Hooray for Me, another sale!

Etsy is an American e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home décor and furniture, toys, art, as well as craft supplies and tools.

Creating a shop on Etsy is free. The prices of products are set by the shop owner, but Etsy has numerous fees which they deduct. Also, as with many online sellers, there can be a race to the bottom on pricing

The biggest issue is the listing fee of 20 cents for every item posted. Even worse, this listing expires after 4 months and items need to be relisted or dropped. For simplicity’s sake, I uploaded a few digital files of my favorites photos and set the price of $5.00. I did sell one item and received $4.35 deposited in my bank account after fees. Perhaps one small workaround to the listing fee is to package several items or files in one listing and charge a higher price. I did try this strategy in one listing but without success.

In the end, I only listed 4 items and it is difficult for me to recommend the site as a viable platform mostly because of the fees. Perhaps it is more suitable for other types of art or craft products? However, I am not aware of the top-selling categories on the site.

The image that I sold is shown at the head of this post. Etsy handled all the billing and file transfer details via their site. If anyone has other experiences with the platform, I would be interested in hearing about it!