Should I Sell on Etsy or My Own Website?

When you start a small business, you have to make about a thousand and one decisions. Logo options, colors, what you should name it, and (many, many) more. If you are a maker, you will likely find yourself asking this question… should I sell my products on Etsy or on my own website? After having done both, I have a few tidbits to share, that might be helpful!
First things first, make sure you are eligible to sell on Etsy. Etsy is a marketplace for handmade items, vintage finds, and craft supplies. If your products fall into one of those categories, then you are in! After that, weigh the pros and cons of each platform to make your decision.
PROS OF SELLING ON ETSY
It's Easy
From opening your shop, to listing items, to shipping orders they’ve got you covered. Even communication with your customers happens through Etsy. Everything you need to run your shop effectively is all in one place.
Starting is Cheap
Etsy gets a bad rep for it’s high selling fees. Numbers don’t lie: the percentage fee on each sale is higher than most of their competitors, but there is no monthly fee. When you are starting out, this is huge. All it costs to get started on Etsy is 20 cents for the listing fee. You don’t pay any more until your item sells.
Built-In Customer Base
Etsy is a pretty well known platform. Because of this, they offer the potential to get your items in front of a lot of customers. If you sell an item that people already go to Etsy to find, then it is just a matter of playing the SEO game.
CONS OF SELLING ON ETSY
Not Customizable
With the ease and the inexpensiveness of Etsy’s platform, comes limitations. You have very little say in how your shop is laid out, which makes having a branded experience much more difficult.
You are at the mercy of Etsy!
This is by far the biggest downside to selling exclusively on Etsy. The Etsy algorithm is ever changing, most the time with no warning. This is obviously frustrating as a seller, especially because this is your income we are talking about! Furthermore, if Etsy decides to audit your shop for any reason, you can be down for up to 2 months. Now, that rarely happens, but it could be detrimental if the audit came at the wrong time!
PROS OF SELLING ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE
It's all yours!
The biggest downside to Etsy is the biggest benefit to having your own website. On your own website there are no sudden changes to algorithms or unfair cases or audits! You are the boss and you have the final say when you are selling on your own site!
Brand, Brand, Brand
Unlike Etsy, on your own website, you get to call all the shots for design. This means you can double down on your brand through your layout, fonts, the copy, your photos… everything.
CONS OF SELLING ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE
Starting is Costly
Unlike Etsy, the start up costs for a website can be pretty high! Depending on who you host with, you could have monthly fees, hosting fees, you may have to pay for a theme, and more. This is why I often recommend starting with Etsy.
Harder to Market
Because your website is all yours, the customers are all yours too. But it’s your job to go find them. Without Etsy’s built-in customer base, getting people to your site can be difficult. You will find yourself needing to really double down on marketing your products.
SO WHAT DO I RECOMMEND DOING?
Like most things, I think it depends on your business. But my overall recommendation is this: if you are just beginning, I would sell on Etsy first, with the goal of adding your own site later on. Because Etsy is cheap and easy to open, you can start selling items while you save up for and build a website. If you are established, I recommend selling on both platforms, but marketing your website. Depending on your niche, Etsy’s customer base could be huge; you wouldn’t want to turn that away! However, because Etsy fees are high and your site is more on brand, I recommend sending everyone from social media to your site. This is what we currently do and we are really happy with it!
That’s all for today folks! If you are selling products (on Etsy or your own site), I would love to hear from you! Give me a shout in the comments and let me know what you are selling! :)

[@EEMSDIARY]

Thank you for explaining. I have a Etsy shop and finally got to sell some items but now the ad fees has me messed up 😩. I already have a website because of my blog. I really like your idea to have both. So I will keep my Etsy account to grow and make a separate webshop site

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

ahhh!! i know the ad fees are kind of a bummer! if you have less than 10k in sales a year, you can turn off the offsite ad fees! but unfortunately not if you make more! happy to hear you'll be doing both!

[@MM-cs3yz]

Smart of you, EEMSDIARY. I am so new at this, I haven't yet started hosting my products. However, I definitely want to pay to have and OWN my own website. I have watched far too many videos of people having their website suspended or banned, or a new algorithm or changes in an algorithm, that work against their sales. I'm excited to try Etsy, and as for owning a website being a bit more expensive, this may be true, but for me, it will be insurance just in case I run into difficulties on company owned platforms.

[@torimarshall7599]

Really useful and to the point . Thank you

[@artandcreationsbyyvettecre2308]

I will take up Etsy after listening to you. Later adding a website. Thank you 😊🌻

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

yay! glad to hear that!

