Should Sellers Leave Etsy? How To Get Buyers On Your Own.
Etsy sellers are getting frustrated with Etsy's policies and getting lost in a sea of not very "handmade" items. When you sell on someone else's platform, you have to follow their rules even as they get more and more ridiculous. Your Etsy store might get shut down, you might not appear in search. The website is flooded with low quality and low effort, repetitive listings. It's super frustrating and you might have been thinking about how you could sell from your own website where you make the rules.
But the big draw for a site like the Etsy platform is that it has a built-in audience. There are already shoppers there. As a shop owner you might be nervous about going out on your own and being responsible for bringing your own customers to your shop.
The advantages of starting your own online store might outweigh that one drawback, especially as competition to be seen on your Etsy account grows fiercer. It's a good idea to prepare yourself with a plan for how you'll transition and gain traction. This guide will help you be ready to bring in your own shoppers.
Where to set up your own store
The first thing to decide when you’re going to move off Etsy to your own store is where to host your shop. You need a URL (what people type into the browser to get to you) and a place to direct the URL to, which needs e-commerce functions.
The URL (domain) can be purchased from somewhere like Squarespace, Ionos, Namecheap, or GoDaddy. Some of these only do the domains and others offer both the domain and the hosting. You probably want to turn down the hosting and pick your own.
For those just getting started, Shopify is a solid choice.
Wordpress is also a great option. It’s a classic and a workhorse. There’s a free add-on called WooCommerce to turn it into an e-commerce site.
Personally I use Go High Level because it does everything you could imagine all in one place but it might not be worth it if you’re just getting started with promoting yourself. It is one of the most affordable of the all-in-one website/funnel builders but it’s still $97/month.
More behind-the-scenes of e-commerce with Go High Level here:
These sites all integrate with a payment platform like Stripe and Paypal. Whatever payment processor you use there will still be a transaction fee but with your own site there's no listing fee. Make sure you follow the instructions to set up your bank account information so you get paid when people purchase!
You need to use a lot of the same techniques as for Etsy when it comes to your product listings. Keyword research for SEO, good product photos, deciding on pricing. More on SEO in a moment!
Optimize Your Website
Before you start inviting people to your new store you want to make sure it is ready to welcome your visitors. Look at your home page as though you were a stranger thinking about purchasing. Is it clear what you make? Is it easy to see details about the products, add to the cart, and check out. Test each step to make sure everything is connected correctly.
Make it easy to purchase from you. Avoid having an extra step, allow people to see what you have and to buy it. There are different kinds of buyers so it's good to have an option for buying right away but also a way to expand and see more detail about everything to allow people to browse and consider.
Write a compelling product description. What makes it compelling? Know why people buy your product and emphasize that (art to make you feel happy on a gloomy day, for example) and pre-emptively address any "objections" (concerns, fears, FAQs).
Check that your site loads quickly and easily. Sometimes if you have a lot of images it can slow things down. Use jpegs whenever you can and take advantage of any “fast loading” tools on your website backend.
Get the best product images you can from as many angles as you can with people using them. Just like on Etsy, you can add videos too.
Think through the buying experience step by step from someone arriving to your website all the way through to the order confirmation page. How is the overall shopping experience objectively?
Just like on Etsy, product reviews matter a lot. Try to get your website front loaded with as many reviews as you can. Think about where you’ve gotten comments on your work. Are there Instagram or Facebook comments you can screenshot and put on your website? Do you have an email from a friend praising your work? Quote the best bits. Someone told you they thought your work was beautiful? Ask if they’ll write down or record a review.
Every time you make a sale, ask for a review from the customer. Etsy does this for you automatically, though it doesn’t always make sense. For example if I buy a sewing pattern on Etsy the system will ask me to review it a few hours later. I definitely haven’t had a chance to try the pattern by then so I can’t leave an effective review. This is why you’ll see Etsy reviews that say things like “It looks nice, haven’t made it yet.”
So think about when the best time is for you to ask for a review depending on what you make and how it is delivered.
You can't ask for five star reviews, only honest reviews. However I did once have a client who would say "What can I do to make this experience worthy of a five star review?"
There's valuable feedback in reviews. If you've been selling on Etsy already, look at your reviews before you leave to see if there are any consistent comments that you could improve upon. Leaving Etsy might be your opportunity for a fresh start and to move away from those poor reviews.
Even though we would love all positive reviews, negative reviews are bound to happen. Most of the time it is not worth responding to them. Definitely never get into a fight with customer! Just keep trying to deliver great service so the 5-star reviews outweigh any bad reviews.
