So long and see you later….NOT! After 6 long years of being on etsy, I finally found the courage to close my shop. It was a very liberating feeling. I happened to notice that in the past few months, my shoppers were people who found my items on google and signed up to etsy just to buy them. After paying transaction fees and listing fees, I was paying etsy quite a bit of $$ each month. I thought about it for a little while and knew I could do better, much better. So I cancelled my account and closed my store.
In the beginning, I really liked etsy. It was great to belong to a community of artists and crafters who liked the same things I did. After a few years, etsy has grown from being a few handful of people in an office to this HUGE e-commerce business and I’m just a number. I just wasn’t feeling the love. There are so many shops online and I feel that it’s very hard to stand out from each other. I put so much time and energy into it, I feel that I’m much better off giving google the same attention.
You can still find my items online at this shop and this shop! (which is still being imported and updated). My holiday collection is due to come out in two weeks, stay posted!
I’d love to hear an update about how you like Big Cartel vs Shopify. I’ve only been on Etsy a year but I’m considering the same leap. Both shops are beautiful. Congrats on having them up and running!
Here’s an update for you: It’s been about a month and I LOVE Big Cartel! Shopify didn’t work out the way that I had wanted it to. They don’t do a very good job indexing your items in the search engines so that you can be found.
Big Cartel has been great. I spend $20/month (much cheaper than the etsy fees I was racking up {approx $75 a month}) and I can list up to 100 items. Everyone finds my items through google and it’s a quick and painless paypal checkout option. If I have a question about something, they respond the next day (excellent customer service). I wish I had closed my etsy shop sooner.
Hi Kate, what helpful insight! $75 > $20 is a significant difference. Awesome. I’m think I’m going to jump in with Big Cartel shortly. Thanks for such a thorough reply.