[@MM-cs3yz]

Thanks a bunch, Andrea. I am getting ready to start selling on one of the many website platforms. Here is what I think is monumentally important in regard to having your own website, just like you mentioned. Simply put, in my view, when you own your own website, no one is going to come along and shut your website down. You own it. My guess is, at least for me, paying a little more to be the owner of your very own website, is kind of like insurance, just in case you are shut down or an algorithm works against you. With that said, I am excited to give Etsy a try, while at the same time, pay to own a website and slowly but surely build on it while working with Etsy. Thanks again, and actually, a VERY important and comprehensive video by you.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Thanks for watching! I’m glad it was helpful! :)

[@alyssamartinez8708]

This was extremely helpful! I just started a Enamel Pins & Prints business on Etsy and was debating to switching my own website! I think I’ll wait to get more of a following before I make the switch! Thanks again!

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

yay! i am so glad it was helpful! happy selling!! :)

[@jazminlugo6522]

Thank you, you answer all the questions I had.God bless you.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

yay! i am glad to hear that! thank you for watching!

[@gusofalltrades865]

This was a FANTASTIC comparison, truly.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

thank you so much for watching! :)

[@starchristmas5940]

Wow I just want to say thank you for this video, the way you talk is really easy to understand and you sound more like my friend explaining this stuff to me than some snooty person 😂 I really appreciate that you took the time to make this video.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

oh my word thank you so much! you are too kind! im glad it was helpful! :)

[@MiloneMoneyMindset]

Nice share!! There's a lot of great content in this video! I don't have anything at the moment that I'm selling, but I really enjoy watching your videos! I'm the type of person who likes to keep my options open and this video is a great way to learn something new! Thanks for sharing!!

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Thanks so much for watching! Glad it was helpful!

[@keyos27]

This is such a great, realistic, and unbiased advice. Thank you.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Glad it was helpful!

[@debspringchannel831]

I asked this same question today as I decided to sell my wardrobe

[@Prancer-jr6qr]

Well said!

[@Laly7]

Thank you! Great information. I kept wondering about how much the difference in cost was between having an Etsy shop vs your own site.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Thanks! Glad it was helpful! :)

[@XOAliciaMarie]

I’ve personally love square space and when you pay for the whole year upfront it’s 30% cheaper. Plus with square space it is so freaking easy to set things up and immediately by throwing up a couple photos that represent your little brand or company it looks beautiful! You can also blog on the platform so naturally if you’re selling a product you wanna always try to create content around that product or how to use that product. I’ve seen a lot of one product businesses start with websites from Square space because square space basically makes it look like you have more going on than what you really have therefore even if you only have one or two products you still have a beautiful looking website and it’s beautiful enough to hopefully get someone’s email address captured, so that every time you release a new product you can also send out a mass email to those people who are subscribed to you!

[@mikaylagrace]

This is so helpful, thank you! I am a teen and have been working really hard to start a business and I'm almost ready to launch, I just need a website, so this really helped, thank you! I also wanted to let you know that you're so beautiful!!

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

oh my word you are too kind! thank you for watching! im glad it was helpful :)

[@norbertnagy5325]

Nice Etsy influence thx!

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

thanks for watching!

[@danielorourke2677]

Ok, making your own site is not expensive, I just did it myself, set up my online store. Get cheap hosting, use Storefront as your theme, and build the whole thing yourself. The only major cost is your time. Yes it can be a steep learning curve but if you like learning new skills, it's fun

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

yay! glad you were able to do it and make it fun! happy selling!

[@XOAliciaMarie]

I’m actually trying to build a brand, not a big brand just a homemade brand where all of my products naturally go together) therefore I do feel that you should immediately have a website because that’s the only way you can communicate your brand with the images, the “message” that you get to put on your website and you can already start creating content. Plus creating a website upfront kind of forces you to already start thinking about those things such as the way that you want to be portrayed by people who see your product. I also plan on utilizing my KZbin channel to help market my little homemade brand therefore again I think it looks more professional when they know that you have a website and then you can just let them know if they feel more comfortable purchasing through Etsy then you do have an Etsy shop. But honestly if you already blog and you already have a KZbin channel and you start telling people about what you’re selling and you have an impressive website put together they’re going to be impressed I don’t mean to put anybody specific down but I can’t tell you how many small handmade businesses on KZbin I’ve come across where they do not have a website at all or… They have a website that looks so bad that it just doesn’t look professional enough for me to want to purchase a product from them. Because website is going to usually be the first place that people get to see your product in detail… I feel if you have a real crappy looking website it’s not gonna make a good first impression. I personally have felt comfortable with using square space for years with personal websites and I really don’t wanna go into spending $40 a month with Shopify but if you pay for the full year upfront with square space it’s a lot cheaper. And one last thing I’m gonna say… There’s a lot of entrepreneurs out there that say to create the hype for your product even before you launch it but the only way you can really do that successfully is if you have your own website! I’m so ready to create more products every week and create content I want to start putting that somewhere so that I can already start driving traffic to my website through Pinterest or my KZbin channel. For a couple years I’ve been studying online marketing and blogging and making money from a blog and even a KZbin channel and everybody should go up front but that takes time for Google to recognize your website is legit to naturally start driving traffic to your site and that takes at least six months to a year just for organic traffic to come through on Google… So the longer you wait to purchase a URL and start driving traffic to our website the longer you’re going to essentially leave money on the table. I personally love seeing amazing products on Pinterest and then clicking on it and it taking me to a very well done website, versus just Etsy. When something drives me to Etsy I naturally start looking at everything else… But when a photo and Pinterest drives me to a website I naturally will start looking at everything else but the only thing I’m looking at is that same website.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Yes! Good point! Like I said, it is really dependent on your business and overall goals! :)

