# Why Etsy?



## SunRiseArts (Aug 20, 2017)

I get that is a site for hand crafters, but I find etsy fees kind of expensive, plus the competition is so much.

Plus once I sold a bar of soap (like a year ago), and the buyer gave me 4 stars because she loved it, and I did not have the lotion to go with it.  Kind of upset me, because I do not sell any lotion at all.  

I have had an etsy account for year, and never use it ...

I have some of my soaps for sell on eBay. 

So why pick etsy over ebay?  Should I list on both?  Would I get more sells?


----------



## osso (Aug 20, 2017)

Not sure vs eBay, but eBay just doesn't shout handmade to me and I don't shop there for those types of things. With Etsy you don't necessarily have to drive your own traffic like with a standalone site. Minimal startup.


----------



## shunt2011 (Aug 21, 2017)

I've avoided Etsy as it's so over populated with handmade soaps etc.   I don't have time to maintain my website like I should little lone work with an Etsy site.


----------



## SunRiseArts (Aug 21, 2017)

I find etsy fees expensive.  I had a couple of things there, and sold them, and they took nearly half of the sale.  So it was not worth it.

I get what you are saying kittish.  I do not really sell a lot or anything, but sometimes I have too much, and want to make more!  lol


----------



## toxikon (Aug 21, 2017)

It seems like a lot of soapers use Instagram and social media to gather followers then do their main shop on their website. I like Wordpress for making sites, and there are lots of plug-ins you can use to handle the shop/money part of it. 

I had an Etsy selling necklaces about 10 years ago, and I liked it fine. But it seems completely overrun with soapers, I think it'd be really hard to sell there now without undercutting yourself.


----------



## SunRiseArts (Aug 21, 2017)

I give away during thanksgiving and Christmas. 

But sometimes you want to, because is like ratification in what you do?

I have a website, plugged to eBay.  I have sold some.  Don't make money really, but at the very least I break even with supplies.   I don't have a lot of money, so it helps.

I mainly sell MP, so is kind of made to order, so I do not lose or have overstock.  But lately I have been crazy trying different recipes and techniques.


----------



## Zany_in_CO (Aug 26, 2017)

Kenna over at Modern Soapmaking recently did a workshop on Instagram to promote your business. Might be worth a look???

http://www.modernsoapmaking.com/?s=instagram


----------



## SunRiseArts (Aug 26, 2017)

Thanks Zanny.  In a way I think I am my own worst enemy!  Because I really hate facebook, and instagram is a byproduct of it (I think).

I basically do no social media.  But my son offered to put it on his page.  I have fall and hallloween soap curing that I wanted to sell a few bars, but they are not ready in term of curing time.

And now I may have issues with my Halloween soap.  I posted in another thread, but 10 days after curing, still feels kind of soft .... :-?


----------



## Zany_in_CO (Aug 26, 2017)

SunRiseArts said:


> And now I may have issues with my Halloween soap.  I posted in another thread, but 10 days after curing, still feels kind of soft .... :-?


Um, Halloween is 9 weeks and 3 days away! Plenty of time to cure. I saw your Halloween soap... pretty cool. You can always change the name to something seasonal if you need to.


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 16, 2017)

I found Etsy to be too large and it was difficult to stand out.  I'd like to do my own website, but Shopify and other hosted e-commerce solutions are pretty expensive.  I may have to check out Wordpress and the add-ons to see if it makes sense financially.


----------



## jcandleattic (Oct 16, 2017)

Paintguru said:


> I found Etsy to be too large and it was difficult to stand out.  I'd like to do my own website, but Shopify and other hosted e-commerce solutions are pretty expensive.  I may have to check out Wordpress and the add-ons to see if it makes sense financially.



I use weebly for my website (love it, and it's customizable and has an e-commerce solution built-in if  you don't already have one, but can use your own) and it's free (the one I have is, there are other more customizable types of sites from them for a small fee - I don't find I need this, as one of the templates they had fit my aesthetic perfectly!) 

My domain is from godaddy for like $4 a year or something like that.  Very inexpensive and very affordable. And I don't have to pay Etsy their ridiculous fees.


----------



## SunRiseArts (Oct 16, 2017)

I have a go daddy domain. but weebly wanted to charge me for a transfer.  Did that happen to you?


