Etsy or Shopify? If you're just getting started selling your artwork or handmade products online, you might be wondering which of these ecommerce platforms is right for your handmade business?

Well, there are definitely pros and cons to both. And you don't necessarily have to choose: many artists and makers use both Shopify AND Etsy, for different reasons.

In this video and the post below, learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of Shopify vs Etsy. I'll help you weigh the options to decide what solution is right for YOUR creative business.

Okay, so first let's talk about Etsy.

Etsy has been around since about 2005. I actually started my first handmade business about a year before Etsy launched. In those pre-Etsy days, it was really difficult to figure out how to sell your products online. It was so complicated!

When Etsy first launched, it was really exciting for the handmade community. I actually entered and won 3rd place in Etsy's upcycling contest in 2007. They bought my FEMA blue tarp dress and had it on display in Etsy Labs in Brooklyn for their opening night celebration, which was so exciting!

But a lot has changed since then. When Etsy first started, it was really easy to launch a shop, get some traffic, make sales and build a following.

But now the competition is stiff. It's grown into this huge online marketplace, which has both its pros and cons. When Etsy first started, the focus was purely on handmade products and vintage goods. But as it's grown, they've added more offerings: things like craft supplies and digital downloads. And while those options are great in some ways, they also dilute the focus from handmade crafts.

As Etsy has grown, so have the fees. In addition to the transaction fees and credit card fees that you're going to have to pay on almost any ecommerce platform, Etsy also has listing fees. Every time you list a product on Etsy, you have to pay a fee.

Here's some pros of selling on Etsy:

It's an established marketplace, and it's been around for a while. It's got built in traffic, which could meet some potential sales for you. And it's trustworthy among consumers. When people think of buying handmade online, they think of Etsy.

Etsy is also easy to use and to get started with. If you've never sold anything online before, Etsy really can be a good place to start and test the waters of ecommerce.

It's also low risk and low commitment if you're just getting started. If you're not sure if you want to have a handmade business or if you're just thinking about selling some things online and want to see how it goes first, Etsy is great for that. With Etsy, you don't have to commit to long term things like website hosting and domain names.

There's also a lot of community and camaraderie when it comes to selling on Etsy. In addition to resources that they provide, like the Etsy Seller Handbook, there's also forums and teams so you can get advice and help from other Etsy sellers.

But there's cons to selling on Etsy:

Remember those fees that I mentioned earlier? They seem to just keep rising. In fact, in April 2022 many Etsy sellers went on strike to protest those continually rising fees.

And look, no matter where you sell online, you're gonna have to deal with some sort of fees. Those are just a cost of doing business. If you want to take credit card transactions as a small business, the credit card processing companies are going to charge a fee. It's just that those fees might be different depending on what platforms you use.

Competition is another big con of selling on Etsy. While it's great that it's this huge marketplace which can bring you traffic, you're also competing directly with all your competitors.

When people shop on Etsy, they don't really think of shopping with your specific brand and your specific store. The thing that they go away from the experience remembering is that they bought a thing on Etsy.

When you sell on Etsy, you have limited control over how you can differentiate yourself from all of that competition.

You don't really have a lot of control when it comes to branding. Yeah, you can upload a banner image and a shop icon and you can change your shop's name. But at the end of the day, your shop looks like an Etsy shop. It doesn't look like your unique storefront online.

That limited control extends to all sorts of aspects of Etsy. They could change their policies about what's allowed to be sold on Etsy, meaning that your shop could potentially be removed without much warning.

Your customers on Etsy aren't really yours. Etsy is designed so that you can't easily collect your own customer's contact information. You can't easily collect their email addresses so that you can stay in touch with your customers and continue to build your relationship with your own customers.

At the end of the day, if something happens and Etsy makes a big change, you could be screwed.

Now let's talk about some of the pros of selling on Shopify:

When you sell on Shopify or other ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce or WooCommerce, you have control.

You get to decide what works best for your business and your customers. You'll be able to totally customize the branding of your online shop so you can make your shop feel uniquely yours. Your online customer's experience will feel just as familiar as if they've shopped with you at a craft fair or in-person event.

Shopify also offers some great marketing and search engine optimization tools to help you promote your shop to customers.

You can set up things like abandoned cart emails, do text messaging directly to your customers, or even connect your shop directly to Pinterest so that you can do shoppable pins.

Shopify is also built to scale, and it can accommodate all sorts of ecommerce businesses. So whether you have dreams of growing your handmade business to a large scale, or you want to open a brick and mortar store and integrate it with a point of sale system, or if you want to sell wholesale, Shopify can handle it.

Okay, but what about cons?

Now of course, there are some cons to selling on Shopify. No platform is perfect for everyone or every situation.

With Shopify or any ecommerce platform, you are responsible for marketing your handmade business.

There's not some magic traffic fairy that's just going to bring the customers through your virtual doors.

But here's the thing:

You should be building a marketing strategy for your business no matter what platform you sell on. If you're running a handmade business, part of being a business owner is having a marketing strategy.

With Shopify, there can also be more of a learning curve than with something like Etsy.

You can customize it to your heart's content, of course. But if you've never set up a website before, or if you don't consider yourself a very technical person, it could potentially feel overwhelming. You may end up wanting to hire somebody to help you set it up exactly like you want it.

And with Shopify, while it is super customizable, some of those extra bells and whistles may come via apps and integrations that could have additional fees. Those costs could vary.

Shopify is, like I said, built to scale. It works for so many different types of businesses. You have to figure out what features are really critical for your business and what those costs would end up being.

Etsy or Shopify, what's right for your handmade business?

Okay. So Etsy or Shopify, what's right for your handmade business?

The answer is...

You don't necessarily have to pick and choose. You could use both. It's perfectly fine to do so.

Etsy is a great place to start if you're just getting started with your craft business. I just don't recommend that you solely rely on Etsy for the long term.

And when it comes to building your ecommerce website outside of Etsy, you don't have to choose Shopify, if it doesn't feel right for you. There are other options. BigCommerce and WooCommerce are a couple of popular Shopify competitors.

That said, I + most of the ecommerce experts that I know do recommend Shopify for the majority of ecommerce businesses.

Aeolidia's Etsy vs Shopify Fee Calculator

Speaking of ecommerce experts, one of my favorite Shopify experts is a company called Aeolidia.

(In full disclosure, I used to work on their team, but I've been a fan of theirs for years. They've been around for nearly two decades, and I'm pretty sure they pre-date Etsy.)

Aeolidia has built Shopify websites for a lot of really successful artists, makers and handmade businesses including Lisa Congdon.

Aeolidia has a great free to use Etsy vs Shopify Fee Calculator on their website, which I highly recommend checking out if you're trying to decide which platform makes the most sense for your handmade business:

Etsy? Shopify? Which is right for your craft business?

So, based on everything here, which option do you feel is right for your handmade business? Etsy? Shopify? Both? Another option entirely?

If you're struggling to figure out all the tech stuff when it comes to marketing your handmade business, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and let me know which topics you'd like me to cover in a future blog post or video.

You might also be interested in my program, the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator, where I help simplify things like ecommerce and search engine optimization and we dive deep into how to market your handmade products.