Getting Current Customers From Etsy To Your Own Website
Your loyal customers will shop wherever you are but you have to tell them where you are.
While you are transitioning, update your order confirmation message on Etsy to let people know about the new website. If you've got a lead magnet, entice them with that (more about what a lead magnet is later).
You can put a business card in the orders that you’re packing and include an incentive like a coupon code to shop at your website instead of Etsy.
If you have any promotional things like a link in your Instagram bio, or old Pinterest pins, make sure to update the link to your new one.
Consider making content out of the transition. You can show the process behind-the-scenes as you get set up and share it on social media. That makes for an interesting story and people see your products without it being a salesy post.
Start An Email List
A huge advantage to being on your own site is you can communicate with your customers as well as communicate with potential buyers to keep their interest piqued. When you gather a list of people's emails no one can take that away from you. If your Etsy shop was suddenly shut down without warning, you would still have the people who gave you their email addresses. Except Etsy isn't set up to work like that.
You need your own email list to go with your own website. Naturally you can invite people who purchase to join the list but you should also think about people who are curious, click to your website, but aren't ready to buy. They are potential future buyers but by the time they are ready they may have forgotten where they found you. Offer them something nice in exchange for an email address and permission to contact them.
That's all a lead magnet is. What you offer will depend on what you sell. If you sell clothes, perhaps a coupon for email subscribers. If you sell collectibles perhaps a downloadable cheat-sheet of some kind. If you sell a digital product perhaps a mini-course on a technique or program related to it. Think through what is something cool or filed with valuable information that your ideal buyer would love to have and that naturally connects to the sale you'll ask for later.
Once you have some email addresses, keep in touch. Don't over think it but if you are working on your art and a funny thought comes to you, share it with your list. If you offer a new product, tell your list. If you get a great review, humble brag to your list.
Okay, now with those foundations in place let's get to the meat of the matter.
How To Bring In New Customers
Getting new potential customers to your website is called driving traffic. I have a new book all about website traffic and my observation that there are four different kinds. It's worth experimenting with a mixture from the four different categories to build a robust traffic strategy. Here are each of the categories and ideas of good methods for handmade business owners to use. If any of these things makes you feel overwhelmed or confused, skip it for now. Make note of a couple that make sense to you and start there.
One: Partnership
Create an affiliate or referral program, offering incentives for people to send their friends your way
Go to online networking events where you can introduce who you are and what you create
Look for opportunities to be interviewed on podcasts or YouTube channels about your products
Two: Inbound Organic
SEO is a key component in all of these ideas. SEO is about how to be found in search results. It's a very big topic but basically you need to know what your ideal buyer is putting into the search engine when they want to find what you make. Use those words and address those questions on:
Pinterest
Write blog posts either on your own site or on Medium, Substack, or find somewhere you can guest blog (My favorite combo is to write a blog post on my own site and then post it to Medium also but telling Medium's system that the canonical link is my website).
Video Content: demonstrations, behind the scenes, show off your product and its benefits, highlight great reviews. Repurose across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest as well as other social media you enjoy.
Participate in forums and groups of people who are similar to you and like the types of things you make. Don't be salesy or pushy, just comment, interact, become known, share value, and have a link back to your website in your profile!
Three: Outbound Organic
Reach out to influencers and ask to send samples for an honest review on their social platforms
Contact any previous customers who haven't left a review and ask them to leave one on your Google Business Profile
Four: Paid
Pinterest ads are a good place to start if you have a product with any kind of visual appeal. Just a few dollars will get you thousands of impressions on your pin and it boosts the rest of your account too. (For more information on using Pinterest, check out this course).
Consider advertising on forums where your ideal buyers hang out. Look at sub-reddits dedicated to your style of product, for example.
Keep it going
Obviously great customer service and fast shipping times (unless it's digital items) are going to build a loyal customer base and a good reputation for you and your brand. Traffic takes time to build up so be patient and keep working at these strategies. After a few months you'll see what's working and what isn't and you should be gaining some traction by at least month four.
Keep track of what you've done and note down some key numbers from your website's analytics page. You want to see over time how many people visited your website and how many took action (either to buy or to sign up for your email list). Watch how those numbers trend over a few months and you'll have the insight you need to know if you need to change your strategy or ramp up what you're doing.
Good luck and I hope you've found these to be helpful tips!
Get lots more information about website traffic in my book, Supercharge Your Website Traffic. Each of the above ideas has far more detail in there!
Save this post on Pinterest to reference the traffic ideas later:
