No matter if you already have or are thinking about opening an Etsy shop, it’s always a good idea to check out what other options are out there. It’s possible that there’s a cheaper and more feature-rich option to Etsy that would be more fit for your online store. In just 10 minutes, you may learn about the 11 best alternatives to Etsy listed here. Let’s have a look at:
In comparison to mass-produced goods, the unique touch of a handcrafted item really sets it apart. You may rest assured that your needs will be met by a reliable e-commerce platform. Even if you’re just starting out, you may find success selling your wares on Etsy thanks to the site’s many user-friendly tools. Don’t miss this detailed guide if you’re not happy with Etsy and want to explore other sales channels/platforms.
This article will present you with 11 top options, and I’ll compare them side by side. You can read on to find out which option is most suited to you in the year 2022. We’ll begin with an explanation of Etsy; if you’re already familiar with the site, you can skip this paragraph.
What Is Etsy
Etsy was founded in 2005 as an online marketplace for people to buy and sell goods such as antique and handmade jewellery, apparel, home decor, art, toys, and more.
Consequently, Etsy is a great place to start if you’re one of those people trying to get your first buyer. All of the items on this site are created, gathered, selected, and offered for sale by individual vendors. These entrepreneurs not only have to make their products, but also handle customer orders and stock levels. Etsy functions similarly to a middleman by providing a platform where these designers may advertise their wares and connect with potential buyers.
While some Etsy shop owners hope to eventually expand their operations to Shopify, they still intend to maintain a presence on Etsy. Why? They still have a lot of room to expand their online business with the help of Etsy, a well-known e-commerce marketplace and platform. In a nutshell, merchants may begin using Shopify with an Etsy integration to immediately increase their exposure and sales.
You’ve learned the basics of Etsy. Let’s take a step-by-step look at the options that exist besides it.
There Are Excellent Options If You Don’t Like Etsy
If you’re serious about making money online, you should look into some good Etsy alternatives. If you’re looking for options, here are eleven of the best. Let’s go over the benefits and drawbacks of each individually:
Shopify
Shopify is a good platform for all kinds of businesses that want to sell online. With a shopping cart that has a lot of features, you can easily sell your goods through many different channels.
It has a lot of powerful third-party integrations, like Dropship Corporation, which is the best AliExpress dropshipping solution, and MailChimp, which is the right plugin to put your email marketing strategies into action. With them, it’s easy to open a store, run it, promote it, and sell things online.
Website for Shopify
Let’s look at what’s good and what’s bad about it:
PROS:
- Good for business growth. Shopify’s powerful back-end editor and impressive inventory system will help you build a great e-commerce store as your business grows.
- Multiple sales channels: You can sell on Shopify through Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and eBay, among others.
- It gives a website builder hundreds of templates that can be used. The templates let you add the logos, images, videos, and text for your brand to your online store.
- App store with power: Shopify works with more than 3,000 third-party apps and extensions that can make it easy to take your store to the next level.
CONS:
- In some ways, it’s not so cheap: In order to use Shopify, you have to pay for your store’s monthly operating costs, transaction fees, and any extra apps you need.
Wix
Wix is a platform that lets you keep track of orders and accept payments through PayPal and credit cards. It also lets you make coupons for sales and set different rules for tax and shipping for different places. You can also do dropshipping through a Wix store. Click here to find out more about the Wix dropshipping service with Dropship Corporation.
PROS:
- Easy to start: Wix has a user-friendly design that makes it easy for newcomers to get started.
- Its drag-and-drop theme makes it easy to make your own storefronts.
- Integration on a huge, powerful scale: It has more than 100 apps and integrations in its app store, such as the powerful Dropship Corporation AliExpress dropshipping tool.
- Customer service and help that are perfect: Wix offers email, phone, and live chat support around the clock.
CONS:
- Only a few ideas: Unlike Shopify, which has a lot of templates, Wix only has about 800 professional-looking themes that you can buy or get for free.
- Limitation: Even though there is a free plan and a 14-day money-back guarantee, the free plan only has a few of the same features as the paid plan.
