# Anyone have an Etsy Shop?



## Tooch (Apr 6, 2013)

I have been slowly dwindling on making things as of late, and I think it's because I don't have any reason to make anything right now. Sure, I have a couple projects on the back-burner, but no real reason to get creative and build. So I was looking into starting a shop on Etsy, but I have no experience (nor know anyone with experience) with Etsy's website.

I'm looking for any info, suggestions, things to avoid, etc. with the whole process. Is it worth it? what do they charge? how is payment made for the transaction? (paypal, credit card, etc.) Does Uncle Sam get a cut?

any information or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!


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## MalcolmLaurel (Dec 15, 2013)

I have an etsy shop, but I don't think it's a great venue for woodworking… it's mostly women selling jewelery and crocheted work. I've made a grand total of one sale there since starting last summer. Others have done better. It's easy to do, though, and you can set it up to accept paypal and/or credit cards. They don't do anything tax-wise unless you exceed some large threshold, I think it's $20K but I could be mistaken. They charge a listing fee and a transaction fee, I forget how much but it's small.


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## Tooch (Apr 6, 2013)

is there any other venue you recommend>? I'm trying to setup a site without the hassle of managing my own site…


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## hoss12992 (Mar 20, 2013)

I had one, and recently shut it down. They charge 20 cents for each post you list. My page did not do anything, and maybe a hand full of people even looked at our stuff. I would suggest making a facebook shop page. Its free, and if you take a little time and promote it, your stuff will get seen by ALOT more folks and can help generate sales, and its free. My daughter has done VERY well, because of the Facebook page, and has picked up brick and morter stores, again, thru the Facebook page. She uses paypal for payment. Hope this helps, and good luck buddy


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## jerrells (Jul 3, 2010)

I have looked and looked at ETSY but have not pulled the trigger - YET. A few noted I see. 1. I see the same items I make for a lower price than I wish to sell at. Some say go ahead and post of if you can show and explain better quality you will sell. 2. I feel that ETSY is all about presentation (photography and items descriptions) and that, to me, would take a considerable amount of time. 3. I do have a FaceBook business page (PA's Workshop) and I know that a lot of people see my items. I post some for the information and I post some with a payment link. Perhaps I could say I have gotten a sale or two. 3. I was in two local craft stores. One did fairly well but it closed. In the other I had NO SALES for three months so they let me out of my agreement.

I mainly focus on the fall craft shows. I am in one where I know I will do GREAT and still looking for one or two more. Word of mouth woks the best for me. I get a lot of interest and a few sales. If anyone finds the great majic formula - WELL I am here listening.


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## ddockstader (Jun 21, 2009)

I started selling through my daughter's Etsy shop about 5 years ago. Nothing much, maybe a couple hundred dollars a year at most. But I make stuff that appeals only to knitters, so it won't sell at craft shows. I do sell things through the local yarn shops, but they want wholesale prices so my profit goes down. Then in November I set up my own Etsy shop (daughter was getting out of yarn dying). By Christmas, I'd sold $145 worth and this year almost $800. To make a go of Etsy, things have to be relatively small and cheap to ship. I couldn't make a living at this, but it's a nice income supplement. Etsy even let's you buy postage through Pitney-Bowes, which beats the price of the post office. So for 20 cents per listing, 3.5% for a sale, and cheaper postage, it's a pretty good deal.


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## Puzzleman (May 4, 2010)

Tooch, I use Etsy and make sales every week on there. It's not a lot, about 4 - 5 per week right now. However, it does pick up during the holiday season. I use Etsy as another venue to sell product. The cost is minimal at just .20 per listing. If that cost is too high for you, then reconsider your price points. By selling at a retail price, you should have a lot of room to handle such fees. I also have my own website, do art & craft shows and sell wholesale. When trying to make sales, you cannot put all of your eggs into one basket. You need to have many different avenues, as you never know when one will click or for how long.

As jerrells said, you need to have decent pictures. Spend the money and do it right up front. The pics will never go bad as long as you don't drastically change the product. You can use those same pictures for your website, your sales flyer, wholesale brochure, art & craft show entry and for your phone ( yes, i have pics of all my products on my phone. That way whenever I meet someone who might be a potential customer, I can show them what I do.)

I have never done a Facebook page as I don't get it. I do send out emails to my customers every 2 months to let them know what is new and going on at the shop.

Bottomline: Try it. What have you got to lose but a little bit of money? Promote yourself on Etsy and you will get people to visit and buy.

2nd bottomline: Marketing is the hardest part of woodworking. But without marketing you not working the wood.


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## SWCPres (Mar 19, 2014)

Word of Mouth is the KING! The real question is who's mouth and what word. Try Customade.com (spelling?) I started a profile on there, but before I got completely set up, I noticed it is quite competitive. I prefer not to stand on the shore with 100 other fishermen all trying to catch the same fish. I would much rather carry a pole and cast at one when I see it.


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## MalcolmLaurel (Dec 15, 2013)

One other thing about Etsy (or other similar sites): You can treat it as the order processing system for a separate website. I have my MalcolmLaurel.com website, with a page for each item, and the "buy now" link takes you to the Etsy page for checkout. That way I don't have to hassle with the credit card processing system, I can pay for and print shipping labels through Etsy, etc.