----------



## jcandleattic (Oct 16, 2017)

SunRiseArts said:


> I have a go daddy domain. but weebly wanted to charge me for a transfer.  Did that happen to you?



No, not at all. I didn't transfer my domain to weebly though. I still have my domain through godaddy, and it was just a matter of me telling godaddy what weebly's DNS was, and plug that into the appropriate area on godaddy. 

If I remember right after I put in the DNS it took about 5-10 minutes for it to update and take effect. 
You should be able to call godaddy and talk to them and have them help walk you through it. It's been so long now since I did it, I can't remember exactly what steps I took, but I do know it was free because I'm cheap and if I had to pay to do it, I wouldn't have done it. LOL


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 17, 2017)

jcandleattic said:


> I use weebly for my website (love it, and it's customizable and has an e-commerce solution built-in if  you don't already have one, but can use your own) and it's free (the one I have is, there are other more customizable types of sites from them for a small fee - I don't find I need this, as one of the templates they had fit my aesthetic perfectly!)
> 
> My domain is from godaddy for like $4 a year or something like that.  Very inexpensive and very affordable. And I don't have to pay Etsy their ridiculous fees.



Awesome, I'll check Weebly out.  I just grabbed my domain through Google domains, so I'm sure (like you said in the following post) I'll just have that point to the Weebly page.


----------



## penelopejane (Oct 17, 2017)

Wix is another website builder with free accounts. If you do ecommerce you pay a bit but it's cheaper than weebly. Each have their advantages but it's another option for you.


----------



## jcandleattic (Oct 17, 2017)

penelopejane said:


> Wix is another website builder with free accounts. If you do ecommerce you pay a bit but it's cheaper than weebly. Each have their advantages but it's another option for you.



I must have gotten grandfathered in. I have weebly, an ecommerce, and use the free account, - don't pay a dime.


----------



## Kamahido (Oct 17, 2017)

My brother used to sell on eBay. The reason he left was because every time there was an issue which required eBay mediation they would always default to the buyer.


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 17, 2017)

penelopejane said:


> Wix is another website builder with free accounts. If you do ecommerce you pay a bit but it's cheaper than weebly. Each have their advantages but it's another option for you.



Yeah I saw them too.  Very small scale now, so trying to keep costs low!


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 17, 2017)

jcandleattic said:


> I must have gotten grandfathered in. I have weebly, an ecommerce, and use the free account, - don't pay a dime.



Yeah, I think you got a killer deal!  Looks like now it is a minimum of $8/month and they take a 3% chunk even before the payment provider takes their chunk.


----------



## jcandleattic (Oct 17, 2017)

Paintguru said:


> Yeah, I think you got a killer deal!  Looks like now it is a minimum of $8/month and they take a 3% chunk even before the payment provider takes their chunk.



Wow - I mean, I should have said, that yes, the ecommerce I use does take their 2.45% of every transaction, but I do not pay weebly a dime to have my ecommerce integrated into the site. Never have. 

I've had weebly going on 7 or 8 years now though, so maybe that's why? I really don't know, but I'm not going to ask too many questions. LOL


----------



## SunRiseArts (Oct 17, 2017)

jcandleattic said:


> No, not at all. I didn't transfer my domain to weebly though. I still have my domain through godaddy, and it was just a matter of me telling godaddy what weebly's DNS was, and plug that into the appropriate area on godaddy.
> 
> If I remember right after I put in the DNS it took about 5-10 minutes for it to update and take effect.
> You should be able to call godaddy and talk to them and have them help walk you through it. It's been so long now since I did it, I can't remember exactly what steps I took, but I do know it was free because I'm cheap and if I had to pay to do it, I wouldn't have done it. LOL


 

Thank you.  I will try that, the bad par is that I already have cards made. :headbanging:

My son gifted me the domain for mothers day.


----------



## jcandleattic (Oct 17, 2017)

SunRiseArts said:


> Thank you.  I will try that, the bad par is that I already have cards made. :headbanging:
> 
> My son gifted me the domain for mothers day.



My domain name didn't change. all you are doing is pointing your domain name to Weebly's domain name servers, and it should be seamless...


