Hi all, it’s Matt here again from Style Factory — the go-to site for ecommerce reviews,
comparisons and advice.
In this Shopify vs Etsy comparison, I’m going to walk you through the key pros and
cons of starting an online store on these hugely popular platforms.
So stay tuned till the end of this video to find out which of these two options is best
for your project.
Let’s begin with a look at the key difference between Shopify and Etsy.
Shopify and Etsy are huge players in the ecommerce world.
But although both services can put your products in front of a large audience, they are very
different tools.
Shopify is a tool that lets you create your own online store.
By contrast, Etsy IS an online store — and a very big one at that, with around 100 million
customers each year.
When you sell on Shopify, it’s like renting a space in which to set up your own shop.
But using Etsy is more like selling your goods in a big supermarket.
With Shopify, you’ll have more work to do to set things up the way you want — and
to find customers.
However, you’ll have total control over every aspect of your online store — you
can decide how your brand is presented; what your storefront looks like; how you advertise
products; how you capture data; and the way you sell your products.
With Etsy, the customer base is already there — but so is your competition.
To continue with the supermarket comparison, having a storefront on Etsy is like having
some shelf space in a supermarket aisle.
Lots of people will walk past it, but will they reach out for one of your products — or
choose one from the shelf above?
Now, both ways of selling come with advantages and disadvantages, and in the rest of this
Shopify vs Etsy comparison video, I’m going to spell the key ones out for you.
But before I do, I’d like to invite you to like this video, click subscribe and hit
the notifications bell.
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Ok, so let’s take a look at the key reasons to use Shopify over Etsy.
One — Shopify is a better option for merchants who need a sophisticated, standalone store.
When you sell on the Etsy marketplace, you are limited in terms of how you can present
your business.
Although a few basic customizations are possible, you won’t be able to create much of a bespoke
shopping experience using the platform.
But Shopify gives you a LOT of control over your brand and user experience.
A wide range of templates is available, and these can be extensively edited to match your
branding.
Now, it should be pointed out that Etsy does actually provide a tool for creating a standalone
store too.
It’s called ‘Pattern by Etsy’ and it does give you more control over your brand
and user experience.
However, by comparison to Shopify, its feature set is very limited — Shopify gives you
much more sophisticated tools for selling online, including advanced multilingual and
multi-currency features, email marketing tools, abandoned cart saving and more.
Two — Shopify lets you sell anything.
Etsy is very restrictive when it comes to the products you can list in its marketplace
— you can only sell handmade items, vintage goods or craft supplies.
By contrast, Shopify lets you sell pretty much anything — so long as it’s legal
to do so.
Three — Shopify is better for dropshipping.
Dropshipping is a way of selling goods where you don’t make, store or fulfill any products.
You just take an order via your online store, send it to a supplier, and they deliver the
goods to your customer.
Although you can technically dropship with either Shopify or Etsy, Shopify is a much
better solution for this type of online selling — and in many ways has been designed with
it in mind.
With Shopify, you can connect your store easily to a huge number of dropshipping apps and
suppliers.
But the options for dropshipping are fairly limited on Etsy — you can use print-on-demand
apps like Printify or Printful in conjunction with Esty, but that’s about it.
Four — transaction fees are lower with Shopify.
Transaction fees are considerably lower with Shopify than Etsy — and you can avoid them
entirely if you use Shopify’s built-in payment processor, Shopify Payments.
If you don’t use Shopify Payments, Shopify will charge you a transaction fee on each
sale of between 2.4% and 2.9%.
This still compares very positively with the Etsy transaction fee, which at 6.5% is over
double the Shopify rates.
Five — Shopify is better for point of sale applications.
Point of Sale features let you sell goods not just online, but in physical locations
too — for example retail outlets, market stalls and at events.
Shopify is a market leader when it comes to Point of Sale, giving you the hardware and
software to make selling in physical locations extremely easy — and all while keeping your
offline and online sales data perfectly in sync.
Although an integration with Square does let you use Etsy in some point of sale contexts,
this is restricted to certain countries, and you don’t get access to the wide range of
selling hardware that Shopify provides.
So, those are our key reasons to sell on Shopify rather than Etsy.
Now, let’s take a look at the reasons why Etsy can be a better choice.
One — Etsy gives you a ready-made customer base.
If you’re looking for a ready-made customer base, Etsy is the winner in a Shopify vs Etsy
shootout.
Because it has over 95 million customers, having a storefront on Etsy technically puts
your goods in front of a large audience right away.
That’s not to say that you will immediately get a rush of customers the minute you start
selling on Etsy — but your products will be immediately available on a very popular
online marketplace.
But when you set up a Shopify store, you’ll need to build your own customer base.
Because of this you’ll need to put a lot of effort into SEO, content marketing, online
advertising and online PR in order for a Shopify store to start gaining visibility and customers.
This can be expensive and time consuming.
Two — with Etsy, you don’t have to worry about web design.
When you sell on Etsy, it’s just a case of listing your products on an existing online
marketplace.
With Shopify however, you’re building a website.
So, you’ll have to become comfortable with web design tasks like customizing themes,
writing search-friendly content,creating web pages, and mapping domains.
This means that you’ll encounter a bit of a learning curve from Shopify that arguably
isn’t there on Etsy.
Three — Etsy’s audience is great for selling handmade, vintage and craft items to.
If you are aiming to sell handmade, vintage or craft-related items, then Etsy can be a
great platform for you.
It’s a well-known and popular destination for people who want to buy these sorts of
products, so if you’re selling them, it’s a fantastic source of visitors with a ‘ready
to buy’ mentality.
Four — Etsy gives you more SEO opportunities A key thing to note about Etsy stores is that
— unlike those created with Shopify — they present merchants with two search engine optimization
opportunities.
You can optimize your Etsy store for Google, but also for Etsy’s own search engine.
This means that technically, an Etsy store gives you more ‘search audiences’ than
a Shopify one, and a larger pool of potential customers.
Five — there’s no monthly fees to worry about with Etsy.
Unless you’re using Etsy’s ‘Pattern’ product to sell products online, there’s
no monthly fees to worry about — you only get charged a fee by Etsy when you sell a
product.
By contrast, all Shopify plans involve monthly fees, and if you need to use one of its more
advanced plans, these can be quite considerable.
So, those are the main advantages that we think Etsy has over Shopify.
To sum things up, we’d argue that the main advantage of Shopify over Etsy is the high
level of control you get over your brand and your business.
The main advantage of Etsy is the ready-made market it gives you — a market that will
be particularly useful to you if you sell vintage, handmade or craft items.
But although this comparison has so far looked at the differences between Shopify and Etsy,
it’s important to note that you don’t have to use these platforms in a mutually
exclusive way.
There are a lot of apps available in the Shopify app store that let you sell on both Shopify
and Etsy at the same time.
This gives you the best of both worlds, and ultimately, by having a presence on both Shopify
AND Etsy, you’re giving yourself more ways to grow your online business.
I hope you’ve enjoyed our Shopify vs Etsy comparison, but there are lots more pros and
cons of both platforms to discover.
To learn more about these, check out the full Shopify vs Esty comparison on the Style Factory
website.
You’ll find a link to this in the video description, along with links to a free Shopify
trial and more information about the Etsy platform.
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And finally, if you have any questions about Shopify vs Etsy, just leave them in the comments
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