[@versatileduplicity9313]

I have both. Just made an Etsy. Made my website two years ago

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

we have both too :)

[@lovea1717]

Brilliant information 💞 @LoveAura_skincare Amazing products, my new business is up , but Etsy gets expensive I heard i am in U.K.

[@hello-wz6gq]

Little did she know one hear later everyone would be watching this during quarantine to make money

[@pepabeats777]

thank you

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

thanks for watching :)

[@sophiesanford9544]

Hi! I just watched your video! It was super helpful, but I do have a question about Wix. I don’t know if they have fees, and I don’t expect you to know either just wanted to ask! I’m trying to decide which one would be less expensive and more cost efficient!

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

i am unsure if wix has fees, though i would be very shocked if they didn't. so my first guess would be that they do!

[@ilovesasukelotz]

Hi Andrea, Great video and very helpful. I am considering doing both, but my question would be how is your experience with having two sites and keeping track of product? I like the idea of having both, but am worried if I get multiple sales on both sites and I run out of product for that certain item since both platforms would have a # of product availability. Is there an easy way to manage this? Thanks for your help! Kindly, Karissa

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

hey karissa! That is the one downfall. My shop is made to order, so we can manage easily. I think there are few apps like ship station that can track inventory for you, but not sure how it works with variations! other than that, my husband says you can write a script and pull it into excel daily - that is over my head though haha!

[@samanthamagbag9264]

What if one of my item is sold out. Im soon going to be making business and i will be selling phones cases. What if on the checkered design the iphone x is sold out. How can i make it say that the item is sold out

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

just take that option out of the variations :)

[@liveoffthewallco]

I want to start my own personal clothing streetwear brand before i get onto shopify when my customers base is better on my following etc. beside etsy can you do it on depop, Or thats more for reselling clothes?

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

i'm not sure, i have never dabbled in depop!

[@anabeltineo5129]

So we have to ship our products to Etsy or do we ship them to our customers ourselves?

[@mechelledesigns]

You ship to the customer yourself on Etsy.

[@fromthesecretplace168]

how do you pricing when you are on both? Do you do same prices?

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Usually, yes! Sometimes they differ slightly, but I try to keep them the same!

[@Avinash.i1Brand]

You always looked good Andrea ❤️😀

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Well thank you!!

[@Avinash.i1Brand]

@@Oursweetsunnydays I feel like you are my friend now 😌😌

[@TheHeartofjackie]

Would you recommend using a custom domain to direct people to your Etsy shop?

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

Jacqueline Soto yes! That would be a great quick fix! :)

[@nicktestajr]

Can I do both?

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

yes! i have done both for many years!

[@mlpplushartwork1674]

Hello. I have been shopping on Etsy for many years. I want to try Pattern. Does Etsy block sales of handmade products that require LICENSE (examples of T-shirts or masks with the image of Totoro, Naruto .....) Does Pattern follow the same laws or does it have no censorship for licensed items? Can anyone give an answer? Thanks.

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

hi! from my understanding, that's a copyright law. so, no matter where you sell (etsy, pattern, your own website) licensed products would technically be illegal!

[@cryptodryp1470]

can you build the algos in your own site to push your content? could you use the same algos they use on Etsy?

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

i'm not sure!

[@ChristopherPhillipsDev]

I think you're misunderstanding what the algo does. On a platform where there are many users, developers can code in an algorithm that pushes one sellers content more than another. The metrics they use for that is up to them. On your own site, you're the only creator on that platform so there won't be any specific algorithm needed. BUT, there are search engine algorithms that will index your site better than your competitors. That's why you need SEO rich content. Hope that clears it up...a year later 😂

[@beautifulscarsband]

Is it okay to sell the same products in an etsy store and on your own website? Etsy has no problem with that?

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

yes! i sell on both! :) as far as I know, that is totally within the rules of Etsy!

[@adelysbueno5592]

how can i get my product to be view by as many ppl on esty?

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

GOOD QUESTION (that we are all asking haha) I plan on posting some videos about SEO + have a course coming out with allllll the info you need to know about making Etsy profitable. Make sure to subscribe to stay updated!

[@karimawilliams9417]

I never heard about Travel , what is this? Geez I feel like a bear who has been hibernating

[@Oursweetsunnydays]

just an etsy seller who likes to also travel so i make videos about both haha! not a new thing to learn or anything!