----------



## penelopejane (Oct 17, 2017)

Paintguru said:


> Yeah I saw them too.  Very small scale now, so trying to keep costs low!





Paintguru said:


> Yeah, I think you got a killer deal!  Looks like now it is a minimum of $8/month and they take a 3% chunk even before the payment provider takes their chunk.



I am pretty sure that Wix ecommerce at $15 a month does not charge any transactions fees.

Wix has SSL security encyption for all plans (including the free one). 

I am still sitting on the fence! Would love to hear your views or is it only the base fee that you are concerned about?


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 18, 2017)

penelopejane said:


> I am pretty sure that Wix ecommerce at $15 a month does not charge any transactions fees.
> 
> Wix has SSL security encyption for all plans (including the free one).
> 
> I am still sitting on the fence! Would love to hear your views or is it only the base fee that you are concerned about?



I'm on the fence too, but I'm also slow to move and over-research things .  From what I've read, it sounds like many end up at Shopify in the end, as it is a nice, complete system.  The question is, is it worth the extra ~$160/year?


----------



## LilyJo (Oct 18, 2017)

Dont know how Wix is these days but when we first started we set up through Wix and had all kind of issues with which we then started spotting with other websites as well.

Their sites are often very slow to load but the killer for us was the file/page extensions were always a random list of characters and numbers - I think they are better now than they were but the reviews have never been amazing but their front end website design is probably the easiest and one of the best I've seen.

We ended up creating our own through Wordpress and have a WooCommerce solution which accepts payments through paypal. One of the benefits is that we choose who to host with which enables us to move our hosting at any time without losing all the data - often if you choose a website builder you get stuck into their hosting platform and if you need to change in the future you can get stuck for serious money.

We also have an etsy site which we use to clear line ends etc and although its taken a while to build up traffic, our etsy site now generates significantly more than our standard site.  We no longer do eBay for the same reasons as someone else said, they always side with the buyer no matter what happens!


----------



## penelopejane (Oct 18, 2017)

Paintguru said:


> I'm on the fence too, but I'm also slow to move and over-research things .  From what I've read, it sounds like many end up at Shopify in the end, as it is a nice, complete system.  The question is, is it worth the extra ~$160/year?



And at that rate plan ($29/month) shopify still charge a transaction fee. So it's not worth it for small traders. 

One major advantage weebly has is that you can export your data if you want to change hosting sites.  Otherwise you have to do it manually. Not sure if this is a deal breaker or not because these sites make setting up a website easy and fairly painless but it would be time consuming (copy and paste). I'm not tech savvy enough to set one up on Wordpress. I've done that with a blog and it's not as easy as Wix is.


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 18, 2017)

penelopejane said:


> And at that rate plan ($29/month) shopify still charge a transaction fee. So it's not worth it for small traders.
> 
> One major advantage weebly has is that you can export your data if you want to change hosting sites.  Otherwise you have to do it manually. Not sure if this is a deal breaker or not because these sites make setting up a website easy and fairly painless but it would be time consuming (copy and paste). I'm not tech savvy enough to set one up on Wordpress. I've done that with a blog and it's not as easy as Wix is.



My impression was the transaction fees came if you used an outside payment service (Paypal, etc.).  If you use their payment service, there are no fees.


----------



## penelopejane (Oct 18, 2017)

Paintguru said:


> My impression was the transaction fees came if you used an outside payment service (Paypal, etc.).  If you use their payment service, there are no fees.



No, shopify still charge: 

The Shopify pricing plans are as follow: The ‘Basic’ package is $29 per month (and 2.9% + 30¢ for every transaction). The ‘Shopify’ plan costs $79 per month (plus 2.5% + 30¢ for each transaction). Purchasing the ‘Advanced’ Shopify plan is $299 per month (and 2.25% + 30¢ per transaction). Finally, the ‘Enterprise‘ package starts at $2000 per month.

There are extra charges for credit card payments (see table). If you are not using Shopify’s own payment system – Shopify Payments – there will be an additional charge for each sale you make.

FYI Wix doesn't charge transaction fees.
So at $15 a month (if you need a store) Wix sounds better cost wise I think? Or am I missing something?