Big Cartel
Big Cartel is well-known for how easy it is to use. In the end, the main dashboard has the most basic information and status report about your store. In reality, you expect to see that when you log in to your store. BigCartel is a well-known e-commerce platform because it is easy to use.
Big Cartel homepage
The main menu only has a few choices, which makes it easy to find the most common things that website owners want to do. Not surprisingly, the panel of the new product is also very clear and pretty.
PROS:
- It’s free: Big Cartel lets store owners sell up to five items for free, which helps business owners with limited funds.
- Useful guidelines: It’s great if there are lots of tips for users, especially new ones.
- Products for yourself: Big Cartel is a good place for people to sell unique, one-of-a-kind items like artwork and handicrafts.
- Check your thoughts: It’s good for makers, crafters, and artists who want to sell their handmade goods online under their own brand.
CONS:
- Take the wheel yourself: When compared to Etsy, getting people to your store may take more time and cost more money if you don’t have a plan or budget.
- A few ideas: You don’t have many options for making changes to your online store.
- The site doesn’t have any great features: It’s more about being simple, so the features never have enough quality or depth.
Bonanza
Bonanza is an online platform that looks and works a lot like eBay. It puts more attention on one-of-a-kind things like arts, crafts, and collectibles. You can list items for free on Bonanza, and the site will charge you based on how much they sell for. With Bonanza, makers can import items straight from Etsy, which makes it easy to get started. Bonanza is a good alternative to Etsy because it has many marketing and analytics tools.
PROS:
- Online store that stands alone: Unlike Etsy, Bonanza lets you create a stand-alone online store and gives you (sellers/users) a ready-made customer base through its built-in market.
- Reach customers all over the world: As a seller, Bonanza makes it easy to reach people all over the world. As a buyer, you can find one-of-a-kind items from all over the world.
- Cheap: You don’t have to pay as many fees as you do on eBay, Amazon, and other sites.
- free to put products on its website
CONS:
- Less people who buy from you: The ready customer base is much smaller than on Etsy.
- Few tools for designing: It doesn’t give you as many options for designing your stand-alone online store as Shopify or Zibbet does.
- It could be expensive depending on how many people join and how they want to advertise.
Squarespace
Squarespace is another great alternative to Etsy. It has features that make it easy to set up a website or online shop. It helps sellers market their products by giving them a strong inventory system and powerful social media tools that are built in. Squarespace has different pricing plans for people who need different features to sell things online.
PROS:
- Templates that look good: Since it is more about design, you will get a lot of professional and attractive templates.
- Templates that are easy to use: With Squarespace’s drag-and-drop design tools, even people who have never built a site or store before can make one that looks good.
- Good way to market: You can use a content marketing strategy with its great blogging tool.
CONS:
- Integration is limited: On the app store, you can get a few add-ons.
- There are fewer ways to pay: There aren’t as many ways to pay as there are on other platforms, like Shopify, which lets you use Shopify Payment without having to pay transaction fees.
- Few sales options: You can’t sell through more than one channel.
Ecwid
Ecwid is the next best choice. Ecwid is appealing to new e-commerce business owners because it is free and easy to use. So are hand-makers on Etsy who want to look around their store. You don’t need to know how to code or design in order to use it. It gives users useful features like a central location for inventory, order management, and pricing. Ecwid is better than Etsy because it has these features.
PROS:
- It lets sellers sell on different marketplaces, commerce channels, and digital platforms, so it’s a good way to try out business ideas.
- Small company: It’s good for people who want to open an online store but want to start small.
CONS:
- It’s hard to find features that meet your needs as your store grows. Ecwid has a “instant site,” but it’s hard to find features that meet your needs as your store grows.
Amazon Handmade
Amazon, a retail giant that has changed the market for consumer goods, is the exact opposite of what most creative entrepreneurs have in mind when they sell products and services. Amazon is known for selling everything quickly and for a low price. Since its handmade marketplace opened, it has been a good alternative to Etsy. Through the Amazon Handmade marketplace, people can sell their handmade goods and works of art through this huge online store.
PROS:
- More clients: If you sell on Amazon, you might get more potential customers because it’s the first place most people look when they want to buy something.
