9 Best Etsy Alternatives for Sellers (More Freedom + Less Fees)

Searching for one of the best Etsy alternate options to promote your merchandise?

Etsy is arguably the most well-liked e-commerce platform to promote handmade items. However with the rise of vendor transaction charges and the inflow of dropshippers and print-on-demand retailers hopping on board, competitors has grow to be stiffer than ever.

On this article, we’ll provide the greatest Etsy alternate options for sellers so you possibly can faucet right into a much less aggressive area and revel in decrease charges.

Why Look For an Etsy Various?

Since 2005, Etsy has grow to be a preferred platform for crafters and collectors to promote their custom-made, handmade, or classic gadgets. You possibly can promote every part from dwelling items, collectibles, furnishings, clothes, vacation gadgets, crafts, and extra.

That stated, sellers have began to note an inflow of mass-market merchandise that aren’t handmade. However that’s solely the beginning.

In 2022, Etsy has raised its vendor transaction charges from 5% to 6.5%, inflicting extra displeasure amongst sellers, because it solely eats into the razor-thin revenue margins. A lot in order that Etsy sellers truly went on strike due to it.

Past the hyper-competitive area and the rise in vendor transaction charges, you may additionally need to management your individual buyer knowledge. Counting on a third-party market means you don’t totally management your online business.

Etsy can solely take your eCommerce retailer to date. You’ve gotten restricted customization choices and restrictive retailer design. That stated, different platforms can help you customise your retailer theme, colours, call to action buttons and even add your individual upsells and cross-sells.

Better of all, you personal your buyer knowledge, so you possibly can ship them emails to you retain them within the loop about new merchandise, product classes, retailer reductions, or different information.

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the best various for creators who’re prepared to depart Etsy and develop their companies. Since WooCommerce is one of the best all-in-one commerce platform, migrating your store from Etsy to WooCommerce is seamless.

With Etsy, you’re restricted to creating your self stand out from rivals. In case your retailer seems to be like everybody else’s, patrons will deal with your gadgets as a commodity. Not like most vendor marketplaces, WooCommerce presents a full suite of assets and instruments to assist make your online store extra consistent with your model.

You’re in a position to decide on which payment gateways to simply accept, create pop-up campaigns to get guests to remain, optimize search engine optimisation for elevated site visitors, add one-click upsells, and far more.

Right here’s an instance of what an internet site constructed fully from WooCoomerce. Discover how clear the design is and the buttons are strategically positioned to make including to cart straightforward.

Plus, WooCommerce retains every part in a single place. For instance, in case you’re a retail retailer, you most likely have already got a WordPress web site (or at the least it’s best to). In that case, relatively than juggling between completely different platforms to handle your online business, you’re in a position to home every part proper out of your WordPress dashboard.

You possibly can start a WordPress blog, edit your web site content material, and handle your orders from prospects with out switching home windows. It’s much less complicated, and also you’ll must pay for fewer subscriptions.

You may additionally need to try our listing of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store.

Execs:

• WooCommerce is constructed proper inside WordPress to maintain every part in a single place.
• Numerous customization choices to spice up gross sales and create your individual model
• Comparatively straightforward to make use of

Cons:

Why We Suggest Utilizing WooCommerce: If you wish to create an Etsy-like store with WordPress, WooCommerce is the best way to go. Whenever you select WooCommerce, you get all of the earnings. Which means Etsy isn’t going to take a minimize and eat into your margins. There are every kind of plugins within the Woo Market, so that you’re just about in a position so as to add any kind of characteristic you’d prefer to your retailer.

2. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is one of the best Etsy various in case you promote digital merchandise like digital artwork, planners, Canva templates and different downloadable gadgets.

Like WooCommerce, Straightforward Digital Obtain is a plugin that lives straight within the WordPress dashboard, so that you wouldn’t have to bounce between a number of platforms. Every part is one place, which makes every part handy.

Etsy has grow to be fashionable for promoting digital downloads. Graphic designers and different artists can simply promote their paintings with out the incurring the prices of getting to print, pack, and ship the gadgets.

Straightforward Digital Downloads means that you can create and design your product pages. When prospects make a purchase order, they’ll routinely entry their downloads straight out of your website or by means of electronic mail.

For example, right here’s an instance product web page of a digital obtain merchandise web page utilizing EDD.

