customers.
If you aren't ready to invest that time
then a website
may not be the right choice for you right now.
The next video you will want to watch
to help you with this decision
is all about the pros and cons of selling on Etsy,
and it's showing on your screen right now next to my face.
Give it a click and you can learn even more about Etsy
and if it's the right selling platform
for your wonderful handmade business.
Thanks for watching, make sure to check the links
below this video, and until next time, aurevoir.