Etsy Full Review – What Is It – How To Use It – What I Think Of It
Etsy Review
Etsy is perhaps one of the largest online markets for handmade and specialty items. Founded in 2005, their goal is to keep human connection at the heart of commerce. When you purchase something from Etsy, you are purchasing an item from a person, not a corporation.
I joined Etsy in 2016. Many of you I’m sure are wanting to know the answer to this question right away, am I selling enough to make a living? No. However, each year I have sold more than the year before with this year, 2020, being the most successful year even amid the pandemic. Other than just making sales of products listed, I have also received many commission requests through Etsy.
The very first painting I ever sold was actually on Etsy. I couldn’t believe it. I had been painting for a couple of years but never really considered selling my art. However, I listed some of my work on Etsy, and someone from Switzerland purchased one of them. This was the catalyst that has driven me to continue creating and to continue selling through Etsy.
Etsy is a marketplace that has much more than just artwork. This makes it different than the other ones I have reviewed so far. Being such a large platform, however, makes it one that people know, trust, and will go to when they are thinking of purchasing unique and handmade items. I have had many people find me through Etsy and then later they have had me create a custom piece of art for their home. I believe it brings together customers from different niches and allows them the chance to discover your work even if they weren’t looking for it.
Some of you reading this may not be artists, however, much of what you will find in this article will help you in your desire to have a successful Etsy shop.
Here are the questions I will be answering throughout this article:
-What can I sell on Etsy?
-How do I sell on Etsy?
-How much does it cost to sell on Etsy?
-What is “Shop Manager”?
-How and when do I get paid?
-Where can I see my sales?
-How do I upload my artwork?
-How do I edit and bulk edit my products?
-Does Etsy do Print-On-Demand products?
-What are the marketing options through Etsy?
-What is the Etsy “Community”?
-Where can I see my statistics for my shop?
-How does Etsy do Shipping and Handling?
-What Are “Integrations”?
-Does Etsy Have An Affiliate Program?
-Does Etsy Have A Mobile App?
-Have I sold my artwork on Etsy?
| Pros: | Cons: |
| -Large audience | -Listings only last four months |
| -Trusted Platform | -Automatic Renewals Have To Be Manually Turned Off |
| -Great Community Feeling | -Saturated Market |
| -Relatively Low Commission/Fees | |
| -Many useful features | |
| -In-depth Analytics |
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MinoShopMarrakech
We are a Moroccan family that have been doing crafts for decades in different fields : Woodworking, Fashion, Ceramic, Pillows, and Rugs. We have passed on the tradition from one generaton to the next. We started selling on Etsy in 2020. It is an amazing opportunity to share our hidden Moroccan and largely unnoticed craftsmenship to the world.
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Follow this link to our shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/minoshopmarrakech
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Email me at brian@briansloanartist.com for more info.
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What Can I Sell On Etsy?
On Etsy, you can sell a whole variety of things. That is one thing that makes this platform so great. Here is a brief list of what you can sell:
-Art & Collectibles
-Jewellery & Accessories
-Clothing & Shoes
-Home & Living
-Wedding & Party
-Toys & Entertainment
-Craft Supplies
With this wide array of products, you can easily see how so many people are attracted to purchasing items from Etsy.
Having this many types of products on one site I think is a major plus. It increases the overall traffic to the platform which means that your products should be found by people specifically looking for what you are selling, as well as people who just happen to stumble upon your products while browsing the website.
How Do I Sell On Etsy?
Selling on Etsy is quite easy. By clicking on the “sign-on” button on the top right, a register button will appear at the top of the form that pops up. You just use your email and create a password. Etsy will send you an email to confirm that you wanted to create an account. From there you can choose if you want to become a seller or not.
How Much Does It Cost To Sell On Etsy?
There is no cost to open an account. However, the cost to sell on Etsy can be divided into 3 categories:
- listing fee
- transaction fee
- processing fee (varies by country)
Listing fees are $0.20 USD per listing no matter where you live. It is simply converted into your local currency.
The transaction fee is 5% of the total item cost in a sale. This is only charged when you make a sale.
Processing fees vary per country and are only charged on the sale of an item. Follow this link to see what your fees are for your country: https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115015628847?segment=selling
There is also an Etsy Plus account that has a monthly fee of $10 USD. I will talk about it more in the next section.
Overall I find the fees on Etsy to be reasonable. They advertise a lot that it just costs $0.20 to start selling. Yes, to start it is just twenty cents. However, the fees that come when you sell an item do add up to more. It usually works out to the fees being around 10% depending on where you are from. This is still a lot less than other websites that I have reviewed that take between 30-40% when selling artwork. I find Etsy to be well worth it even with the fees.
What is the difference between an Etsy Standard account and Etsy Plus account?