The great thing about EDD is that you simply get to regulate the whole checkout expertise. Which means, you possibly can permit customers to create an account for quicker checkouts, add versatile cost choices like recurring funds or subscriptions, provide low cost codes, and extra.

Past that, EDD has a wide array of extensions. For example, you possibly can join the plugin to an email marketing service, so you possibly can regularly ship them new presents out of your retailer or ship them reminders to reduce cart abandonment.

If you happen to plan on utilizing EDD, you could need to try our final information on how to sell digital downloads on WordPress.

Execs:

• It’s an important plugin for promoting {custom} digital downloads
• They supply plenty of customization options so that you management the whole shopping for expertise
• They make it straightforward for patrons to obtain the downloadable file.

Cons:

• EDD is barely good for digital obtain merchandise, not bodily items.

Why We Suggest Utilizing Straightforward Digital Downloads: We like EDD because the go-to product for promoting downloadable gadgets. With this plugin, customers get quick entry to the product. Every part is in WordPress, so that you don’t have to go to a separate e-commerce platform.

3. Shopify

Shopify is a well-liked e-commerce platform with over two million retailers promoting in over 170 million nations. Whereas Shopify isn’t our best choice, it’s nonetheless has loads going for it.

The principle good thing about Shopify is its plug-and-play kind of consumer expertise. Every part lives throughout the Shopify ecosystem. You possibly can simply discover hosting, domains, cost gateway, web site constructing, advertising and marketing instruments, order tracking, and far more inside the platform.

In addition they have already got a built-in device for including reductions. You possibly can create automated triggers for reductions primarily based on a sure product, hyperlink, or seasonal promotion with out writing code. And you may set a proportion, mounted quantity, or purchase X, get Y kind of low cost as nicely.

If you happen to’ve ever been on the Shopify app as a vendor, you most likely have heard the well-known “cha-ching” noise. The vendor dashboard comes with loads of reporting and analytics. You possibly can see your current gross sales and evaluate them to a earlier time interval. Additionally, you possibly can view different worthwhile metrics like your retailer’s common order worth, evaluate how nicely your gross sales channels are performing, and monitor the place your guests are coming from.

Execs:

• Shopify is a really easy-to-use platform.
• It comes with its personal eco-system of apps and built-in instruments to handle your on-line retailer.
• The platform integrates with advertising and marketing platforms, electronic mail providers and different third-party apps.

Cons:

• The entire month-to-month value might be costly. You additionally must pay for tons of month-to-month subscriptions for apps, plugins, and charges.

Why We Suggest Utilizing Shopify: It’s exhausting to go flawed with Shopify, because it’s such a trusted and well-known model within the eCommerce trade. It’s an all-in-one platform that provides you all of the advertising and marketing and promoting instruments you must scale your on-line retailer to nonetheless huge or small you’d like.

4. eBay

eBay is a superb various to Etsy in case you nonetheless need to promote your merchandise on an eCommerce market. When you don’t get to completely customise your storefront like with WooCommerce or Shopify, you do get to benefit from their current viewers with over 134 million energetic patrons. The platform has a large international attain, which solely ranks second to Amazon.

The most important promoting level for eBay is its auction characteristic. If you happen to’ve acquired one-of-a-kind gadgets, generally you relatively public sale that merchandise off. These are merchandise which have a restricted amount, which additional drives up demand. You possibly can leverage the auctions to seize the best bidder by utilizing shortage ways like a countdown timer to attract our FOMO (worry of lacking out).

With eBay, you additionally get safety for patrons and sellers, which helps forestall scams. They are going to assist to mediate the state of affairs between you and your purchaser. The safety additionally may give patrons confidence to buy on eBay since they know they’re at all times backed by the safety insurance policies.

Execs:

• The public sale characteristic can improve gross sales.
• eBay has built-in search engine optimisation to assist your listings get seen.
• The platform is nice for hard-to-value merchandise, just like Etsy.

Cons:

• eBay has a clunky interface.
• In addition they include numerous charges, like Etsy.

Why We Suggest Utilizing eBay: eBay is a superb various to Etsy particularly for collectible or charge gadgets. As compared, Etsy is best for handmade items. That stated, eBay’s public sale characteristic and built-in search engine optimisation is useful for getting extra eyeballs to your product and boosting income.

5. Wix

Wix is an internet site builder that primarily caters to freshmen due to ease of use and drag-and-drop editor. It comes with over 900 fantastically designed templates spaning nearly each enterprise kind conceivable from on-line shops, to daring portfolios.