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## HowardInToronto (Sep 27, 2013)

Etsy and FaceBook stores have their place.

But they don't help you create a business.

You're a sharecropper and you're building the owners' real estate.

Use theses websites for traffic and steer to your own website where you can manage the process your way - ie - get e-mail addresses and start building a relationship.

Howard


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## Gixxerjoe04 (Jan 31, 2014)

I started on etsy a little over a month ago or so, my fiance told me i should with my pallet wine rack. I got my first sale in a little over a week i think with it being the only thing on their. I looked at the prices other people were asking, some of which seemed high and just made it appealing i guess. I've sold 6 things so far, not gonna get rich doing it but I'm just trying to help pay for some tools and keep myself busy. Plan on doing craft fairs later this year hopefully, figured have a business card with my etsy account on it. If someone doesn't buy something but takes the card, they can look at it come holiday time or whatever and either buy from there or at least get an idea of what they want and contact me. My only advice, even though I'm new to it all, sell small things on there because shipping big stuff will be expensive and a pain(but who knows for sure, .20 cents to find out). Also, don't know the numbers or anything, but I'd say it's mostly women browsing the site so have to sell stuff that interests them. Also might want to see what sells on there, and what everyone is trying to sell, if someone just searches cutting boards on there, they get 17,000 results.

As far of cost and all that, .20 cents to post something and it's on there for 4 months i believe before it expires and they take 3.5% of your sale price. Everything you post in a calender month and sell, they take those fees out at the end of the month unless you reach a certain limit then they take it out when you reach it. You can pay for some sort of advertising on there where they promote your stuff but i don't know anything about that.


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## Arron (Nov 10, 2012)

I used to have an Etsy shop . I never sold much on it but it was still worthwhile having it because I used it as a pointer to my own website. In each Etsy listing, I would include a link to my own website and the words that people could see more stuff on the website. Using Google Analytics I could see how many people actually followed the link. It was enough to make it worthwhile.

It costs very little to run an Etsy shop so I would say spend 5 bucks and see how it works for you.

Cheers


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## Tooch (Apr 6, 2013)

Thanks for all the info- sorry I havent' been able to check this post in a couple days but its been grading time at school and lots of kids turn stuff in at the last minute…

*jerrels* I see what you mean about presentation. as far as photography goes I do have a decent camera at my disposal, but sometimes lack the creative eye for the presentation. I'm used to posting on LJ in which the photos mainly focus on the product and not so much on the surroundings….

*Hoss* I see the benefit of a Facebook page, but being in education I can't bring myself to start one… I get so nervous about old pictures from my college days surfacing and causing a bad situation, if you know what I mean 

*Malcolm* I like your idea about using it solely for the checkout. how did you create your own page? I've seen sites like Wix.com that allow you to create your own, but I don't know about paying yet another cost… I have to keep in mind my main job is a teacher first, the woodworking is just a side gig.


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## MalcolmLaurel (Dec 15, 2013)

Tooch, most ISPs give you free space for a personal website, likely yours does as well. They're generally not meant to be used for any kind of business, but unless you have a large amount of traffic they rarely check or enforce it. To actually create the site, many ISPs provide tools or you can use a 3rd party web page editor (I use Kompozer, which is free).


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## Blackie_ (Jul 10, 2011)

I opened my shop, Nov 2011 and so far I've made just over 5k in sales, listing fees are $0.20 and they charge 3.75% of total sale per item. I also have a facebook business page and have made sales from it, but.. most of my revenue has come from ETSY, actually I've done so well with online sales I've decided to no longer do the monthly market shows, they do me no good, plus with all of the expenses, booth rental, Gas, ware-n-tear on vehicle, lunch, labor loading, setting up, tear down, reloading and unloading, with online sales so far now I'm averaging anywhere between $300 and a thousand a month.

Since ETSY limits you to only 5 photos what I do is create the item and upload all photos on my facebook business page first then after I create the item on ETSY I include a link back to my facebook page so they can see all of the photos as different angles, just make sure you have the prices set the same on both ETSY and FACEBOOK that happened to me once and so I had to make adjustments for a customer.

Here's my store if you care to take a look.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Hollysprings

My facebook business page is at the bottom, the link after my signature.

I think it all has to do with what you are selling, it has to be unique a one of a kind, functional, practical and appealing, I've just concluded and reached the threshold of what is selling the best for me, I have also come at least to my way of thinking that women do most of the shopping more so then men so it has to appeal to them.

I first started out with my own 
website after a several months of that I said NO THANK YOU, Toosh, if you want to sit at the computer and do massive amounts of data entry and that's your thing then… but myself I'd rather be in my shop, now if you have a wife and she is willing to run that part of the business end then that's different, I'm doing everything myself and my time is better spent in the shop not behind a computer., ETSY and facebook solved that problem for me, plus I don't have to spend $80 - $100.00 a year for a domain to house my website, either way you go about it it's pure data entry, way more then ETSY.


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## nate22 (Jul 12, 2010)

I have a shop on etsy. What I have found out is the smaller and cheaper things sell the fastest on there. And post something every other day or so on there so you stay up on the front page of etsy that way more people will see your stuff. I've sold a couple pieces of furniture on there. And like a couple others said you can set it up to where they pay you through pay pal or credit card. It just depends on how active you stay on there depends on how much you sell.


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