.jpg)
There’s something about handmade goods that touches us deeply. Often, a handmade sweater would feel more special than its store-bought equivalent. If you’re someone who crafts handmade goods for a living, you might have heard of Etsy and is now searching for alternatives.
While Etsy is a unique online marketplace for handmade goods and crafts — with over 81.9 million buyers looking to purchase products from independent makers — competition is tough. In 2020, Etsy had more than 4,3 million sellers, almost double the previous year.
Although the Etsy community tries to do its best to curate top-quality content, the sheer number of sellers on the site could make it hard for you to compete if you’re just starting. Fortunately for you, Etsy isn't the only website where you can sell handmade items.
If you're looking to start selling on the web, you might want to broaden your horizons. There is an ever-growing number of marketplaces and website builders out there that can help you sell everything from handmade craft items to jewelry.
In this article, we have curated a long list of Etsy alternatives for you below so you can decide which one suits you the best.
Shopify is a full-featured online commerce platform that does everything you need to sell online and more.
If you're looking for an e-commerce solution that's very easy to use, can go global, and has a wide variety of templates to get started with, you can't go wrong with Shopify. For these reasons, it's one of the best Etsy alternatives on this list.
Shopify has everything you need to set up and run a hugely successful online business. It provides all the standard e-commerce functionality, like mobile-responsive shopping carts and automated shipping, and offers a free trial. You can also take advantage of over 15 apps specifically designed for fashion businesses to add features like social media integration, customized product recommendations, chatbots, and more.
One of the best things about Shopify is that you can set up a shop and sell your goods without building a user base from scratch. You can do this by using its built-in e-commerce tools to showcase your products on an e-commerce site populated with other professional stores. This feature helps to negate one of the main downsides of Etsy, which is that you have to build a user base from scratch when you want to sell your products.
Zyro is a website builder that makes website creation simple. With intuitive tools that take the stress out of your design process, you'll be able to create beautiful websites in no time.
It's also packed full of features that help you market your business better, including SEO tools and responsive mobile compatibility.
Zyro is one of the top three e-commerce platforms and has been compared to Shopify and Etsy. It also boasts several excellent features that make it far more versatile than its competitors.
Furthermore, Zyro has no listing or transaction fees, so you don't have to worry about losing money when promoting your products or making sales.
Zyro’s pricing plan starts from $9.99/ month. You can check out all their plans on the website. It is an inexpensive Etsy alternative.
Squarespace is another Etsy alternative that you can use to sell online. It is an e-commerce platform as well as a website builder.
If you’re looking to move your existing Etsy store over to Squarespace, it’s easy to do so, thanks to its ability to integrate with other marketplaces.
By allowing you to sync your product data with Squarespace, you can import your products and SEO strategies—keeping everything intact. That means you won’t have to worry about handling duplicate URLs or updating old links.
The Squarespace interface is very user-friendly and straightforward to use, helping you get your store off the ground quickly. There are two ways to do this: set it up from the ground up or use the provided templates.
While Squarespace may sound like an excellent alternative to Etsy because of all the things we mentioned above s, it doesn't come without its drawbacks. For example, there’s no support for third-party apps or plugins, and the lack of advanced marketing tools can potentially hinder your promotion efforts.
However, their advanced inventory management system, which enables you to easily track your stock and find out which items sell the fastest, goes some way to cover for the things they lack.
Overall, its powerful inventory management, integration with marketplaces, and wide selection of easily-customizable templates make Squarespace an excellent choice for you to build a professional online store.
Amazon Handmade is an online marketplace that helps small-time makers showcase their products for sale on the website. These merchants are grouped based on the items they sell. The categories include:
and many more.
Handmade is a natural addition to the eCommerce giant's offering. Unlike think Etsy, it features all sorts of niche marketplaces, making it perfect for shoppers who want to find artisanal products at reasonable prices.
Although Amazon Handmade lets you sell your crafts on Amazon, the platform isn’t as creative or intuitive as its competitors.
Furthermore, while it does provide you with additional features, like order tracking and data analytics, it’s well-documented that Amazon charges ridiculous seller fees for its services (Amazon charges a 15% transaction fee AND a monthly membership fee).