The benefit of utilizing Wix is that it’s constructed with efficiency in thoughts. One of many key elements for improving SEO is your website speed. Wix does an important job of insutring that every one of their webpages load shortly attributable to their globally distributed CDN and knowledge facilities.

All Wix websites are optimized for core web vitals as nicely to keep up top-flight speeds. Plus, they embrace multi-cloud internet hosting providers to keep away from website crashes, so your prospects by no means experince a disruption when making an attempt to position an order.

Wix additionally simply connects to most on-line marketplaces together with eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and others. Reasonably than sticking to at least one platform, you possibly can leverage multichannel promoting to succeed in new audiences and increase gross sales. Simply create your Wix retailer after which seamless add merchandise straight out of your website and monitor orders from the dashboard.

Execs:

• Wix could be very straightforward to make use of.
• You possibly can leverage multichannel promoting attributable to market integrations.
• Wix presents catalog and stock administration to trace and fulfill orders.

Cons:

• Restricted customizations in comparison with WooCommerce because it’s not in-built WordPress.

Why We Suggest Utilizing Wix: Whereas Wix doesn’t compare to WordPress, it nonetheless is an efficient platform. Because it connects with on-line platforms, you possibly can simply add merchandise from Wix to Etsy or Wix to eBay, making life loads simpler.

6. Amazon Handmade

Amazon Handmade is debatable the largest direct competitor to Etsy and is a no brainer with regards to placing it on our listing of alternate options. The great thing about Amazon Handmade is that you simply get to faucet into the most important on-line retailer within the phrase boasting over 2.7 billion internet visits per thirty days. With such an enormous potential attain, you’ll most likely attain a bigger international viewers.

Amazon Handmade is an artisan-only part that’s devoted to promoting crafted handmade merchandise solely. That is the place you possibly can promote personalised gadgets relatively than mass-producted merchandise.

However the enormous benefit is it’s decrease vendor charges. There’s no itemizing charges in contrast to Etsy, so you’ve the chance to revenue extra. Actually, 33% of Amazon Handmade sellers have revenue margins above 20%.

Plus, you continue to get to leverage the FBA (Achievement by Amazon) mannequin. That is the place you ship your merchandise in bulk to Amazon’s warehouses. From there, they deal with all of the transport, packing and labeling, so that you don’t must. With two-day free transport for Prime members, you guarantee an important buyer expertise proper off the bat.

Execs:

• Amazon Handmade has decrease vendor charges.
• You get to faucet into an even bigger viewers.
• You possibly can leverage Amazon FBA, so that you don’t have to fret about packing or transport merchandise by yourself.

Cons:

• There are some customizations, however they’re nonetheless restricted when in comparison with WooCommerce or Shopify.

Why We Suggest Utilizing Amazon Handmade: Amazon Handmade is the simplest swap you can also make in case you’re sad with the Etsy platform. It’s a direct competitor and presents just about every part you get from Etsy besides decrease charges and a greater success course of.

7. Big Cartel

Big Cartel is an eCommerce platform designed on servicing inventive and artisitc sellers. Powering over 83,000 on-line tales, Huge Cartel is an reasonably priced choice with customizable capabilities.

The perfect a part of Huge Cartel is the benefit of navigation. You don’t want plenty of expertise building websites to get began. They arrive with quite a lot of free templates, so that you by no means have to begin from scratch. The themes additionally go well with many niches like artists, creatives, bloggers, photographers, and extra.

What makes Huge Cartel distinctive is that in addition they provide reside lessons aimed that will help you arrange the fundamentals. That method you’re not left in the dead of night making an attempt to determine it out by yourself. An insturctor takes you thru each step by means of a session recording, so you understand how to arrange every part. This contains every part from including merchandise and creating reductions to packaging your merchandise.

Execs:

• Huge Cartel is particularly designed for creatives and artists, which is likely to be nice in case you promote work or paintings.
• It comes with a built-in reporting dashboard and Google Analytics integration.
• They provide SSL safety and different safety controls to guard your website from hackers.

Cons:

• They’re restricted in the kind of apps and integrations out there.

Why We Suggest Utilizing Huge Cartel: Huge Cartel definitely the big-name platform you may count on. However in case you don’t have need to grow to be a big e-commerce model then organising a easy store with easy-to-use options is likely to be the best way to go. Huge Cartel offers you primary instruments that get the job achieved.

