Tired of Etsy fees? Worried about a boycott of Etsy due to problematic products? Here’s how to use your own website with your Etsy store to nurture customers to buy on your website (without getting in trouble with Etsy.)
Etsy is an online marketplace for hand crafted goods. It’s great in that it’s a marketplace – but it’s also huge. Being on Etsy has been an easy gateway for sellers to market their business because they own the hand-crafted marketplace space. (PayPal tried this a few years ago and failed to break into Etsy’s market.) In the last few years more and more non-handmade junk has made it’s way onto Etsy, including some problematic product that has resulted in a boycott of Etsy. Should you move? Here’s why or why not.
You are paying a LOT to be on Etsy. What if there were alternatives, and what do they cost?
Updated for 2025:
The other problem with Etsy is that the Temu/fast fashion junk has not only infiltrated, it’s taken over. Handmade sellers are being squeezed out by mass produced (unethical) junk. And new as of this week, Etsy is selling merchandise profiting off of human trafficking / camps for immigrants! Super icky and immoral to boot.
SquareSpace and WordPress website platforms for commerce are widely used, well-established and reasonably affordable. We use WordPress for all our own e-commerce stores (and this website.) We wax poetic about using SquareSpace all the time. Shopify is problematic for SEO and other reasons, so we don’t recommend that typically.
WordPress hosting is inexpensive, and Woo Commerce itself is actually free (but all the other plugins you might want to use cost some money – you might not need a lot of them, and you can start small.) We love WordPress, and we have far too many articles on it to count, but you can start here to feel the love (and learn some stuff.)
SquareSpace is super easy to use, robust, with email and commerce options that add on to their products. We detail a comparison between SquareSpace and WordPress, the two platforms here.
The benefits to Etsy (even despite the nearly 30% hike in fees
- Marketplace of sellers of handcrafted goods attracts those who are looking for just that
- The Etsy reviews system is powerful and allows others to evaluate shops based on review status
- Star seller (when you get five stars!) showcase by Etsy can boost sales and exposure
- For clients that use it well, Etsy can be an additional place to sell goods besides their own sites
We talk about marketing as a whole – your distribution channels might be direct (online, your own site) through a brick and mortar retailer, through an online marketplace like Etsy or others – these, together make for a powerful place to sell your goods. The 4Ps of marketing: product, price, PLACE and promotion – Etsy serves the latter two but of course, place.
Ways to move Etsy buyers deeper into your fold if you’re staying on Etsy:
As them to subscribe to your email list – this is algorithm-free (and there are tricks to getting into their priority inbox)
Ask them to follow you on social – where you can continue (albeit with an algorithm) showing them your products and connecting with them
Continue to market to them on these off-Etsy channels once they connect, in addition to using Etsy’s marketplace selling tools.
Use SEO to boost search results– Etsy will also help your search engine rankings too, as your products on their site show up higher in search results, typically.
Ways to counteract the fees:
Raise your prices. Yep, it’s one a lot of entrepreneurs don’t like. But a couple of small hikes over time, your customers might not even notice. Compare your prices to your competitors – your REAL competitors (same quality, same style, not lower-cost basic product options) – and you’ll find that you can probably raise them and ease this in with use of discounts and coupons.
Use Etsy to the fullest – take advantage of your reviews, star seller status on Etsy
Launch new products first on Etsy but consider having website-only products so customers have to go to both. We talk about membership-based sites a lot, and that is another good way to increase off Etsy sales too.
Etsy is a powerful tool for sellers online – but it also connects YOU to small businesses and small makers directly. Recently a number of people have used Etsy to purchase hand crafted digital goods from Ukranian sellers by doing a country specific search. I know I picked up several sewing patterns and embroidery designs from Ukranian sellers, in an effort to support a few small sellers.
When we think of the power of being able to buy something from some small seller from anywhere – we’ve connected to them in a way that feels both personal and human, and also global at the same time.
Featured site: Online sewing pattern retailer Ann Normandy Design sells sewing patterns on Etsy, and on SquareSpace. Her business model helps her sell equally on both platforms, and use them both to the fullest. Her Etsy site benefits her business. She has priced her products to the premium side, as they are premium design and production.
Ways to move OFF of Etsy altogether
Not being on a ‘marketplace’ is less of an issue as you might think it would be. You can join marketplaces online where your clients are – for instance, in the sewing pattern industry, organizations like The Fold Line and PatternReview review and sell sewing patterns from a lot of different designers, they have active, widely followed social channels and feature products all the time. Other industries have similar organizations that serve the same functions. With hashtags also going away on Meta platforms, you’ll have to be sure you are using keywords in your copy and content for people to be able to search and find your brand and products.
Using WordPress as an Etsy Alternative
You’ll need a WordPress host – almost anyone can host WordPress: GoDaddy, Flywheel, WP Engine and Bluehost are good options. Commerce hosting can range from $7-25 per month. Start small if you can. You’ll need your own URL. Choose something that matches your product and brand:
URLs cost about $20 a year. Woo Commerce is free, their shipping extension is also free and works with many label printers. Upgraded USPS shipping is available with a $109/year plugin. You can sell digital, virtual, and physical products using these tools. We use two Dymo thermal label printers – a small one for first class/envelope sized items, and a larger one for packages and boxes (the Dymo 5XL). You can take payments via PayPal as your processor, as well as Stripe. Most processor fees are pretty similar across the board.
You’ll need a mailing list: Mail Chimp starts free and works well, Constant Contact is a good option, we like Hubspot which starts free and becomes paid as you cross over 1,000 contacts. All of these have free plugins for WordPress.
There are even converters or embed plugins to embed your Etsy store into WordPress or even import your products from Etsy to WordPress, making the process much easier.
Using SquareSpace as an Etsy Alternative
Slightly easier of the two we recommend, they have many lovely templates and some great “builder” features. If you’re looking to make the next jump, this is a good one to consider as well.
If you’re going to use SquareSpace, your commerce package starts at $23/month plus service fees for selling online. They have marketing features (for an upgrade) or you can use the same marketing features from MailChimp/Hubspot/Constant Contact in your site instead.
SquareSpace also allows you to import products from Etsy too, making your conversion here also much easier.
How long will it take to convert our Etsy store into our own website?
Most website refreshes/conversions can be done in 10-30 hours. If you sat down on a “clear” week with several days, you could have it up within a week or so. Most people will take 1-2 months making the leap, because you have to do other stuff, like run your business. You can pay a developer (hey! that’s me!) or you can work in tandem with one where your store setup is done by a pro (also me!) and you work on tweaking your products and content once they come over to the store.
The BEST reason to move off Etsy is that your own owned product won’t be shut down accidentally (happened to more than one client!) if you’re on a platform like Etsy. You OWN it if it’s on your URL and hosted by a reputable firm (mentioned above.) You control what happens to it. And more than ever, WHERE you are reflects upon your business as much as what you sell.
Some things to consider as you move off of Etsy to WordPress or SquareSpace
Orders might have to be filled from Etsy even after you move your site (unless you fill orders, close your Etsy and then open up on your new site.) Remember, you didn’t have your own URL with Etsy, so you can develop and run these in parallel with Etsy for a short time, if you want to. Just keep track of inventory!
You will have to tell customers early and often and update all of your social channels with your new URL. Just keep telling them you are moving and when you move that you’ve moved (and why.)
Ask customers to share your business online to their friends (and why you moved off Etsy.) Do this before, during and after the migration.
Making this move is a big one, but for the moral clarity of the moment, it’s one all Etsy sellers need to consider.
