Five Signs Your Small Business has Outgrown Etsy

Although Etsy is an amazing platform for small businesses and entrepeneurs, there comes a time when it may be limiting the growth of your small business.

Etsy is place that connects Makers to browsers. It provides great functionality for artists and creators all over the world. An Etsy story is easy to set up and maintain and you don’t need any technical ability to get started.

It’s great for creatives getting started.

Are you starting to see the sign that you’re outgrowing Etsy? Maybe you had the realization that it’s really difficult to differentiate yourself from everyone else in the crowded marketplace of Etsy. Is your work getting lost in the flurry of the Etsy search engine? Or are those seller fee’s starting to add up?

Five Sign that You’re Outgrowing Etsy

1) You’ve found your niche and you understand your market

You know the pain points and characteristics of your target audience. You’re able to market directly to your ideal customer easily and build credibility and authority in your niche.

This means that you’re ready write content, blog posts, email marketing, etc. that resonates and connects with your potential customers and you need a homebase to do it from.

2) Your ready to figure out SEO

One of the major downfalls of Etsy is that you’re lost within the domain of Etsy itself. It’s tough to get traction is search engine results and generate regular traffic to your site.

Having a stand alone website doesn’t immediately translate to SEO gold but it does give you the foundation to grow and adjust your search marketing strategy to crack the front page of search engines.

3) You want to sell more than handmade items

Etsy does not allow you to sell items that are not handmade. With total control over your e-commerce store you can expand your offerings beyond just the handmade variety.

For example, we have a client who is a wreathe maker who started on Etsy but is now selling an e-book of craft fair locations in her state.

4) You feel lost in the crowd of Etsy

The beauty of Etsy is the ability to search for through a million options to find the perfect handmade item you need. But therein lies the problem. It’s difficult to differentiate yourself from a crowded marketplace. Etsy also make’s it easy to bounce from one Etsy store to another.

Perhaps it’s time to build out the look and feel of your brand through images, font and text that you control. You’re stand alone website will provide a great foundation for your small business brand to breathe.

5) You want more control

Whether it’s the threat of cancellation from Etsy that hangs over your head or just your issue’s with authority (we understand), a stand alone website give you a home base and a place you can call home.

With a stand alone site you control the functionality. Do you want to add email opt in forms to grow an email list? Do you want to post to a blog regularly? Do you want more detailed information on your pages? Do you want to embed video? It’s all possible on your website.

Are you ready to make the switch?

It’s not a decision to take lightly and the best advice we can give you is…

Commit.

Be prepared to give it the time it needs to get off the ground and be a sustainable and full functional online store.  Don’t shut down your Etsy immediately. In fact many people operate both until their site gets traction.

E-commerce stores aren’t magically built by fairies.  They talk a lot of hard work. A web development company like ours can help you build a functional and effective e-commerce store,  but we can’t produce the pictures of your items, the descriptions and the shipping prices. That all takes work, but if you put in the work up to build your home base it will set the foundation that will help your business grow.

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