8. Redbubble

RedBubble is a superb Etsy various in case you are largely centered on print on demand merchandise. Handmade gadgets is the place you make the gadgets your self or achieved with guide labor. On the flip aspect, print on demand gadgets are often designs printed on gadgets like t-shirts, mugs, socks, hats, and different product classes. They’re extra on the mass-produced aspect, however nonetheless attraction to area of interest audiences.

If you happen to fall below the print on demand class, then Crimson Bubble is a wonderful selection. They’ve a large product class with over 70 product varieties like wall artwork, items, clothes and extra. The viewers measurement isn’t something to scoff at both with over 40 million month-to-month website guests.

Redbubble works by importing your authentic designs to the platform. Then they’re listed on the market primarily based on the product class you select. If you happen to’re not eager on model promotion or operating adverts, you possibly can easy optimize your listings on Redbubble and watch the gross sales come rolling in.

Additionally, like Amazon Handmade, Redbubble routinely prints, packs, and ships all orders to prospects straight. Which means you don’t have to fret concerning the success aspect of issues.

Execs:

• Redbubble is ideal for print-on-demand sellers.
• You don’t must deal with stock administration.
• There’s a variety of product catalogs to select from.

Cons:

• it’s not nice for handmade gadgets because it’s strictly a print-on-demand market.

Why We Suggest Utilizing Redbubble: If you happen to needed to promote {custom} t-shirts, mugs, or something the place you print designs on merchandise, then Redbubble is the place to go. Simply add your design, optimize your itemizing, and voila! There’s not a complete lot of labor to it. That stated, you even have much less management as a result of there’s little advertising and marketing you are able to do in your finish.

9. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an efficient various to Etsy as a result of it’s a fully-hosted eCommerce web site builder that’s each appropriate for freshmen and superior ussers. It packs a bunch of important options fo a fast begin and comes with high-performance performance to scale your retailer up.

On the plus aspect, BigCommerce has a variety of paid themes and it’s web page builder makes it straightforward to design your retailer to your liking. It’s acquired plug-and-play widgets so that you add social media profiles, testimonials, upsell buttons, countdown timers, and so forth.

One cool design characteristic is their swatches permitting customers to hover over product photographs for fast zoomed-in views. This creates a greater consumer expertise, since you possibly can immediately view merchandise with out touchdown on the product web page.

Additionally, BigCommerce has complete checkout options to assist increase conversion charges. For instance, you possibly can create buyer logins, add progress bars and even present all of the out there transport strategies. They actually have a built-in deserted cart restoration system, the place you possibly can ship automated emails to prospects who exit your retailer with out finishing their purchases.

Execs:

• Numerous strong options to personalize your on-line retailer.
• There are many templates and design components.
• BigCommerce integrates with on-line marketplaces and social media platforms for multichannel promoting.

Cons:

• It comes with further bills since one of the best themes are paid and also you’ll have to pay for addons as nicely.

Why We Suggest Utilizing BigCommerce: BigCommerce is a helpful various to Etsy. It’s just like WooCommerce and Shopify in that you simply get full management over how your on-line retailer seems to be and also you customise the whole shopping for expertise. Nevertheless it nonetheless doesn’t have as a lot apps and superior search engine optimisation options as these two platforms have.

Often Requested Questions?

What’s one of the best various to Etsy?

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all reply, however we like WooCommerce for promoting bodily items and Straightforward Digital Downloads for digital merchandise.

How do you promote artwork with out Etsy?

Straightforward Digital Downloads means that you can promote {custom} printable arts. When a buyer locations an order, they’ll land on an order web page the place they’ll straight obtain the product. You may also ship a replica of the file through electronic mail.

What’s the greatest website to promote handmade gadgets?

WooCommerce makes it straightforward to promote handmade gadgets as a result of you possibly can create product pages. You possibly can customise the design of your on-line retailer to match your model. Plus, you possibly can at all times join it to different software program so as to add extra performance like OptinMonster for including pop-ups, SeedProd for thanks pages and FunnelKit for one-click upsells.

We hoped this text helped you uncover one of the best Etsy various, so you can begin promoting your handmade and {custom} items. You may also try our list of Shopify Alternatives or our actionable tips to increase sales.

If you happen to preferred this text, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You may also discover us on Twitter and Facebook.