5 Best Sites like Etsy to Sell Handmade Crafts

With time, Etsy became this substantial global dominating $14 billion handmade empire. This e-commerce website focuses on the handwork of fine artisans and arts but selling handmade, vintage pieces, and craft supplies. Let’s talk about Etsy and the sites like Etsy for selling your handmade crafts online.

sites like etsy

About Etsy:

Let’s address the elephant in the room

What is it that the world lacks and desperately needs? Creativity. The originality of reality is deteriorating with time. Imagination is a gift for everyone, but creativity is not for all. Only a few can give their vision a smooth direction, making it a desirable item to have.

Keeping in mind the fun and frolic at fairs, websites like Etsy keep that tradition of open fairs going. Geographical siting issue or commuting issue shouldn’t get in the way of treating yourself with the items sites like Etsy and Amazon crafts has to offer.

The WHY…?

To talk about Etsy, it is a website that started as a temporary thing just for the holidays to encourage the sale of handmade gifts for the holidays.

It is a website we never asked for but wanted at the same time. Not only Etsy is an e-commerce website, but it is also the reason many art and crafts are still alive and in our lives. It promotes and gives an opening to merchandisers and small start-ups. It lets a person open their shops on the website, making their goods available to people all around the world, just by paying a reasonable amount of $0.20/ article.

Etsy is a one-stop shop for everything handmade, exclusive, and designer. Websites like Etsy offer employment to such a vast set of population, giving the creative minds the platform they deserve. It is also an excellent place for buyers to look for curated items they have always wished for, something of the era or fifty years old, with the rustic vintage charm. This website also started the movement #standwithsmall, which was a great initiative. People who had no jobs but are passionate about their work got a chance to be the entrepreneurs they always wanted to be, connecting with their customers and providing them with products that have originality and story behind it.

There’s so much more to this site than just being an ordinary e-commerce website. Its YouTube page shows the “Meet the Makers,” where the owner of the shops talk about their products and how thankful they are for such websites, and of course, the customers that love and buy their products. The making process is discussed, thus keeping a transparent front for the customers and maintaining a healthy relationship.

Buying and Selling:

Sites like Etsy not only sell handmade or vintage goods like jewelry, bags, home decor, toys, art and craft supplies, but also products made from upcycled and recycled materials. The website keeps the articles being sold by the shop owner on the page for a maximum of 4 months or until it has been sold. It is at the shop owner’s disposal to decide with the mode of payment to be offered to the buyers, including net banking, debit, and credit cards. To shop, buyers can open the website and type in the product description or the exact product they are looking for. Multiple numbers of results are shown, and the buyer can browse through them and add to the cart the product they need. After that, enter your details and address, the payment mode, and voila! Your product would be delivered to you in a few days.

Moreover, one can even sell their used goods on this website, something vintage or that works fine, anything they like. An item should be at least twenty years old to be classified as vintage. A site for you to be both a buyer and a seller.

Such websites also sell queer and uncanny products or something that didn’t get much appreciation in a small local market. When such products get a global platform to be showcased, it takes quite a different turn. Etsy operates in countries like the US, Ireland, Europe, Hong Kong, etc. The photos of the products have more of an artistic approach than seen on most catalogs selling goods. The products of Etsy can be found in specific offline stores as well.

Do you want to sell your goods on Etsy but have no clue as to how you’ll get paid?

There are many ways to get paid by Etsy, namely- Etsy payment and Paypal.

With Etsy payments, when a buyer makes a purchase from your shop, he/she will select from the listed modes of payment given by you, and the money will be directly deposited to your bank account.

But if there’s a buyer from a place where Etsy payment doesn’t work, they can always opt for Paypal.

Best selling items on Etsy:

Out of the humongous list of items sold on Etsy, some of the best-selling ones are:

  • Crafts and craft supplies- This is the top-selling category and includes almost every craft you can think of. Starting from patterns for clothes, crochet patterns, stickers, paints, antique charms, beads, and the like. Etsy is the go-to place for custom-made items, and honestly, who doesn’t like customized stickers?
  • Handmade items (this category is vast in itself)- Handmade items include furniture, hand-crafted crockeries, all the way to the handcrafted metal pieces of jewelry and stuff.
  • Vintage items- There are not many websites that sell vintage items, but Etsy isn’t one of them. An article that is no longer useful to one can be an excellent collectible for someone else.
  • Wedding essentials and jewelry pieces- Items for your big day, starting from the wedding invitations to the bridesmaids and dresses, can be covered on Etsy.

Other items include clothes, paper supplies, home decor, furniture, crockeries, art and collectibles, and almost anything you can think of!