----------



## Kamahido (Oct 18, 2017)

penelopejane said:


> No, shopify still charge:
> 
> The Shopify pricing plans are as follow: The ‘Basic’ package is $29 per month (and 2.9% + 30¢ for every transaction). The ‘Shopify’ plan costs $79 per month (plus 2.5% + 30¢ for each transaction). Purchasing the ‘Advanced’ Shopify plan is $299 per month (and 2.25% + 30¢ per transaction). Finally, the ‘Enterprise‘ package starts at $2000 per month.
> 
> ...



Thank you for the fee breakdown. I like Etsy's 3.5% + $0.20 listing fees (for four months) with no monthly fees. I figured early on even if I don't make a sale I am only out $0.20 per listing. But I do understand where an earlier poster was coming from, as it is quite hard to stand out from the crowd.


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 24, 2017)

Heika said:


> I just signed up for a Wix account.  A friend built the website for me and did something that incorporated my etsy account into a shopping cart on the wix site.  It looks nice and simplifies things.  Wix had a sale if you signed up for a year.  I got an unlimited plan for $7 a month, and I thought that was pretty good.  I am having a hard enough time getting all of my soap and product listed on Etsy to have to list it again on a website, so this works for me.



So is your wix site a store too?  Unlimited appears to be below the e-commerce plan, so I'm wondering what you're missing.  Also, where did you find the $7 deal?  I don't see it!


----------



## SunRiseArts (Oct 25, 2017)

with weebly you can also have a link to your cart.  I fix mine with ebay, but I am sure you can do it with etsy too.


----------



## Paintguru (Oct 27, 2017)

Yeah I think I'd prefer everything to live on the site and not have it go external to Etsy.  It may be nice if the inventories were synced up so when someone purchased from one it update the other.  I feel like Wix does do this, but I'd need to explore a bit more.


----------



## penelopejane (Nov 19, 2017)

Has any one heard of ecwid which is an app that makes a store on your Wix site for free.  If you use the store app in Wix (even if you just use it for a photo gallery) they make you sign up for the ecommerce plan $16/month) .

I just want to know if the ecwid keeps you in your Wix website or sends you off somewhere in the cloud.


----------



## Paintguru (Nov 20, 2017)

FYI, Wix has a Thanksgiving sale on the e-commerce package...50% off.


----------



## Lin19687 (Jun 8, 2018)

Etsy
I went on there and was overwhelmed with the amount of soaps on there. Not to mention the p  0rn soaps !  Seriously there should be a block for that. Every 5th soap was like that 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





4-5 oz soap for $11 ?? no there is nothing extraordinary about the ingredients either, if listed.

Some don't list ingredients, size of soap or much else.  Some look like my very 1st HP soap lol.

I even saw some that the price was $1 ??  <-- I think they were from out of the country.

It's all over the place.  I guess each to their own 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Oh and I love all the 'claims ' they make, "Coconut Milk, water and cream are often considered a ‘miracle liquid’ as “it may help protect the body from infections. Coconut milk is packed with vitamins C, E, B1, B3, B5, and B6 as well as iron, selenium, sodium, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus." 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Is it even worth it anymore to list on there?

I have started my own website (  1&1  Uber cheap for a year and my own Domain I bought) , but not listed anything on there yet as I am still trying to figure out the payment arrangement.  I have Square but I still have to figure out how to JUST do the payment with them and not send the whole site over there.


----------



## Rune (Jun 8, 2018)

Or maybe they should block some of those soaps? To dump some melt and pour in a p-enis mold, that is not handmade products. And those soaps are actually worse than those I saw earlier. They were just melt and pour in ice cube trays, sort of. But now I see the big ones, with suction cups and all that. They should make an own section for those soaps, so that people could choose what they want to see or not. Definately way more tasteless than I thought.

 I now sort of agree that the p 0rn soaps should be blocked, instead of disagree. Maybe I mixed Etsy with something else, or maybe the worst ones were not on Etsy last I was there (a while ago). So, I deleted the message after checking Etsy and it is not as I thought. When to learn to check things first, and not afterwards? :-D


----------



## SunRiseArts (Jun 9, 2018)

lol Rune, I have seen those molds.

I know right?  I thought  was the only one who thought Etsy was overrated.


----------

