Etsy vs Shopify for Beginners | Etsy vs Shopify Pros and Cons

hello friends welcome back to my channel my name is kristen shane and today we will be talking all about the pros and cons of opening a shop on etsy versus shopify if you're considering opening a new shop or creating a new brand and you're debating whether you should choose etsy or shopify or having your own independent website for your shop then this is the video for you if you haven't seen me before i am an etsy seller of about four years and i recently went full time with my business between youtube and etsy but with that being said i will still do my best to be as unbiased as i can so that you can make the best decision for you and your shop this is not just a video for me to sit here and say that everyone should sell on etsy because it is not the best choice for everyone it might be the right choice for some people but i want you to make the best informed decision for you and your shop this video will be the first in a series that i'm doing all about etsy selling for beginners so if that is something you're interested in i will have that playlist linked for you once more of the videos are available so first i will be discussing all the pros and benefits of selling on etsy and shopify and then we'll talk about the negatives starting with etsy etsy is really good for selling unique custom and handmade products that is basically what etsy is known for and that's what people look for when they're going to shop on etsy so if that's the type of products that you're making or want to make etsy might be a good place for you you can definitely sell these sort of products elsewhere or from your own website but etsy is definitely known for this and that's what kind of their platform revolves around a benefit of choosing to open a shop on etsy is that etsy can be really great for beginners because they kind of already have the shop model set up they already have a template for the shop and for listings you don't really have to worry about too much of the nitty-gritty stuff behind the scenes for actually setting up a functional storefront etsy makes it really easy in this way it makes it really accessible for brand new sellers who might not have any experience setting up a website or setting up a store they have a lot of little tips and tricks to help walk you through it and to help you have the best possible listings when you're brand new to selling it's very easy to open up a shop page and to get started selling it's actually completely free to open a shop page as well and once you fill out your shop info add a little profile picture and add a few listings you're all set and they definitely make it really easy to open and shop and to get those first listings posted another benefit to opening a shop on etsy is there's a very low beginning cost to you there's no fee for actually opening a shop page it's completely free and the first fee that you will run into is that etsy charges a 20 cent listing fee for every new listing you post so if you start with four listings at 20 cents each that's going to be 80 cents regardless of whether those listings sell or not so in your first month if all you did was post four listings and you didn't make any sales all that you would be charged by etsy that month is 80 cents and they do have other fees i will talk about later on but there are no monthly subscription fees or anything like that so the cost is relatively low at the beginning and that can be a huge plus for sellers like me who don't want to pay a lot up front or don't have a big budget for actually getting their shop open another benefit to opening a shop with etsy is that once you post your listings they will immediately start appearing in etsy search and customers can start searching for your products right away this can be really good if your shop is brand new and not an already established brand and if you don't already have a huge social following that's looking for your shop or that's familiar with your shop right away you can start getting traffic from etsy search traffic which can lead to your first sales this is how i made my first sales on etsy and i think a lot of people rely on this at the beginning as well before they get a handle on marketing or having their own social media for their shop this makes etsy a good choice if you don't already have an existing brand or an existing social following whether it's for you personally if you're a blogger or something or if your shop is brand new and this video is mainly targeted around brand new shops or opening a new shop so it can be a good choice for this because you don't need to drive all your own traffic at the beginning you can definitely rely on etsy search and customers that are already shopping on etsy to begin to find your store and your products as well another benefit of selling on etsy is that they have a really streamlined shop dashboard and shop management system and everything is already pre-set up for you and they take care of processing the payment from the customer and all of that which takes some of the work off of you as a shop owner just in terms of doing the kind of behind the scenes and really technical stuff which is definitely very nice if you are new to selling and not really familiar with how all of that stuff works and i think their shop dashboard is pretty intuitive and makes it really easy to use even if you are a brand new seller another pro is that you can buy and use shipping labels directly from etsy at the discounted commercial rate this is probably available on shopify as well but it might be something you didn't know about etsy or about selling on etsy that directly from the shop dashboard from your order page you can buy those shipping labels directly and print them right from there which makes it really easy especially if you're not super familiar with how shipping works in buying shipping labels another good thing about selling on etsy is that it's a really great way to gain experience and to build your shop and your brand etsy is definitely a very good stepping stone and sort of bridge between having no shop and no experience selling and being a really intelligent capable independent shop where you're kind of doing everything on your own i think it's a really good kind of middle place that you can still be in charge of your own shop and there's a lot of different things to learn but etsy does do some of that work for you and already has the platform all set up which i think makes it a lot easier and a lot less intimidating starting out because etsy does have an established layout it makes it really easy for customers to shop and they sort of know what they're looking for if they want to look for the shop about page or if they want to look at previous customer reviews customers already know where that is and where to look for that stuff and it's very easy to find directly from the shop page since all the shops have a preset layout now i'll be talking all about the benefits of having a store on shopify or opening your own independent website and include these two things together because of course if you have your own website for your shop you do not have to use shopify but shopify is very common for doing this and definitely very common if you are starting out and a huge platform that a lot of people use for opening up and hosting their own store and i think the pros and cons of having a store with shopify or elsewhere are very similar the first benefit