The main difference everyone wants to know, Etsy Standard is free and Etsy Plus is $10 USD a month. With Etsy Standard, you pay for each listing while with Etsy Plus you get 15 listing credits. That is $3.00 in listing credits which if you use all of those listings anyway, then you are getting everything else for $7.00.
Here is a list of the difference in features: The left side is the Standard and the right is Plus.
Is it worth it to go with Etsy Plus? If you want your own custom web address and are listing more than 15 items a month, then yes, I would say it is worth it. However, I just stick with the standard account and have been totally happy with that.
What is “Shop Manager”?
Shop Manager is your hub for your Etsy shop. Here you can find your listing, financial details, statistics, and much more.
When you first log in and click on Shop Manager, you will be taken to the Dashboard. Here you can see a basic overview of your stats that include views, visits, orders, and revenue for a set amount of time. You can also see how many new orders you have, how many in the process, your active listings, expired and sold out. Then at the bottom, it shows your recent activity of interactions with your shop.
On the left-hand side, there is a menu. This menu takes you to the different sections with more in-depth info on your shop and its products.
I will talk more about most of these as the article goes on but you will find these different sections:
-Listings – Here you can view, add, edit, and delete your products.
-Messages – Etsy allows you to communicate directly with your customers and allows people to message you for more information. This has been a great tool for me to gain commissions.
-Orders and Delivery – Here you can manage your orders, print shipping labels, and deal with everything related to your orders.
-Stats – Etsy has a great analytics page. I will talk about that later on in this article
-Finances – This is where the money is. Set up your payment account, pay for your listings, and more on the finances page.
-Marketing – Etsy has many options for you if you would like to market your products. This page allows you to manage that.
-Integrations – You can integrate Etsy with other apps to make running your small business just that much easier.
-Community & Help – Etsy prides itself on being a community for its sellers. Here you can collaborate with other sellers and get the help you need.
-Settings – Change your info and appearance, shop details, and more on the settings page.
Etsy has one of the best dashboards for sellers. Though there are a lot of options, everything is organized nicely and is easy to navigate. I really enjoy using this dashboard compared to some of the others on websites similar to Etsy.
How and when do I get paid?
Etsy pays you right to your bank account if you live in a country that supports Etsy Payments. If not, they will pay you through PayPal if you live in a country that doesn’t have Etsy Payments.
Since I live in Canada, I only have experience with getting paid through Etsy Payments which is direct to my bank account. It is quick and easy to set up. Just go to the Finances section on the left-hand side of the shop manager page and click on “Payment Settings”. There you will be prompted to put in the information needed.
As for when you get paid, the funds from a sale are usually available the day after you make a sale. You can set an automatic deposit to your bank account once a day, once a week, every two weeks, or once a month. Then your available funds are deposited directly to the account you have linked.
The fact that you can receive your money basically the day after selling something is a lot faster than so many other online platforms. For many of them, you have to wait for a 30-day return period to end and then you get paid on the 15th of whatever the following month is. This means that it can be almost 2 months sometimes until you get paid for something. I like that Etsy is much more prompt with giving you your profit. If there is a return, you can deal with that later. But hopefully, you never have any returns!
Where can I see my sales?
Etsy has a great dashboard to deal with all facets of your shop. As soon as you log in and click on “Shop Manager” in the top right corner, it will take you to a general statistic page that has current orders, views, earnings, etc. To see your orders in more detail and to actually mark them as finished or print shipping labels, just click on the “Orders & Delivery” section on the left-hand side. On that page, you can also see all of your past sales and the info that accompanied each of those.
On this page you can organize your sales by day, week, month, year, and more. It is nice to get an organized view of your sales to see trends in products and the time of year they are being purchased.
How Do I Upload My Artwork/Products?
From the dashboard page, click on “Listings” on the left-hand menu. Here you can see and edit any of your current listings, as well as add new ones. In the top right you will see an “Add Listing” button. Just click on that and follow the steps to add your products.
To see how to do this, watch the video starting at 12:31.
Once you hit publish, your item will be live and you will be charged the listing fee of $0.20 USD.
If you are uploading products that are similar to one another, you can copy the info for one item and then just change the necessary photos and info to match the new item. This will save you a lot of time so you don’t have to repeatedly input the same information over and over again for similar items. To see what I’m talking about, watch the video at 11:17
The uploading process is pretty standard to most websites like this. There are a lot of customizable features that Etsy uses so that they can help people searching for items similar to yours see it. I like that everything is on one page because some other sites have you click through three or four pages and split up things such as the description, shipping, and photos. I also like the ability to copy items and edit the copy to be a new item. This has saved me a lot of time!
How can I edit my products and can I bulk edit them?
