FAIR SHAKE

Why Etsy is a Good Place to Buy Handmade Goods: Ebay Alternative
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
By V. Neely, published Jun 20, 2007

Etsy describes itself as an online marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods. Although there are elements that will be familiar to anyone who uses eBay, Etsy is not an auction site. There's no bidding involved: The price you see is the price you get. Another difference is that while you can sell just about anything on eBay, Etsy only allows handmade items.

That might sound discouraging if your idea of "handmade items" are crummy little birdhouses that your artistically challenged neighbor made from sticky popsicle sticks. If that's the case, you might be surprised by the sheer diversity and quality of all the handmade items you can find on Etsy. Yes, you can certainly find cheesy things that looked like they were carelessly thrown together, but there are also a lot of high quality goods to be found. You can find beautiful glass pendants, pottery, and even furniture on Etsy. Other things you can find include:

Sculptures
Paintings
Clothing
Purses and handbags
Bookmarks
Greeting cards
Hats
Buttons
Dolls
Masks
Journals
Beads
Soap
Blankets
Toys

That's far from an exhaustive list of all the things you can buy on Etsy. With a little searching, you can find some pretty amazing stuff that you would have a hard time finding anywhere else.

Because Etsy takes a very small cut from the transactions, artists and crafters have the freedom to charge more competitive prices for their work. It's not uncommon for retailers to take as much as 50% from the sale price, which is part of why handmade items can cost so much; the retailer's cut has to be factored into the final price of the item. Fortunately, Etsy's fees are tiny by comparison.

One of the things Etsy does have in common with eBay is that it has its own feedback system. Feedback and seller ratings are taken just as seriously on Etsy as they are on eBay. Sellers depend on good feedback for their reputation, and bad feedback will leave an ugly black mark on their record. If you decide to buy something from a seller who has a lot of good feedbacks, you can be pretty confident that you'll have a good experience. That's why it's more than just good manners to leave feedback-- it helps everyone.

There is a downside to Etsy, though. Since it's a fairly new site that's getting new members all the time, it's experiencing some growing pains. There have been brief times when the whole site went down for maintenance. Hopefully that will become less and less of an issue as Etsy matures.

That Etsy has only handcrafted items, is a major misconception. They allow vintage items as well as supplies.

They have specific categories, you must use the tags VINTAGE and COMMERCIAL, but they are allowed. They just do not allow mass produced items. Most vintage items are unique or nearly OOAK.

I sell vintage lingerie and sewing items, as well as a few other collectibles. They have sellers of vintage clothing, pottery, glassware and toys.

I love Etsy. It is very easy to use, the shops are uniform and they allow no HTML to slow the site down.

Blueridge -

You bring up a very good point. Until I joined Etsy I had no idea you could list other items there. I think sellers AND buyers needs to know this. It would help a lot of former eBayers who sell in these categories, as well as the buyers who are looking for these items.

Deb

Hi Deb,

Just as an added note, although I signed on with Etsy in early April, I did not do my first listing until April 20th. I have had literally hundreds of hits and have already sold 6 items with several requests.

It is truly a venue to check-out.

Karen

Hi Karen -

I signed up with Etsy in February, but have been very slow to list - time constraints and all that. I have SO many great ideas; now just getting to them! My daughter and I make thimbles covered with polymer clay and so far that's all I have listed. And have not very many of those - but I plan to (always lots of big plans -- LOL!!). And I have at least 60 sitting here to list. We stopped even making them until I get through what I have. I also do a lot of sewing (well, not very much lately - again no time) but hope to do some small projects I can list). I used to do a lot of cross stitch until my eyesight got so bad that my arms aren't short OR long enough any more! And I believe I have a lot of projects ... somewhere ... that I can list. SO.... so many "plans" and so little time! Given that I have barely put anything on Etsy, though, I have had a remarkable number of sales. I've sold 7 of the thimbles -- but only listed 15, so I think that's pretty good!

I really do love the site - they restrict the appearance (font, photo size, etc.) so much that it is all uniform and "clean" looking, something that appeals to the perfectionist in me. But what I'm REALLY loving is that to sell these thimbles (which I sell for $4.50) the listing fee is .20 and the FVF is .16 - TOTAL JUST .36 OUT OF MY PROFIT! That would have cost considerably more on eBay, especially NOW. The worst part is I'm still using PayPal (which won't last long as soon as I have time to investigate options and put them in place) -- and their fee for each of these sales is .49 -- MORE than it costs me to sell the darn things!

Do you list under the same ID on Etsy? I'm Mishigoss over there. Maybe I'll run into you!

Deb