to having a store with shopify is that your store and your site are completely your own and completely customizable you have free reign to decide how they look to choose a shop theme and to choose how your listings look it is all up to you and there is a ton of customization for every little element of your website this definitely makes it a good choice for building a long-term recognizable brand with really strong brand loyalty if customers are going directly to your website and your shop to either browse or buy something that shows a lot of customer loyalty to your brand and to your shop than if customers are just browsing on target.com or on etsy.com and then looking through different products from there it's kind of just two different shopping models that if customers are going directly to you you're obviously going to have a much better chance of making repeat sales or just building a really good relationship with those customers than if they're first going to some other big platform and just browsing and then just happen upon your products you can use shopify or your own independent website for your shop to truly sell anything and everything while etsy is better known for those unique and handmade products you can truly sell anything on shopify or if you wanted to have a kind of wider combination or variety of products you can definitely do this on shopify having your own independent shop is also a good option if you either already do or if you want to be the main source of your own traffic and in driving your own sales a another benefit to having a store with shopify or your own independent website is that no one else has any power over your shop or over your website this can be really important to a lot of store owners that they want to have complete control over over their website and they don't want anyone else to kind of have power over it or the ability to close their shop for violating guidelines or something so if you want to be completely in charge of your shop and have no other kind of like big company in charge of you or over you this is definitely a big pro for you having your own shop or using shopify is also a good option if you have prior experience selling or if you've already been selling on another platform this is definitely true whether you've had another store in the past or if you're opening a new store now if you already have some experience selling you may be more comfortable with having that greater freedom and independence another big benefit to having a shop with shopify is that you can integrate other pages or other elements on your website that can help really strengthen your brand and connect more with your customers you could do this through having a blog already on your website as well either just showing off new arrivals or getting more personal with your customers you can also post your social media channels on your website and you can also have an email list for customers to join that you can send out coupons to and alert them of new arrivals another big benefit to having a store with shopify is that there's no other competition on your actual website this might sound kind of obvious but for example if you're shopping on etsy and you open the page of a listing and you scroll all the way down on the page etsy recommends other shops and other similar listings so right from that listing of your product etsy is recommending other shops and other similar listings this can obviously be really frustrating if someone was about to buy your product and then goes and finds a different product because etsy recommended it but if you have your own independent website there's not going to be any other recommended products on that page and therefore your customers may be more likely to make a purchase from you because they're not being distracted by any other recommendations of other stores or of other similar products now i will get into all the cons and all the downsides of opening a shop on etsy versus shopify you'll probably notice that a lot of the pros sort of flip into a con depending on what you need and what you're looking for in a shop downside of opening a shop on etsy is that the customization of both your shop and your listings is limited to the way that etsy already has it set up and you don't have a lot of customization for the way those listings work or the way your actual shop homepage looks there's also very high competition on etsy just because of how many shops exist and how many other people are selling as well and it's much easier for customers to directly compare between shops and between listings and this is definitely a complaint that i hear people have about etsy because they'll say it can sort of come down to a price war of who has a lower price or who has a faster shipping time and a lower shipping cost because it is easier for customers to sort of jump between similar products or similar shops and of course because etsy has that recommendation that when you're looking at one listing they will recommend other similar listings that they think you might like another downside of selling on etsy and a complaint i hear a lot is about etsy fees and the way those fees work and just the fact that etsy is taking a percentage of each sale regardless of whether that sale came from etsy search traffic or from your own personal traffic from social media marketing or for your own ads for your shop i follow someone who is a full-time live streamer and she recently opened an etsy shop to go alongside her live streams and to sell some merch for her streams as well as some handcrafted items she was making but she says now that she's driving all of her own sales and she can identify each of her customers to people who watch her streams and that she's not making any sales directly from etsy search so now she sort of wishes that she had opened her own shop with her own website just from the beginning since she's driving all her own traffic anyway and now etsy is still taking a percentage of each of those sales another big downside to having a store on etsy is that in general and in direct comparison to having an independent shop website there is less brand identity and less brand loyalty when people buy things on etsy regardless of how cute it is and regardless of how much they love it i would say like 99 of the time if someone asks them where they got it from people just say i bought it on etsy they don't say i bought it from lemon and lily on etsy they just say i bought it from etsy and this can sort of eliminate that word of mouth of people really loving your shop and passing it on to other people and this is sort of how the etsy platform works that people know they're shopping from etsy and they don't have that really strong brand loyalty to the individual shops they're buying from as your shop grows and as you gain more experience as a seller and as a shop owner you may feel more and more limited by the etsy platform and just by the way that etsy works and finally another big downside to selling on etsy and the very common complaint that i hear is that of course if you have an etsy shop you are subject to any changes that etsy makes in their platform their algorithms and of course their fees if you want to be a really independent shop of course this is going to be a downside and something you really don't have any power over or really any say in that etsy can change the way their system works or change the way their fees work at any time and you can't really do anything about it now i will share all the cons that i could come up with for having your own shop with shopify a big downside to having your own independent shop whether that's with shopify or elsewhere is that you need to drive all your own traffic to your shop it can just be really hard to find ways to drive traffic to your shop in general whether you're doing that through social media marketing or something else no matter how beautiful your store is and how awesome your products are you're not going to make any sales and any money if you don't find a way to get people actually onto your website and looking at your products another downside to this is that it might take more work to acquire those customers because you need to get them onto your website and you need to give them a reason to buy from you or to even be on your website in the first place compared to another shop or another platform again this in turn can become really strong brand loyalty later on when your shop is more established but this can definitely be a downside at the beginning and definitely something really hard to work through when your shop is brand new another big downside to having an independent website or using a shopify site is going to be the monthly subscription fees this was probably one of the biggest reasons i did not go with shopify from the beginning of my shop and this can be a huge downside especially for brand new sellers the monthly subscription fees with shopify start at 29 a month and then they also have a percentage fee for every single sale and this can definitely be very intimidating for new shops like it was for me if you don't have a huge starting budget and when you don't have an established following for your shop at the very beginning i didn't even know if i would be making 29 dollars in revenue at the beginning let alone profit and obviously if you're more established selling or you already are selling online 29 might not sound like a lot but for brand new sellers and for people on a budget for their new shop it definitely can be so this is definitely a downside and something to keep in mind you may easily pay off that monthly fee as your shop grows and as you make sales but when you don't have any confirmation of that or any way to know how much you will actually make and how successful you will be this can definitely be intimidating at the beginning the shopify plans all do include website hosting though which is a huge plus because if you have an independent website you're probably going to be paying for the domain name the website hosting and you'll also need an ssl certificate for having a shop another downside of using a shopify site or your own site is that you have to set up everything and of course there are themes and layouts you can use to get started as having a template but it can definitely be overwhelming to make the shop website as well as uploading all of those listings and making sure the whole website runs smoothly and is bug free this can definitely be intimidating if you don't have any experience building a website or selling previously it can just be a lot of things to figure out right at the beginning and it can definitely be overwhelming just the amount that you can customize as i sort of mentioned earlier if you don't have ads going for your shop or social media marketing no one is going to find your shop obviously it's hard to start a new shop regardless of how you do that it's going to be hard to build a new brand but since it is your own website people aren't going to just stumble upon that as if they were shopping from some bigger platform but you're going to have to find a way to get your shop in front of new customers you can have the best shop and the cutest products in the whole world but you still need to find a way to get customers actually on your website before you can expect them to make purchases and this can definitely be hard at the beginning because not only are you managing a brand new shop and making those listings making those products you're also now trying to drive all your own traffic to your website into your shop and then to try and make sales from that traffic another downside to having a shop this way is that you're going to be charged that monthly fee regardless of whether or not you make sales this was something i was worried about in the beginning i was like if i don't make any sales during the month i don't want to have to be paying that monthly subscription fee so that's something to keep in mind another negative to having shopify or your own independent website is that you're still going to be reliant on shopify and any changes that they make either in how their systems work and what's included in their monthly subscriptions or in their fees of course you're still going to be much more independent and have much more freedom with your shop than if you're selling on etsy but of course if you're using shopify or any other website hosting you're still going to be relying on them and having their systems working and you're still going to be subject to any changes that they make so another negative to selling with shopify or having your own shop site is that it is going to be more challenging from like a tech savvy point of view than if you're selling on etsy or some other bigger platform as i mentioned this can be a good thing if you want to have that really really high level of customization but it can definitely be intimidating again if you don't have experience selling that now you're new to selling and you're new to running a website and running an online store the final downside i will mention for having your own independent website is that there's no messaging system already set up between you and your customers on etsy for example there's a really easy messaging feature that customers can message you with questions you can respond to those questions very easily and it's all done within the etsy app from your own website though you don't have that really easy messaging system already and there's kind of an additional step that customers will either have to find you on social media or you need to have an email provided for them it's just an additional step and customers need to know how to do that if they have any questions for you before making their purchase that is all the pros and cons i will be talking about today for considering whether you should open a shop on etsy or with shopify i hope this video was helpful for you and helped make your decision easier in some way if you liked this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe down below i post new videos every single friday mainly about etsy selling tips and about my life as a full-time etsy seller and youtuber i will see you again next friday with a brand new video but until then be nice to people be nice to yourself and do something kind today see ya

Channel: Kristen Shane

Views: 5,487

Keywords: kristen shane, etsy shop owner, small business owner, etsy vs shopify, etsy vs shopify 2021, etsy vs shopify small business, etsy vs shopify for beginners, etsy for beginners, etsy vs shopify fees, etsy vs shopify pros and cons, start an etsy shop, start a shopify shop, start a small business, start a business online, etsy for beginners 2021, shopify vs etsy, shopify vs etsy 2021, shopify vs etsy fees, start a shopify store, start an etsy store, start an etsy business

Id: G-P_NweK5is

Length: 22min 40sec (1360 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021