If you decide to use Amazon Handmade, keep your products price-competitive or under $5. On Amazon Handmade, you might be able to increase your margins by selling more expensive items with less competition than on Etsy.
But with Amazon Handmade’s $40 monthly subscription fee and $0.99 per item referral fee, your actual profit might not be as large as it could be.
WooCommerce is one of the most popular solutions on the market today, with over 5+ million downloads and counting.
WooCommerce's success stems from its versatility. You can use it to build everything from simple blogs that accept donations to multi-million dollar e-commerce platforms for Fortune 500 companies.
WooCommerce is a free e-commerce plugin for WordPress that helps you make a free online store.
This plugin transforms your blog into a fully functioning e-commerce site that you can customize and manipulate however you want.
While WooCommerce itself doesn't come with all the bells and whistles you'd get with an e-commerce platform like Shopify or Etsy, it does everything you need to run a successful business.
If you're not ready to build your eCommerce store on top of its core functions or shell out for extra extensions, it's OK — there are plenty of add-ons you can buy if you'd like.
Ecwid isn't your average website builder. It's a tool that doesn't help you create a standalone online store but enables you to update your eCommerce store.
Ecwid is a free and easy-to-use eCommerce platform that’s simple enough for beginners while still powerful enough to please more advanced entrepreneurs. That's why it is one of the best Etsy alternatives.
You can run an entire store with it or just use Ecwid as a simple storefront for your existing website.
Even if you have zero programming skills, you can start your online store with Ecwid. While it isn't as advanced as Shopify, features like centralized inventory, order management, and pricing are more advanced than Etsy.
If you're an artist, IndieMade is the site for you!
You can create a website with a store, blog, and gallery relatively easily with IndieMade. This is because it's simple to update, making adding content like audio, posting the products you're selling, and even product videos, feel like a breeze. The simplicity IndieMade provides even makes it simpler than setting up an e-commerce site with WordPress.
IndieMade isn’t just simple, however. Their built-in inventory management and marketing features, an integrated shopping cart, analytics, reporting, and a completely customizable store make IndieMade both feature-packed and flexible as well.
Better yet, you can even transfer all your products from Etsy and sell them to customers all around the world! Combining all of those benefits with an affordable monthly fee, along with file storage, bandwidth, and SSL certificate for no additional cost, makes IndieMade a great place to sell your products.
In a world where everyone is trying to sell you on cheap, cheap, cheap, Wix has managed to stay ahead of the curve.
While you can use other site builders to put together a cheap website that could run just fine off of free hosting forever, that's not what Wix is about.
Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder that specializes in eCommerce. Its drag-and-drop capabilities have been refined over the years to allow creators to create unique e-commerce storefronts quickly.
Wix is a solid competitor to Shopify and Squarespace with a fully-fledged backend and various integrations.
With their complete e-commerce backend, you can track orders, manage products, accept various online payment methods from credit card to PayPal, and create location-specific shipping and taxation rules.
You’ll also have access to phone support and an active online community if you need some guidance from the Wix experts.
BigCartel is an e-commerce site created for smaller businesses and creatives. It is specifically designed for people selling physical products. This platform more niche option with fewer limitations on how many products you can sell or images of products you can show.
The website has an active user base centered around the art community. It’s made for artists, small businesses, and crafty entrepreneurs who want to sell homemade goods. It's also great from a budget perspective because you can try the free tier one, selling a maximum of 5 products. But even the higher range of plans is pocket-friendly.
BigCartel also offers simple yet effective themes for the store. You can build an aesthetically pleasing site.
While Bigcartel may be one of the best alternatives to Etsy, it still has a weak marketing front. If you want to get more people to your store, you need to do it yourself. You have to build the customer base and drive traffic to the eCommerce website yourself.
Big Cartel is a fantastic platform for creating and customizing online storefronts, with a user-friendly interface and a high level of customization. If you don’t have the technical know-how to build your website or already have one you’d like to integrate with e-commerce capabilities, Big Cartel could be the perfect solution.
ArtFire is a local marketplace that puts artisans above all else. Artisans are to ArtFire what artists are to Etsy, making it the world's #1 marketplace for handcrafted items. ArtFire is also a great place to sell handmade goods that you've had trouble selling on Etsy or eBay. Unlike eBay, however, ArtFire doesn’t charge any listing fees.
