Etsy!

I have an Etsy store and have been really enjoying making all kinds of jewelry, candles and assorted geekish items. (I just now sold a pair of wine glasses painted like Mario Piranha plants!!! )

AbielleRose's Etsy Store Linkage

I have an Etsy account I started in 2009 and have done nothing with. The cost per listing was too high. I wasn't making things that could be easily sold for under $25, which seemed to be the most popular market. I'll have to take another look to see if Etsy has evolved...

The cost per listing is 20 cents, and lasts four months--that was the main selling point for me starting my store there. The selling fees and paypal fees shave a little more off, but you just have to build that into your price.

http://www.etsy.com/help/article/2144

The prices range from garage-sale cheap to the ridiculously overblown, but there is some truly wonderful stuff to be found there.

Filigree said:

I have an Etsy account I started in 2009 and have done nothing with. The cost per listing was too high. I wasn't making things that could be easily sold for under $25, which seemed to be the most popular market. I'll have to take another look to see if Etsy has evolved...

Click to expand...

I have a photographer friend who sells her prints for $250-500. I was thinking of cross platforming and (yes a little tee shirt crowd sourcing >.<) between making trendy shirt designs and also selling the ones that aren't picked up as posters on Etsy for a heck of a lot less than what my dear old friend is charging.

I really enjoy making pop art, so it seems like a plan that could work, but I'm apprehensive to get started because I don't know much about Etsy either or the legal terms that come with selling there.

Have you made enough to be worth the hassle of dealing with PayPal and different credit cards? That was what turned me off RL craft fairs in general. I had a choice to spend time and materials on many small, lower price items - or a few museum quality larger ones that could get me gallery notice.

Like I said, I'll give Etsy another look. If the monthly fees don't add up too much I might put some of my medium-level jewelry pieces there.

Filigree said:

Have you made enough to be worth the hassle of dealing with PayPal and different credit cards? That was what turned me off RL craft fairs in general. I had a choice to spend time and materials on many small, lower price items - or a few museum quality larger ones that could get me gallery notice.

Like I said, I'll give Etsy another look. If the monthly fees don't add up too much I might put some of my medium-level jewelry pieces there.

Click to expand...

To be honest, Etsy doesn't look like the right venue for the kind of stuff I do, and if they do charge a monthly fee rather than a percentage of sale rate, then there's no way I would ever considering using them. There are too many other options.

By the way, this is sort of Off Topic but speaking of tee designs my first design was just approved for scoring at Threadless. I'm hoping I get off to a good start but who knows. Check it out.

This was one of the reasons why I got a Stamps.com membership: better shipping options. I am considering joining CustomMade, another craft site, but I'm sure still researching pros and cons there. Etsy would let me sell already-made goods, but CM looks like it might have a higher medium sale value (in exchange for putting up with custom orders.) CM charges a dollar to be signed up and 10 percent of each sale. The quality is high for some woodwork and glasswork but very low for jewelry and many accessories.

I'd like to have an online outlet for beadwork and some textile arts pieces, but I have not found the perfect venue.

What are Etsy's regular monthly fees now?

Filigree said:

This was one of the reasons why I got a Stamps.com membership: better shipping options. I am considering joining CustomMade, another craft site, but I'm sure still researching pros and cons there. Etsy would let me sell already-made goods, but CM looks like it might have a higher medium sale value (in exchange for putting up with custom orders.) CM charges a dollar to be signed up and 10 percent of each sale. The quality is high for some woodwork and glasswork but very low for jewelry and many accessories.

I'd like to have an online outlet for beadwork and some textile arts pieces, but I have not found the perfect venue.

What are Etsy's regular monthly fees now?

Click to expand...

I linked to their fee policy upthread a little

It's 20 cents per listing, the listing lasts 4 months. They take 3.5% of each item sold, and then of course there's paypal's cut if you use them--but you can even have buyers send you checks, if you like. I like them because after you set up your shop, you just worry about pics and doing listings (which is way less of a hassle than it used to be) and then get on with your crafting.

ETA: Oh, and I also do custom pieces all the time, through them, or just with people convo-ing me through them, and then doing the business through email. It sounds like Etsy would be perfect for what you, if you like their set-up and fee structure.

Would this be a comparable shop for your beadwork, Filigree? To give you an idea?

That's in the general range, Clovia. My necklaces would run around $125 to $250 depending on style. I wonder how well Sue is doing with her beadwork? With most online sites, it's not what you ask for an item that matters - it's what it will sell for.

Market matters, too. If Sue is in the AZ area, she's already found out what I've learned: trying to sell glass beadwork for realistic labor costs out here is nearly impossible. We're too close to the Native crafters here, the Mexican imports, and the cheap Chinese and Indian imports.

One thing I always do is look over at a shop's "Sales" tab to get an idea of how much they've sold--she's got 186 sales since opening the shop in 2008, but also has a website, so she may take orders through email as well as locally.

There are some lovely things, and price don't seem to deter people from buying--I couldn't afford that pendant, but someone did

Filigree said:

Have you made enough to be worth the hassle of dealing with PayPal and different credit cards? That was what turned me off RL craft fairs in general. I had a choice to spend time and materials on many small, lower price items - or a few museum quality larger ones that could get me gallery notice.

Like I said, I'll give Etsy another look. If the monthly fees don't add up too much I might put some of my medium-level jewelry pieces there.

Click to expand...

The profit all really depends about how gung ho you are about promoting your stuff. I'm in the process of setting up a blog, I tweet my listings and have some awesome friends spreading the word. So far this month I've made almost $100.00. It's not a lot if you're comparing it to a full time job, but this is something fun and a great way to have a chance to create and make things without having to sorry so much about what to do with the finished product.

I buy a lot of the beads I use on Etsy, make my stuff out of them and then re-sell them, too. Despite the website and Paypal taking a little cut it's just that- a LITTLE cut. Sites like Amazon and Ebay take a much larger percentage of anything you sell through them.

So glad you started this, Alessandra! I love supporting the artists who create the things I'd like to create if I wasn't quite so clumsy. as soon as i get back to an english keyboard, i'll make a purchase or two...

Not an artisan, but we bought our wedding bands from Etsy, and the seller even included a simple matching necklace for me as a complimentary gift. I also bought a handmade sundress that I just adore. I never pay that much for clothing, and I really couldn't afford a purchase like that at the time, but I did it anyway. My husband, usually quite taciturn with his compliments, almost always says something sweet when I wear it. I can't wait until the warm weather is back.

I had an Etsy shop for a while, but stopped when I began to write a lot more than I was spending time on art and crafts.
I usually buy my sister's christmas and birthday gifts through there, because it's easy to find something good, that's not too expensive and can be sent from nearby where ever she's living at that point (I always leave things to the last minute).

I sell art through nine or ten galleries, and get poster royalties from two art publishers. Another revenue stream would be good for 2013.

Filigree said:

I sell art through nine or ten galleries, and get poster royalties from two art publishers. Another revenue stream would be good for 2013.

Click to expand...

Are these online galleries or in RL?

RL, although most of them have online portals. Book art goes through Vamp & Tramp Booksellers, 23 Sandy Gallery, and The Eclectic Collector. Glass mosaics, jewelry, fiber art, and acrylic paintings go through some regional municipal galleries here in the Southwest US. Poster art goes through Capstone and Posters International. I am always looking for new venues as older ones go under or shift focus.

I'm balancing art and writing commitments at the moment. When one eclipses the other, I will have to re-adjust priorities. The goal is to find a mix of jobs that gets me back to my highest earnings in corporate commercial art: 35 to 45K.