Opening an Etsy shop?

[Madman1978]

I am wondering If I should open an Etsy store.

Anyone had an experience with them?

 

[jttheclockman]

I highly suggest you take a look around the area you want to sell in. If it is pens and pens alone take a look at what your competition is and how much money it will cost to compete with those bargin prices. Etsy takes % of sales so be aware and read their rules for advertising and what it cost. I say this because it is not the best place to make money if you are after that. Can it be done yes but you will need to become established and offer things that others do not. If you are selling plain Jane wood pens good luck. No one here can tell you to or not to open the store. It is all up to you and how much work you want to put into it. Taking photos, writing ads, keeping records because now you are going to fill out tax forms too. Good luck.

 

[sorcerertd]

I've had one since October 2019. Their fees are a little higher than some other places and definitely higher than doing your own website, but there's a lot more traffic there. There are also a lot of people that sell turned pens quite cheap, so I'm sure that impacts sales somewhat, but I price what I feel is fair. I'm sure where to sell and how to price depends on your goals. It's not a money making venture for me, but just a way to make this expensive hobby self supporting and selling on Etsy has done that successfully so far.

And as to what JT said. There's no monthly fees for a basic account. You pay 20¢ to create a listing that is good for 4 months, then another 20¢ to renew it if need be. I think their commission is %5. There are transaction fees for the payments and it costs 25¢ to buy a shipping label. You can opt into paid advertisements if you choose to. The pictures and item descriptions take time to do. I don't care for the business side, but it provides money to buy more stuff and even some tool upgrades. It was definitely slow getting started and I don't usually sell more than one or two items a month still, but at least I stay ahead of the expenses there.

 

[NT_2112]

I have one and it's great for simple transactions. I'm branching out into selling custom ordered pens so I am developing a website that will let the end user select what options they want (material, nib type, clip type, etc).

But for basic sales, I see nothing wrong with Etsy. It will take some time and effort to get your store noticed. A good trick is to route any local sales through Etsy. This way, your sales rep goes up.

 

[Kenny Durrant]

I'm not a computer guy, I'm just an old one, so I partnered up with a friend and he pretty much runs the Etsy site. Just to touch on what others have said there's a bunch of pen turners out there. I've been doing it a while and when I started I knew I needed to do something that set me apart from the others. Also pictures are what sells the pens. Not the only thing but that the first thing people see so take nice pictures. I use my cell phone but I try to do what I can so it's very appealing to the eye. Also go into detail about the pen. Most of my stuff is outdoors or guy related so most of my sales are Christmas and Fathers Day with a few here and there. Also mentioned look to see what your competition is doing. I'm not buy a new house or truck but I can buy a few kits here and there.

 

[JUICEDSS]

I've been on Etsy for 2 years. I have 85 sales totaling just over $4,000. I'm not getting rich but these are sales I didn't have to work for. You can copy your previous listings and update any text and pictures and create a new listing. No reinventing the wheel for each one. It takes me about 1 minute to list a new item. This does not include taking the photos. When a sale happens, I put it in a pen box, print the label, packing list and stuff it in a padded envelope. I drop it at the post office drive through and I am done. I find it to works very well for me.

 

[TellicoTurning]

I've been on ETSY since 2011, have over 450 sales and total gross revenue over $28,500... not setting the world on fire, average is just over $3200 per year. I had my own website for a few years and at first it paid for itself, then sales dropped off and the cost was more than I wanted to carry... the $.20 per listing for 4 months equaled about 70 listings for what I was paying per month for my own site... it was a better deal for me. And as was said above, it's not to make a living, just to pay for the costs of being able to do more wood turnings... I stopped doing pen about 6 or 7 years back and concentrate on mostly pepper mills and bowls, with a few other turnings thrown in for fun... there has been some changes in their fees and structure over the years and fees have definitely gone up of late, but still a better deal for me than working my own website.

It's a good way to get established on the web and to see if you want to do your own website at a later date...

 

[McKenzie Penworks]

If you want to sell anything the question becomes: How do people find me?

Etsy is expensive because they provide the market and they know it. Price accordingly. To stand out you need better than average photos, good descriptions, and enough inventory to keep people on your page long enough to purchase. Back when I was selling pens, I found that until I had 90+ pens in inventory my sales were pretty sluggish. Once I got above 90 pens the turn over grew quite a bit and we kept selling things. There was also a noticeable difference in sales when I went through and redid all my photos for better quality photos. You don't need to be the world's best photographer but get the white balance right at a bare minimum. Simply having good photos will elevate your product over the majority of the others on the platform.

Once you've established yourself at a place like Etsy and maybe figured out a brand, you can get your own website/facebook page/etc going. Assuming you even want to.

Bottom line: Yes, Etsy is expensive, but how else would they find you?