Simple, just click on the “listings” section on the left-hand menu. Once there, you can see all of your listings. By clicking on the gear under any listing, you can see the stats for that product, edit it, copy it, deactivate, renew, change the section, and share it.
You can bulk edit your listings by selecting multiple products and then clicking on “Editing Options” at the top. Here you can easily change shipping profiles, prices, renewals, and more for multiple products. This saves you a ton of time by making it so you don’t have to go into each product individually to make the change.
I show this in the video at 10:00.
Being able to bulk edit items is very useful. Not every website has this option or gives you all of the options that Etsy does while bulk editing. This makes Etsy, even more, user-friendly.
Does Etsy do Print-On-Demand products?
No, Etsy does not have a Print-On-Demand service. If you are hoping to sell your artwork on different products, you’ll need to find a producer who can make the products for you to sell. Then you can either have them give them to you to sell or find one who will do drop shipping.
What are my marketing options through Etsy?
When you click on the “Marketing” tab on the left-hand side of the dashboard, you are given five options:
-Search Analytics
-Etsy Ads
-Sales and Coupons
-Social Media
-Custom Web Address
Search analytics allows you to see what people are searching for to find your products. You can then see what keywords are working best and which ones you may need to change.
Etsy Ads is the main marketing tool that Etsy offers. For as little as $1.00 – $50.00 USD a day, Etsy will place your products in front of people who they think will be interested in it. You set your daily budget. The higher your daily budget, the more times your ads will be viewed. I have never used this before, so I don’t know how well it works.
Sales and Coupons allow you to set up sales and coupons for your shop. This will hopefully drive more customers to you.
The Social Media section allows you to easily share your new products, sales or promotions, reviews, and favourites to your social media accounts. Many other selling platforms I have reviewed allow you to share new products and your current products, but don’t make it as easy to share sales and promotions as Etsy does.
You can purchase a custom web address which means you will no longer have the “etsy.com” stuff in front of your shop name. Etsy has partnered with Hover, a web-hosting company, to help offer this service. It is a part of the $10 USD a month subscription to Etsy Plus. I have my own website so I don’t need a service like this, but for someone who doesn’t know how to build their own website, this might be useful if you want that extra professional look.
The marketing options on Etsy are pretty standard with a few that go above and beyond what other platforms offer. I don’t do much with marketing myself but I have used the Search Analytics, and the Sales and Coupons section before and they have both worked well.
What is the Etsy “Community”?
The community feature on Etsy is great. When you click on the “Community & Help” section on the left-hand side menu, you will see these options:
-Teams
-Forums
-Etsy Help
-Seller Handbook
-Delivery Help
-Site Policies
-Contact Us
When you click on these, it will take you to a whole new webpage called “Etsy Communities”. This has been upgraded recently and is geared to help creators market and sell their work by collaborating with others.
Teams – You can join what are called teams of other sellers. Teams are basically groups like on Facebook. Depending on where you are from, what you are selling, etc. you can find a team that suits you. Since I am an artist from Alberta. I have joined teams of people from around my area as well as teams of other artists. It is a great way to collaborate, see what other people are creating, and help support each other in your business goals.
Forums – Here you can find help and info on everything from how to deliver products, to making your shop look more appealing, to finding success on Etsy. You can create discussions on these topics to get help from other users on Etsy. This is similar to teams in that you can collaborate with other creators but broader in the sense that more people will see your questions.
Etsy Help – Here you can find answers to questions about your shop and the technical side of the website itself. Before contacting Etsy directly, always check this page to see if you can find your answer there. You can even write your question in a search bar and they will use it to find the answer to your question or similar questions that may help.
Seller Handbook – Helps you become the best seller you can be. There are articles about how to take good photographs, legal stuff, pricing, and way more. If you need some help, go check out this page.
I won’t bother going through the site policies and contact us as those are both self-explanatory.
The Etsy Community is a big advantage compared to many other platforms where you can sell your art and handmade products. It makes creating and selling not just about money but about community and connection between like-minded people from across the globe. Though Fine Art America has a good community building ability, I believe that Etsy’s is even better.
How can I see my stats?
By clicking on the “Stats” tab on the left-hand menu, you will be taken to Etsy’s statistics and analytics page.
Here you can find in-depth information about your listings, sales, views, and more. Initially, it shows your overall stats for the time period selected.
Below that, you can find out where your shoppers found you. By clicking on each of those, you will see your stats from that source.
When you click on the Etsy Search one, you can see what search terms are getting you the most hits and which aren’t.
Below that, you will see your stats on your specific listings for the time period selected. By clicking on each listing, you will see in-depth analytics about that listing. These details will include where your traffic is coming from, what search terms are leading to this listing, and more.
The statistics page for Etsy is superior to many other online marketplaces. They offer in-depth analysis that helps you drive more traffic to your shop. I am impressed with this platform.
