Questions for Those with Etsy Shops

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21

Iā€™m certainly looking into this as an option! i am a bit paranoid since itā€™s not as well known as etsy, but frankly that might be a good thing lol. i think if i do some research, it will ease my worry

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22

Hi,

The Treasure Box had a store on etsy for about 2Ā½ years,( we can not speak for digital products) but selling physical items as a small business, was not worth it. In order to make any profit(because of all the fees!)your item becomes unfairly expensive on the customers (and unfair with the amout you as a seller, are left with). Fees are taken out of everythingā€¦ I mean EVERYTHING! (including your shipping $) You also must keep an eye out as there are also quite a few scammers.

The intention of this message is not to discourage anyone or to down grade any platform, this is simply just based on the personal experience that our small handmade business ( The Treasure Box) had.

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23

I did the research a few years ago, esty is like the worst from a seller point. Granted some get lucky, but that could be hit or miss. True any platform can, but until you get a footing or loyal customer base, something like ko-fi might be good for you. I feel it was for me. And youā€™re not out money if it takes a bit to make sales.

Might also could sell on deviantart? :thinking: youā€™d use it as a platform for people to find your plush.

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24

thanks for your input! it seems like the fees were a bigger downside than i previously thought. Iā€™ll definitely be wary of selling there

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25

Iā€™ll definitely check it out then! the first 5 listings being free is definitely a selling point for me as well

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26

All the love and luck to you hun :purple_heart:

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27

thank you <33

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28

I think it would be worth it to do just patterns 8n the begging, and if that goes well and you can see that people are noticing you shop then maybe you can try to sell some physical items. Im actually in the midst of mak8ng some of my patterns into pdfā€™s for Etsy!

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29

ah i was actually not planning to sell patterns at all! Iā€™m more interested in selling physical items unfortunately

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30

Oh okey! I would still try it out to see how you do. You never know, all the big Etsy sellers had to start somewhere. :+1:

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31

thatā€™s true!

32

Ok so from a Ko-Fi POV on physical items, the thing that I found is the biggest downfall is shipping. I sell my eyes on there and you canā€™t set up something to be like ā€˜calc shipping from this zip to this zipā€™ kinda thing. Itā€™s country by country. So like US is one shipping fee. Canada is another. So me being in the NW of the US, costs to ship nearby would be far less than say to alaska, hawaii, or new york. Yet I have to charge the same amount to everyone. I only do US cause when I looked at canada, it was over $20 to ship some eyes. EYES. These things weigh like an ounce. It was insane.

So that part about Ko-fi is not great. Also thereā€™s 0 advertising. No search function either. When I asked, they said they had one but removed it and donā€™t plan to bring it back. So you have to do all your own advertising and marketing. No one will find your shop if you donā€™t give them the link. So you have to be heavy into IG or some other platform to get sales there (Ribblr doesnā€™t allow outside platform advertising so no dice doing it here :frowning: )

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33

ah well at least the fees seem a tad more reasonable than etsyā€™s. i donā€™t expect that Iā€™ll sell too much as Iā€™m not as talented as other creators out there, but i figured that if were to get back into selling things, Iā€™d want to do it some other way so i donā€™t get as overwhelmed

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34

Fees are definitely way better.

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35

I dont have a large etsy shop (barely over 200 sales] but Iā€™ve tried other platforms like square up and shopify. I do think etsy is a good starting place. Sure the fees can be high BUT you dont have to pay for a monthly subscription like you do for other platforms. Plus people are more likely to find you on etsy just buy naturally. Where if you had your own website youā€™d have to ā€œwork harder" to advertise your shop. (Obviously itā€™ll help if you promote your shop through etsy as well)

Again im a small shop so im sure other people might be more helpful but I have been selling online for 5 years (not consistently)

Edit: I do think if you get a large amount of following/consistently getting sales you can stray from etsy and go get your own site like many do.

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36

I had my Etsy shop for 1 year. I have 6 sale, working on the 7th. 2 order were from gamer friends only.

I gave up hope in December but January at like 2am I got a random message asking for a custom order.

Patience is all you need.

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37

thanks for your input!

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38

You certainly have more patience than i do!

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39

I usually donā€™t :joy:

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40

ah fair enough lol