My experience of selling on Etsy 2024/2025

 

I had an Etsy store selling my art many years ago, not long after Etsy launched. I had some of my lino cut prints on there, and made sales, however my anxiety and lack of confidence got the better of me and I closed it. I opened another one some years later, and stopped selling again for the same reasons! I've been on a veritable roller-coaster of trying to sell my work for years, the biggest obstacle being me!

I didn't have the best start in life and I've been on a real journey of learning about myself to get to a better place. Although I'll never be confident, it's so ingrained in me like a reflex of pulling your hand away from a hot surface, I have learned to have courage. Courage is doing things when you are afraid. I'm in a different place now, where I'm determined not to let things stop me.

I'd been selling art on another platform for a couple of years but decided to make the move back to Etsy last year, part of the reason being I don't want to use social media anymore and Etsy does a lot to bring in customers. Over the nine months that I have been there I've been very happy with how I've done. Everything I do is completely handmade by myself, I have my hands on items in every step of the process, even the cards and stickers I send with orders are handmade, printed, and cut by me. This means what I do is not scalable, but I'm happy with that.

Etsy takes work. You need to invest time learning how the site works, crafting good lisitngs, and optimising tags and SEO. There is a great seller handbook running through everything you need to know. Etsy have stated they want sellers who have the skill and the will. You also need to want to give a good customer experience. Online shopping has changed customer expectations, for good and bad. Personally I think buying handmade should be a special experience. I care about the items I make and endeavour to make sure they're presented well, and it's a lovely experience getting a package from me.

The fees are reasonable despite what people say. If you want to sell on a platform that invests in advertising to bring in buyers you must expect to pay. I've previously had a stand alone shop/portfolio website which was more expensive. Having a website is like chucking a tiny pebble in the ocean; even if you are good at SEO it's hard to bring traffic. Buyers on Etsy also have protection if something goes wrong, and I think that gives more confidence to purchase rather than buying from a random website. 

Offsite ads seem to be a bone of contention for some. I get around 20% of sales via offsite ads. I think it's great to potentially get your items in front of people who may not be Etsy customers. You only pay when you make a sale, which is more than fair. Any advertising would have to be paid for, and if you give a customer a great experience, they may well remember you and come back. I think there should be an opt out for everyone, not only those below a certain threshold, however I'm very happy using them.

It's sad that Etsy gets a lot of negative attention. It's often the case that people who aren't happy are more vociferous than those who are. There are many talented people, making beautiful items, selling on there, and it takes away from their efforts. Like any company Etsy makes changes, some work, and some don't. It's part and parcel of being on a platform like that, you need to be adaptable and roll with things. 

The biggest problem isn't Etsy, it's more to do with how some people behave. It's those who think they can make easy money, and some of them are downright fraudulent and lacking in morality. It's a source of ad revenue, and sales of courses, for influencers on YouTube and TikTok to say it's easy, passive, income on Etsy, and they will show you how to do it. It's resulted in a flood of low effort, print on demand, items. The T shirts, phone cases and so on, often look like stuff you can buy anywhere else, but are far more expensive. If people aren't truly creative they just copy what they feel is popular, so you get copies, of copies, of copies.

 I also don't agree with Etsy's decision to allow AI generated work. Again, it allows low effort shops to flood the market, crowding out people who do create from scratch. It's demoralising at times that people buy these print on demand items, which in many cases are actually more expensive than items people have handmade from scratch.

There's also a ton of intellectual property theft and trademark infringement going on. People try and ride on the coat tails of others to make a quick buck. Places like Disney often do sweeps to take down and prosecute these sellers, since it's up to the copyright holder to police their work. 

Dropshipping is another issue that's caused heartache for customers and genuine creatives. In an effort to combat this AI bots scan places like Temu, and if an item photo matches, Etsy assumes the shop owner is a reseller. Unfortunately this has meant genuine sellers who've unknowingly had items stolen and copied by the likes of Shien,  and Temu, get shut down. It's even more difficult because I suspect a lot of Etsy customer service are taken up by people who have actually broken the site's terms of use, who seem to be able to shout louder than anyone else that they have been wronged. 

You have to remember that Etsy is dealing with 8 million or so sellers, so it must be a nightmare to try and weed out all this stuff, and if you get rid of one, then ten more spring up. It's not a perfect site, but I don't think anywhere is, it's about finding the right fit for you. I find the videos on the Etsy success YouTube useful, and the staff come across as passionate, knowledgeable, and have been with the company a number of years. As a company they are actively trying to tackle the issues I mentioned above. 

Unfortunately the days of easy online sales are gone, and people need to accept that. Art and craft is more accessible and easy to learn now, so lots of people want to sell things, and there is a lot of competition. Just because you make something and put it for sale doesn't mean people will buy it, no matter how good it is. It's important for me to enjoy the process. Just the act of making something is good for my soul.

It can take a year or more to build up your shop's trust rating to bring in more consistent sales, so you need to be in it for the long haul  You will also need to cope with seasonal fluctuations, and lots of things you have no control over, like the economic climate. 

The small business vlogs on YouTube often give an unrealistic view of what it's like selling your work. In addition to materials and labour, you also have the time photographing, editing, listing, packing, and posting to take into account. That means to offer something at a reasonable price many of us are not getting anywhere near the living wage. Etsy is not a quick road to being able to quit your day job, and you have to think about necessities like paying into a pension.

Even with all the negatives I raised above, I have still sold more items in nine months than I did in three years on the previous platform I used. I have more than broken even and actually made a small amount for the first time since I started this venture. I love what I do, for me it's a passion project rather than a job, and it's a privilege when someone believes in you and your work enough to hand over money for it.