Why I Don't Use Etsy

One of the questions I get asked most often is, "why don't you use Etsy?" It's The Place to sell art, right? Surely I'd get better sales there. Well, not necessarily. 

See, I will let you in on the dark side of Etsy. The high fees for purchases and listings are common knowledge, but they can be accommodated by adjusting the price of your item to list them. The real dark side is the marketing ads. 

There are two ways to get views on your listings through Etsy (as in, not through people following links on your social media) - Being a Best Seller which bumps you to the top of the listings, or paying for sponsored ads. Etsy will bump your listing to the top of the search every so often, and every time you get a click, they charge you however much you set for your "budget." The higher the budget, the more times your listing gets bumped. So if I set a $25 budget, I'll get put on sponsored ads pretty frequently, but every time someone clicks on the ad, Etsy charges me $25. It should be noted though, that a click, does not mean a sale. Very different. I might get 30 clicks before someone buys that item, at $25 a click, that is a ton of money. But if you don't participate in Etsy Ads, and you don't have a Best Seller badge, you won't be seen in the listings, especially if you are one of the hundreds of crochet artists on Etsy. 

In other words, unless you feel like paying absurd amounts of money, the easiest way to get seen on Etsy is to drive traffic to your site on your own, through your marketing on social media, sharing with friends, and so on. This is the exact way I drive traffic to my Kofi page, only with Kofi, I paid a bit less than $80, and I have NO. FEES. None. I can list as many things as I want, and I won't get charged a listing or a sale fee. I have access to this lovely blog, commissions tab, and a tip page tag, all on the same platform for easy access for customers. Sure, there are some drawbacks - I quite liked Etsy's easy shipping label feature and they have more options for customizing shop listings than Ko-Fi, but overall, Ko‑fi saves me a lot of money, and I end up doing the same amount of marketing on my own. 

Considering I primarily sell at craft fairs and only have a few listings online, Ko‑fi was by far the more economical route for me to take when it comes to selling online. I hope to one day have my site, sure, and have been saving up for a domain, but until then, I'm quite happy hosting Candy Cap Crochet here on Ko-fi. In short, I don't use Etsy, because Etsy is a lot of money for not a lot of return, whereas Ko‑fi gets me the same return, for a lot less money. 

That said, don't let this post discourage you from selling on Etsy if that's what you want. It has a lot of benefits, and some that I do miss myself. Sponsored ads mean you spend less time on marketing and more on creating. If you have unique products, you'll be at the top of the listings regardless just due to lack of competition. Stuff like patterns and digital content is a lot harder to sell through Ko‑fi in my experience (which is why my patterns are through Ribblr, look for CandyCapCrochet to see what I've got!). Domains are expensive and websites are hard to make, whereas Etsy allows you a trusted and professional platform to sell from without the extra work. If you decide to sell your art, I highly advise you to sit down and look at your priorities, where you want to put the most work in, what your skills are going into the endeavor, and budget out what works best for you. As a primarily craft fair seller, this works best for me. Someone who primarily sells online might prefer a personal domain or an Etsy. Someone who is just selling for fun and doesn't care about money might prefer the ease of Etsy. It depends on you, so think carefully, plan out what matters to you, and do your research on fees and visibility.