Should I Use Etsy to Sell My Art???

I get LOTS of questions about etsy, so In this post, I want to talk about the pros and cons of selling your handmade goods on Etsy. 

If you want to sell art online, you MUST have a platform

….where you can list your art, take payments, and manage the customer information. There are a few options.  You can list your art on your own website hosted by squarespace or shopify—that’s what I do.  You can use a few online art galleries such as saatchi.  You can do everything through your DMS and a payment app. You can actually use Ebay or even facebook marketplace. Or you can use Etsy.  I have some definite -opinions, and I want to hear YOUR thoughts, so let’s discuss.

Now I want to say right up front that the gold standard of selling your art online is to have your own website.  I recommend this for a few reasons. 

• You have complete control about how and when you sell. 

• You do not have to share revenue with anyone. 

• You have design control, so you can make the website look the way you want.

• And finally, it's professional and legitimizing to have your very own website to represent you and your talents. 

That said, building a website can be a big deal.  It takes a while to design and it takes some tech to get all the elements you will need to have beautiful platform. In fact, I have a whole mini course about the Five Pillars of Selling Art Online. If you want to go a little deeper with me, sign up to get the whole skinny.

So, is Etsy a good option for artists in the short term? 

Here's what I think is great about Etsy. 

They have been around a while so people know what they ARE.  They have been working with crazy artists and makers so they have worked out a system to make it easy for non-techy people figure out how to list a product and sell it.  Etsy is known for handmade, one of a kind things.  They manage things like helping with shipping labels, communicating with customers, and processing payments.  It's literally a one stop shop.  If you are overwhelmed with managing all the details of product listings, taking payments, and shipping logistics, Etsy may be a great place to start.

Here's what I think is not great about Etsy.

Yes, Etsy has a reputation, but the reputation is more for crafts than fine art.  Yes, there are artists who sell on the site, but the quality is HIGHLY irregular.  There are no gatekeepers on Etsy that curate what can be presented, which can be good.  But it can also mean that shopping on the site can be maddening because of the vast and sometimes bizarre search results.

If you do make a more craft based product, like jewelry or ceramics, you will need to compete with a very crowded marketplace.  If you are starting from zero on the app, it is difficult to get organic traffic, meaning that people searching  for “watercolor painting" will actually find your watercolor paintings.  That means that you need to get used to driving traffic to your products,  through social media or your email list.  Just popping your art up on the platform and then waiting for the money to roll in will result in heartbreak.

Etsy is hosting YOU, which means if you have a bad customer review or run afoul of their policies, you can be terminated from the site. They have fees just to list the products, and fees when you sell, and have other sneaky fees that change all the time. They also have rules about how quickly you ship and a million other things you have to keep track of.   I'm told that they will punish your listings in the search algorithm if you don't keep your shop stocked all the time. 

To sum up, I'm not wild about Etsy. 

I'm just not. Let's face it, the marketing is the same whether you are selling your work on etsy, ebay, your own website or out of the trunk of your car.  Personal website builders are so user friendly these days that I’d advise putting your energy into that FIRST. That said, if you are just dipping your toe in the water, Etsy could help you get the basic systems in place so you can level up to a website in the future.