Looking for one of the best Etsy options to promote your merchandise?
Etsy is arguably the preferred e-commerce platform to promote handmade items. But with the rise of vendor transaction charges and the inflow of dropshippers and print-on-demand retailers hopping on board, competitors has turn into stiffer than ever.
In this text, we’ll provide the finest Etsy options for sellers so you may faucet right into a much less aggressive house and revel in decrease charges.
Why Look For an Etsy Alternative?
Since 2005, Etsy has turn into a well-liked platform for crafters and collectors to promote their custom-made, handmade, or classic objects. You can promote the whole lot from residence items, collectibles, furnishings, clothes, vacation objects, crafts, and extra.
That mentioned, sellers have began to note an inflow of mass-market merchandise that aren’t handmade. But 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. So a lot in order that Etsy sellers truly went on strike due to it.
Beyond the hyper-competitive house and the rise in vendor transaction charges, you may additionally need to management your individual buyer information. Relying on a third-party market means you don’t absolutely management your small business.
Etsy can solely take your eCommerce retailer thus far. You have restricted customization choices and restrictive retailer design. That mentioned, different platforms help you customise your retailer theme, colours, call to action buttons and even add your individual upsells and cross-sells.
Best of all, you personal your buyer information, so you may 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. If your retailer seems like everybody else’s, consumers will deal with your objects as a commodity. Unlike most vendor marketplaces, WooCommerce affords a full suite of sources 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 web optimization for elevated site visitors, add one-click upsells, and way more.
Here’s an instance of what an internet site constructed totally from WooCoomerce. Notice how clear the design is and the buttons are strategically positioned to make including to cart straightforward.
Plus, WooCommerce retains the whole lot in a single place. For instance, if you happen to’re a retail retailer, you most likely have already got a WordPress web site (or not less than it is best to). In that case, moderately than juggling between completely different platforms to handle your small business, you’re in a position to home the whole lot proper out of your WordPress dashboard.
You 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 take a look at our checklist of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store.
Pros:
- WooCommerce is constructed proper inside WordPress to maintain the whole lot in a single place.
- Lots of customization choices to spice up gross sales and create your individual model
- Relatively straightforward to make use of
Cons:
Why We Recommend Using WooCommerce: If you need to create an Etsy-like store with WordPress, WooCommerce is the way in which to go. When you select WooCommerce, you get all of the income. That means Etsy isn’t going to take a reduce and eat into your margins. There are all types of plugins within the Woo Marketplace, 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 if you happen to promote digital merchandise like digital artwork, planners, Canva templates and different downloadable objects.
Like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Download is a plugin that lives instantly within the WordPress dashboard, so that you wouldn’t must bounce between a number of platforms. Everything is one place, which makes the whole lot handy.
Etsy has turn into 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 objects.
Easy Digital Downloads lets you create and design your product pages. When prospects make a purchase order, they’ll robotically entry their downloads instantly out of your website or by way of e mail.
For occasion, 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 just get to regulate the whole checkout expertise. That means, you may enable customers to create an account for sooner checkouts, add versatile cost choices like recurring funds or subscriptions, supply low cost codes, and extra.
Beyond that, EDD has a big selection of extensions. For occasion, you may join the plugin to an email marketing service, so you may frequently ship them new affords out of your retailer or ship them reminders to reduce cart abandonment.
If you propose on utilizing EDD, you could need to take a look at our final information on how to sell digital downloads on WordPress.
Pros:
- It’s an awesome plugin for promoting {custom} digital downloads
- They present a number of customization options so that you management the whole shopping for expertise
- They make it straightforward for prospects to obtain the downloadable file.
Cons:
- EDD is just good for digital obtain merchandise, not bodily items.
Why We Recommend Using Easy Digital Downloads: We like EDD because the go-to product for promoting downloadable objects. With this plugin, customers get quick entry to the product. Everything is in WordPress, so that you don’t must 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. While Shopify isn’t our best choice, it’s nonetheless has loads going for it.