How does Etsy do Shipping and Handling?
Once you have sold an item. Etsy will get all of the information you need from the customer for you to ship the product to them.
If you know the information about your package’s product, such as the dimensions, weight, etc. Then you can purchase and print off the shipping label right from Etsy. They even offer a slight discount than if you were to purchase the label directly from the post office!
What are “Integrations”?
Integrations allow you to combine your Etsy shop with other apps to help you run your small business.
I won’t go through the whole list of apps you can integrate with your shop because there are a ton of them. From apps to help you with stock management, to understanding your analytics, helping you with social media, and more.
I have integrated Square with my account, which allows me to sell items at local markets from my Etsy shop. This allows those sales to count towards growing my online presence. Square allows me to take debit and credit cards as forms of payment. Having it integrated with Etsy is a nice touch and allows my inventory to be able to stay current on both.
“Integrations” is an awesome feature that not many other platforms have. This is a huge plus for Etsy.
Does Etsy Have An Affiliate Program?
Yes, Etsy, like many other online marketplaces, has an affiliate program. If you are unfamiliar with affiliate programs, they allow you to earn a commission on sales by sharing products from other creator’s shops.
On Etsy, each affiliate program is slightly different depending on where you are from. Some countries don’t even have an affiliate program yet. However, you can find all the information by scrolling to the bottom of Etsy’s webpage and clicking on “Affiliates”.
In Canada, the special product links that are from your affiliate account are good for thirty days. If a sale is made from someone clicking on your link, you receive a 5% commission. So if someone purchases a $100 item, you would receive $5.
I don’t have any experience with this affiliate program but it is something I am planning on trying soon!
Does Etsy Have A Mobile App?
Yes, Etsy actually has two mobile apps. One is geared towards customers and the other is geared towards sellers.
The customer geared app allows you to search for items, speak with sellers, add favourites, and purchase items. I have little experience with this app but it seems to work pretty well.
The seller geared app called “Sell On Etsy” is great. You can get your statistics, add/edit items, share items to social media, receive and send messages to customers, track your shipments, and more. If you have an Etsy shop or are planning on opening one, I would highly recommend getting this mobile app. It has made managing my Etsy store much easier. Anytime a customer sends me a question, I get a notification to my phone from which I can directly respond. I don’t have to check my messages on my computer and reply from there.
With other websites where I sell my artwork, I haven’t come across one that has as good of an app as the Sell On Etsy app. Some platforms don’t even have a mobile app. Etsy is ahead of the game in this aspect.
Have I sold my art on Etsy?
If you’ve been reading the article, I’m sure you have figured out by now that yes, I have sold my art on Etsy. Has it been enough to make a living? No. But it has continued to grow each year.
If you read the intro, you’ll know that the very first piece of artwork I ever sold was actually on Etsy to someone in Switzerland. Being from Canada, I couldn’t believe that someone across the globe purchased my art. It got me going and really helped motivate me to start selling and creating more. That is one of the reasons I am writing this article for other creators!
In the past couple of years, people have reached out to me for commission pieces because they have seen my shop and my work. Though you may not become a success overnight, I think Etsy is worth it. My profits have easily outweighed the expenses.
Etsy has been my most profitable platform where I sell my artwork.
Overall Thoughts On Etsy:
Etsy is a great place to list and sell your art. Depending on how many listings you plan on having, it may be a little pricy to start. However, you can start with 20 listings for $4.00 and have them up for 4 months. That’s $12.00 for the year. If I was to take a gamble on something, I would try that out. Even if you make one small sale and just get your money back, that is one step to selling another. The more sales you make and more reviews you gain, the more trusted your shop will be.
Etsy has so many features that other online marketplaces don’t have. With their in-depth analytics, easy to use interface, customizable product pages, and so much more, Etsy is a great place to sell your handmade and unique items.
I would definitely recommend using this site.
If you haven’t already, check out my article “Where To Sell Art Online”. I briefly talk about many websites where you can sell your art online.
I have also done in-depth reviews such as this one on the following websites:
-ArtPal – https://www.briansloanartist.com/artpal-full-review-what-is-it-how-to-use-it-what-i-think-of-it/
-Artfinder – https://www.briansloanartist.com/artfinder-review/
-Artmajeur – https://www.briansloanartist.com/artmajeur-review/
-Fine Art America – https://www.briansloanartist.com/fine-art-america-review/
-Redbubble – https://www.briansloanartist.com/redbubble-review/
–Saatchi Art – https://www.briansloanartist.com/saatchi-art-review/
-Society6 – https://briansloanartist.com/society6-review/
-Traderspace – https://briansloanartist.com/traderspace-review/
Thanks for reading and leave a comment below of the next website you think I should do!
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