- Fulfillment centre: You can get more out of selling on Amazon if you use its FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) programme.
- Effective ads: It gives you ads that Amazon pays for, which bring more people to your store and products.
- The fee can be skipped if: You have to pay a membership fee of $39.99 per month, but that fee can be waived if you don’t sell more than 40 items in categories other than “Handmade.”
CONS:
- Fierce competition: Products that are sold through Amazon Handmade are shown on the main Amazon website, not on a separate website. So, you will be up against a lot of cheap alternatives that are made in large quantities.
- Extra charge: All Amazon Handmade sellers must also pay a 15% transaction fee for every sale.
IndieMade
IndieMade is a good choice for entrepreneurs who want more freedom to run their store and decide how their products are sold. Even though it doesn’t have the advantages of an online market like Etsy, Amazon. IndieMade gives you more ways to control more of the selling process without charging you a lot of money. You can build a store and connect it to your Etsy shop. IndieMade also gives you a lot of e-commerce tools, like an integrated shopping cart, as well as other content like audio, video, and a blog.
PROS:
- More freedom to change: With IndieMade, online stores can be set up and changed in a free and flexible way.
- Tools that stand out: It has tools like analytics, reporting, SEO, and marketing tools that are all built in.
- Cheap: You don’t have to pay extra to use its online shopping cart, file storage, bandwidth, or SSL certificate.
CONS:
- Limitation: To use IndieMade, you have to make an online store, since it’s not a curated marketplace and anyone can sell anything legal on their platform.
Zibbet
Zibbet is the first and best place to start in 2022 if you are an artist, entrepreneur, or creator who wants to promote your products across multiple sales channels. Zibbet can bring together data from all of your sales channels, which makes it easy to track:
Sales you have made
Your stock levels
How much stock is left in each store
PROS:
- Zibbet gives you access to powerful tools that can help you with things like order management, packaging, shipping, data tracking, analytics, and even importing information from an Etsy website.
- Store control: Handmade-product-only sellers have both the freedom and control of a separate, customizable website.
CONS:
- There’s not much to lose on Zibbet, since there are no listing fees or commission fees.
- What could be made: In the Zibbet marketplace, sellers could easily reach people who are ready to buy.
- Zibbet is a newer platform that is still growing, so it might be hard for it to reach as many people as Etsy.
- Improvements to the buyer experience: Zibbet is still working hard to make things better for buyers.
Storenvy
Storenvy’s marketplace is mostly about hand-picked and handmade items. The marketplace is full of small, independent stores that sell high-quality, one-of-a-kind items. Storenvy is a great choice for sellers in the jewellery, vintage clothing, or children’s product niches because it is geared toward a younger audience.
PROS:
- Cost-effective: You can set up a free online store and sell on Storenvy’s market, which makes it a cost-effective way to sell on multiple channels.
- Storenvy lets you use your online store and social media to get the word out about your products.
CONS:
- Only young people can use Storenvy because it’s only for them. So, if your product doesn’t fit into one of these groups, it might be hard for it to do well.
ArtFire
ArtFire is a place for a certain type of person. It was started in 2008 by John Jaobs and is very similar to Storenvy. It’s a place where artists and collectors of old things can sell their goods to people all over the world.
PROS:
- As an ArtFire store owner, you can do more than just sell things. You can also take part in the online community. For example, ArtFire lets sellers share feedback with other sellers in online forums, talk to customers, and make the website more interesting in the process.
- There are many business options: ArtFire lets customers narrow their searches based on the size of the business, so if they really want to help small businesses, ArtFire is exactly what they need.
- Better customer support: It gives people a toll-free number they can call to talk to a real person.
CONS:
- Fees for advertising: If you want to sell things that aren’t handmade, you have to pay a lot.
- There aren’t many ways to customise and promote
Last Word
If you want to start a handmade business online in 2022, you can choose from a number of sites other than Etsy. You might not be sure which one is better. The answer is simple: you have to find the best one for your business type and size on your own. Now that this comparison is done, you already know a lot about the 11 options. I hope you got what you were looking for. So, no matter what you’re going to sell, pick one to start your business with right away. Good luck to you.