The primary advantage of Shopify is its plug-and-play kind of person expertise. Everything lives throughout the Shopify ecosystem. You can simply discover hosting, domains, cost gateway, web site constructing, advertising instruments, order tracking, and way more within the platform.
They additionally have already got a built-in software for including reductions. You can create computerized triggers for reductions based mostly on a sure product, hyperlink, or seasonal promotion with out writing code. And you may set a share, fastened quantity, or purchase X, get Y kind of low cost as properly.
If you’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 can see your current gross sales and examine them to a earlier time interval. Also, you may view different worthwhile metrics like your retailer’s common order worth, examine how properly your gross sales channels are performing, and monitor the place your guests are coming from.
Pros:
- 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 platforms, e mail providers and different third-party apps.
Cons:
- The whole month-to-month worth will be costly. You additionally must pay for tons of month-to-month subscriptions for apps, plugins, and costs.
Why We Recommend Using 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 promoting instruments it’s worthwhile to scale your on-line retailer to nevertheless huge or small you’d like.
4. eBay
eBay is a good various to Etsy if you happen to nonetheless need to promote your merchandise on an eCommerce market. While you don’t get to totally customise your storefront like with WooCommerce or Shopify, you do get to reap the benefits of their present viewers with over 134 million lively consumers. The platform has a large international attain, which solely ranks second to Amazon.
The largest promoting level for eBay is its auction characteristic. If you’ve obtained one-of-a-kind objects, typically you moderately public sale that merchandise off. These are merchandise which have a restricted amount, which additional drives up demand. You can leverage the auctions to seize the best bidder by utilizing shortage techniques like a countdown timer to attract our FOMO (concern of lacking out).
With eBay, you additionally get safety for consumers and sellers, which helps stop scams. They will assist to mediate the state of affairs between you and your purchaser. The safety additionally can provide consumers confidence to buy on eBay since they know they’re all the time backed by the safety insurance policies.
Pros:
- The public sale characteristic can enhance gross sales.
- eBay has built-in web optimization to assist your listings get seen.
- The platform is nice for hard-to-value merchandise, much like Etsy.
Cons:
- eBay has a clunky interface.
- They additionally include a variety of charges, like Etsy.
Why We Recommend Using eBay: eBay is a good various to Etsy particularly for collectible or price objects. In comparability, Etsy is best for handmade items. That mentioned, eBay’s public sale characteristic and built-in web optimization is useful for getting extra eyeballs to your product and boosting income.
5. Wix
Wix is an internet site builder that primarily caters to novices due to ease of use and drag-and-drop editor. It comes with over 900 superbly 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 the important thing elements for improving SEO is your website speed. Wix does an awesome job of insutring that every one of their webpages load shortly on account of their globally distributed CDN and information facilities.
All Wix websites are optimized for core web vitals as properly to keep up top-flight speeds. Plus, they embody multi-cloud internet hosting providers to keep away from website crashes, so your prospects by no means experince a disruption when attempting to put an order.
Wix additionally simply connects to most on-line marketplaces together with eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and others. Rather than sticking to at least one platform, you may leverage multichannel promoting to achieve new audiences and increase gross sales. Just create your Wix retailer after which seamless add merchandise instantly out of your website and observe orders from the dashboard.
Pros:
- Wix could be very straightforward to make use of.
- You can leverage multichannel promoting on account of market integrations.
- Wix affords catalog and stock administration to trace and fulfill orders.
Cons:
- Limited customizations in comparison with WooCommerce because it’s not inbuilt WordPress.
Why We Recommend Using Wix: While Wix doesn’t compare to WordPress, it nonetheless is an effective platform. Since it connects with on-line platforms, you may simply add merchandise from Wix to Etsy or Wix to eBay, making life loads simpler.
6. Amazon Handmade
Amazon Handmade is controversial the largest direct competitor to Etsy and is a no brainer in the case of placing it on our checklist of options. The great thing about Amazon Handmade is that you just get to faucet into the biggest on-line retailer within the phrase boasting over 2.7 billion internet visits per thirty days. With such a large potential attain, you’d most likely attain a bigger international viewers.