And With professional-grade photo editing software, you can create stunning images for your products and increase visibility.
Overall, ArtFire provides a platform for crafters and small businesses to find new customers. Whether they're looking to maintain a high-quality brand or have a local brick and mortar, ArtFire can help them experiment with marketing strategies and expand their business.
Unlike other marketplaces, Folksy focuses solely on local handmade products. Due to this, they've branded themselves as the UK's biggest online craft fair.
You can see their dedication to local businesses from their strict policy of disallowing people to sell vintage items or reselling.
They believe this policy ensures shoppers can spend their hard-earned cash on unique local creations rather than supporting the mass-produced items of others.
Zibbet began as a marketplace where sellers could list and sell products. The platform allows a user to join multiple marketplaces (e.g Etsy. eBay. Facebook Shop. Stitch) to the platform.
It is best for sellers with established sales channels. It also makes selling and managing your inventory and sales easier with all these platforms.
Zibbet marketplace has a built-in e-commerce toolkit to help you manage your business. Your products are displayed across multiple channels with just one login, so you can focus on selling more, not juggling more sites.
And the Zibbet Marketplace & Storefront comes with free SEO tools, global shipping and payments, professional tools for planning your business and selling on social media, and more.
While migrating products from other marketplaces, Zibbet allows users to use custom feeds based on their own unique needs. You can manage all of your eCommerce activity — including inventory, orders, and shipping — all from one convenient dashboard.
Despite everything we mentioned above, however, there is a catch. You will have to pay separate fees for each store, which can be huge financial pressure for small businesses.
You can also watch your analytics and see your ROI with specific product views and historical trends.
Bonanza aims to be fun and valuable for customers, strategically placing itself as an alternative to Etsy.
The marketplace boasts strong DIY salespeople, selling crafts, handmade goods, vintage items, and antiques. Bonanza is not just another online marketplace — it's a place where people meet face to face, bonding over their shared interests.
Bonanza is a direct competitor to Etsy, but it has some unique better features for sellers, including repeat cart abandonment marketing, seller-first customer service, and buyer-to-seller communication.
Unlike most marketplaces on Bonanza, sellers have access to customer data and can engage in repeat marketing efforts.
Bonanza is the best option for Etsy sellers who want another online marketplace.
Aftcra is a free, online marketplace that provides a platform for US-based artisans and small business owners to showcase and sell their goods.
The marketplace does not have listing fees and allows sellers to claim their own Shopify store if they wish.
As a small but budding community of buyers and sellers, Aftcra hopes to replicate the success of more significant marketplaces by providing an uncluttered platform with an excellent customer service experience.
Only sellers from the United States can sell their handmade goods here, but worldwide buyers can still explore the curated marketplace.
Storenvy, a free marketplace that features small businesses, is the go-to online shop for unique goods. With exclusive products from indie brands, you can easily find anything from eco-friendly bath and body care to vintage clothing to jewelry on this e-commerce site.
Storenvy is best suited for those looking to sell crafts or art, focusing on quality and handmade products. This online marketplace has an elegant feel, allowing users to have the design flexibility they want without being too restrictive.
Best of all, your Storenvy online store is closee.g.ly integrated with social sharing, so you can generate more exposure by encouraging shoppers to share your products on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and beyond.
If you're looking for some alternatives to Etsy to start a creative business, you'll want to take your time. All options have pros and cons that need evaluation as we weigh the pros.
For this reason, your company is unique, and your decisions should be as important a logical choice as the products you design.
You perhaps realize that maintaining your Etsy shop remains the logical way to get on using another solution as well. Or maybe you'll find something that helps guide your choice when you start searching out a different route to purchase.
Whichever one you are, marketing your products effectively and efficiently is critical to increasing your sales. One of the best ways to do it is through video marketing. With Offeo Online Ad maker, you can turn your ad message into an eye-catching masterpiece in minutes. Complete with magnifying effects, animations, and much more
Start with professionally created templates and customize them to your preference. No design experience is required to make amazing-looking commercial videos with our tool.
So, what are you waiting for? Sign up now to create powerful marketing videos and make your advertising campaign pop with Offeo!
.jpeg)
