Crafty Biz Info: Selling on Etsy vs.Your Own Domain

My perspective on Selling on Etsy vs. your own Domain

As part of the Cincinnati Crafty Co-op, I volunteered to gather my thoughts about selling on Etsy.com vs. having your own domain name and store front on the internet. Some of my opinions might not be agreed with and it does vary heavily depending on the type of crafty business you are in.

For those of you who are just getting into your crafty business, Etsy.com is an online marketplace specifically made for buying and selling handmade items.

Since its launch in June 2005, over 100,000 home-based businesses and sellers from all around the world are using Etsy as a resource to get the word out about their product and to sell. Since Etsy is a place known for being a place for handmade items, it gives you the opportunity to put your product in front of your target customers. 

A benefit of Etsy is that is free to become a seller. You can sign up at Etsy.com by creating a user name and password and once you are registered, you are able to set up your shop and customize it. The one disadvantage I find using Etsy is that there is not a lot of customization that you can do. The banner can only be one size, granted you can have the graphics and your shop title in any colors or designs you wish.

Etsy is also very inexpensive. To list an item it cost $.20 and when an item is sold, Etsy charges a small fee for the sale.

One disadvantage I have found using Etsy is that it is very over saturated in several markets, starting with jewelry. Even though you can enter *tags when listing an item, they will quickly get buried in the search engines by other designers listing new items.

* Below is an example of tags. It helps people find your product through search engines:

However, an advantage Etsy has over your own website is that you can set up your shop within a day, granted you have your product ready to go and pictures taken.

Moving on to advantages and disadvantages of your own website.

When starting my business back in 2007, I knew I had wanted my own website. It gives me room to grow and allows me to customize my website depending on how I want it to look.

One night my husband and I sat down and drew out an idea of what I wanted my homepage to look like and he rendered it for me in Adobe Illustrator. Here was our idea:

And a few years later, not a lot has changed besides the business name. I love the format. Having my own website allows me to add press that I receive, have my own customized navigation bar, and a place for customers to sign up for my mailing list. The front slide show is  something that can be changed as often as I like, which allows me to advertise new products, events and achievements. 

The down side of having your own website is  that even with knowledge on how to create your own website, it can become costly. Hiring a web designer is the first step, unless you are savy in the web design department. There are also costs associated with domain name registration, SSL certificate, hosting and accrued fees for online payment processing. I recommend if you chose to go this route, do your research first. Scope out a good web designer and ask to see his or her portfolio and get pricing. E commerce websites tend to be a bit more on the pricey side because you have to set up a shopping cart function.

There are some ways to lower the cost though. Many places on the web offer pre-made templates and layouts, minimizing the amount of work a web designer would need to do.

Some sites are so user friendly that you can create the website yourself, without a web designer. My husband created his website entirely by himself. 

Another disadvantage is that you have to make sure that people know you exist. Marketing and advertising can become very costly very quickly and I've read that on average, customers need to see your ad or business name several times before they even decide to check it out. 

So with that said, hopefully you will have better insight as to which direction you will take on your crafty business endeavor. There are so many more thoughts I have that I could write about, but I will save them for another time. 

Any thoughts or suggestions? What works for your business?