I am SO tired of hearing about Etsy but I'm starting to wonder if I should be jumping on the bandwagon.
For those of you who haven't heard of it, Etsy.com is an online marketplace for all things handmade and vintage. Think of it as the hipster Ebay.
If I had a dollar for every time that someone has mentioned Etsy to me since I launched my business just over a year ago, I wouldn't need to be in business. The Montreal Gazette just did a feature, The New York Times had a huge profile about six months ago, and there are over 800 Montreal stores on Etsy alone!
They say if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Though I have had an Etsy shop all along, I never invested a lot of time, money or energy in it. Just to keep people off my back (and see whether Etsy is as profitable as people say it is) I have finally revamped www.brazendesign.etsy.com.
Do you have an Etsy store? Have you shopped on Etsy .com?
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i have similar feelings about etsy- hence i havent opened an account. also i am a bit worried about the mail part since i live in cape town, south africa- a long way away the north americas and britains, which seems to be the main market...
ReplyDeletewill check out your shop though- keep us updated how its going :)
Update: The Etsy store is going fairly well! What has surprised me most is that my bigger ticket items are selling better than my more affordable One Offs...and it's all to U.S. customers so far. I'm sure it helps that I offer free shipping on my sterling silver items!
ReplyDeleteI haven't really marketed the site at all, so I am pleasantly surprised at the attention the store has gotten simply by being on the Etsy Network.
Now for my complaints...
Like L'Atelier said, shippping is the biggest issue. I have had an unthinkable number of parcels disappear once they hit the Canada/USA border. I have been doing some research online and for shipping Canada to the US, it looks like CanPar is where it is at... But for International Shipping, such as Cape Town to New York, I'm not sure there are any good options...
My other beef with Etsy is that the site functionality hasn't evolved. I wanna be able to offer free shipping on a $20 One Off creation if it is paired with a Silver creation, which already includes shipping.
Still beats Ebay though...