5 Best Sites like Etsy to Sell Handmade Crafts:

If Etsy is not available in your region or doesn’t deliver to your location, there are alternatives to Etsy, like Amazon Handmade, eBay, Craigslist, ArtFire, Shopify, Big Cartel, etc.

1. Amazon Handmade:

Amazon Handmade or Handmade at Amazon, is a website like Etsy, providing the customers with everything handcrafted and creative. It is a marketplace made for artisans to sell their all-exclusive handmade products worldwide and achieve worldwide acceptance.

This site sells everything from clothing to home decor. But there’s a difference between Amazon Handmade and Amazon’s original marketplace. The sellers are invited and selected to sell their products on Amazon Handmade, whereas any seller can sell their products on Amazon. No invitation is required.

Handmade in Amazon is a similar platform to Etsy but with few differences. Amazon Handmade allows goods to be sold that are only made by Artisans, thus providing them with jobs and a forum. Whereas in Etsy, it is more of a spectrum sort of a thing.

It sells goods made by the seller or designed by the seller and doesn’t only focus on the artisans. Things like baby products, pet products, and beauty grooming products are some of the items that are available on Amazon Handmade and not on Etsy.

To pay on Handmade on Amazon, the same payment methods are applicable that are present when you’re shopping from Amazon itself. It accepts gift cards, Amazon Pay, and all the major debit and credit cards and eligible reward programs.

2. eBay:

Etsy gets tough competition from this e-commerce site. Operating in 32 countries, eBay is an American e-commerce company that facilitates consumer-to-consumer or business-to-consumer sales. It is a website with an online auction and a shopping website for people and businesses to buy and sell a wide variety of goods.

eBay charges a fee of $0.35 for listing goods by business owners on eBay. It is also a site that sells motors, which is not so in the case of Etsy and Handmade in Amazon.

Items like collectibles, computers, decors, appliances, equipment, domain names, vehicles are other random articles, and objects are listed, bought, or sold on eBay daily. Apart from these regular items, many unusual items are also listed on eBay, and people buy those. For example- previously undiscovered species like Coelopleurus exquisitus sea urchin.

Some of the following payment modes offered by eBay while checking out are PayPal, PayPal Credit, Credit cards, debit cards accepted by the seller, and payment upon pickup.

eBay also has an option for the seller to put the store on hold when not available or on vacation. Other features include free listings with a premium subscription, driving buyers to your stores, custom-made home page, etc.

3. Craigslist:

Craigslist is a website that is not only devoted to selling products, but also to jobs, services, houses, gigs, community service, etc. Founded in 1995, this website was started as an email distribution list to friends, which later, through word of mouth, experienced rapid growth and is now a huge deal.

Craigslist is not only used for selling or buying goods but also as a site to meet new people and also to get jobs. This feature is not quite available on other websites of this sort.

4. Shopify:

Shopify, a Canadian multinational e-commerce company, was started as an online store for buying, selling, or renting snowboarding equipment. Later on, this website was then launched as an application and was now available on the play store and app store. With passing years, this company started owning mobile software developers and mobile engineers and designers.

In 2019, Shopify a tie-up with Snapchat, allowing the Shopify merchants to manage and buy the Snapchat story ads. Also, Shopify is simpler and cheaper than Etsy, which is better with small-scale sellers. The transaction fees of Shopify are also less than that of Etsy.

Items and products that can be sold and bought on Shopify are Services or appointments, Memberships, Digital products, consultations, Rentals, Online learning classes, lessons, workshops, event support, and the like.

Shopify did face many hardships to get to the point where it is today, but it was totally worth it.

5. ArtFire:

ArtFire is a marketplace that is the home to artisans and all their kinds of goods. This website is, in fact, one of the best alternatives to Etsy. It is also the home to those low-volume sellers who couldn’t agree to some of Etsy’s policies.

ArtFire is a trendy alternative to Etsy. One of the reasons for it being that way is the understandable and reasonable pricing of the products sold on ArtFire. A unique feature of this website that isn’t available in others is the filter for buyers to search stores based on their business size. They can be categorized under the Handicraft specific section and not the Commercial area for business on a bigger scale.

Aside from taking in and teaming up with local artists and artisans, ArtFire is also known for its incredible customer service and marketing strategies, and selling strategies.

BOTTOM LINE:

These websites are top-notch, providing the best work from the best artists, artisans, and designers worldwide. They are home to so many needy and talented people, offering buyers all across the world to try out their products and get to know their stories. Providing us with the most unique, exclusive, uncanny, and vintage products is what the world needs.

Sites like Etsy also inspire people with so many life stories. The owners of small and new businesses now can choose from the sites they would like for their products, and what suits them the most. With time, more and more opportunities come our way to chase the dream we want and help the people we want by supporting them and their work.