Amazon Handmade is an artisan-only part that’s devoted to promoting crafted handmade merchandise solely. This is the place you may promote customized objects moderately than mass-producted merchandise.
But the massive benefit is it’s decrease vendor charges. There’s no itemizing charges in contrast to Etsy, so you could have the chance to revenue extra. In truth, 33% of Amazon Handmade sellers have revenue margins above 20%.
Plus, you continue to get to leverage the FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) mannequin. This 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 awesome buyer expertise proper off the bat.
Pros:
- Amazon Handmade has decrease vendor charges.
- You get to faucet into an even bigger viewers.
- You 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 Recommend Using Amazon Handmade: Amazon Handmade is the best swap you can also make if you happen to’re sad with the Etsy platform. It’s a direct competitor and affords just about the whole lot 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 artistic and artisitc sellers. Powering over 83,000 on-line tales, Big Cartel is an reasonably priced choice with customizable capabilities.
The finest a part of Big Cartel is the benefit of navigation. You don’t want a number of expertise building websites to get began. They include quite a lot of free templates, so that you by no means have to begin from scratch. The themes additionally swimsuit many niches like artists, creatives, bloggers, photographers, and extra.
What makes Big Cartel distinctive is that in addition they supply stay lessons aimed that will help you arrange the fundamentals. That means you’re not left at nighttime attempting to determine it out by yourself. An insturctor takes you thru each step by way of a session recording, so you understand how to arrange the whole lot. This contains the whole lot from including merchandise and creating reductions to packaging your merchandise.
Pros:
- Big Cartel is particularly designed for creatives and artists, which may be nice if you happen to promote work or paintings.
- It comes with a built-in reporting dashboard and Google Analytics integration.
- They supply SSL safety and different safety controls to guard your website from hackers.
Cons:
- They are restricted in the kind of apps and integrations out there.
Why We Recommend Using Big Cartel: Big Cartel actually the big-name platform you would possibly count on. But if you happen to don’t have need to turn into a big e-commerce model then organising a easy store with easy-to-use options may be the way in which to go. Big Cartel offers you primary instruments that get the job performed.
8. Redbubble
RedBubble is a good Etsy various in case you are largely targeted on print on demand merchandise. Handmade objects is the place you make the objects your self or performed with handbook labor. On the flip facet, print on demand objects are often designs printed on objects like t-shirts, mugs, socks, hats, and different product classes. They’re extra on the mass-produced facet, however nonetheless enchantment to area of interest audiences.
If you fall below the print on demand class, then Red Bubble is a superb selection. They have a large product class with over 70 product varieties like wall artwork, presents, clothes and extra. The viewers dimension 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 for sale based mostly on the product class you select. If you’re not eager on model promotion or operating adverts, you may easy optimize your listings on Redbubble and watch the gross sales come rolling in.
Also, like Amazon Handmade, Redbubble robotically prints, packs, and ships all orders to prospects instantly. That means you don’t have to fret in regards to the success facet of issues.
Pros:
- 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 objects because it’s strictly a print-on-demand market.
Why We Recommend Using Redbubble: If you needed to promote {custom} t-shirts, mugs, or something the place you print designs on merchandise, then Redbubble is the place to go. Just add your design, optimize your itemizing, and voila! There’s not a complete lot of labor to it. That mentioned, you even have much less management as a result of there’s little advertising you are able to do in your finish.
9. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is an effective various to Etsy as a result of it’s a fully-hosted eCommerce web site builder that’s each appropriate for novices 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 facet, 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 obtained 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 immediate zoomed-in views. This creates a greater person expertise, since you may immediately view merchandise with out touchdown on the product web page.
Also, BigCommerce has complete checkout options to assist increase conversion charges. For instance, you may 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 may ship computerized emails to prospects who exit your retailer with out finishing their purchases.
Pros:
- Lots of strong options to personalize your on-line retailer.
- There are a number of templates and design components.
- BigCommerce integrates with on-line marketplaces and social media platforms for multichannel promoting.
Cons:
- It comes with additional bills since one of the best themes are paid and also you’ll must pay for addons as properly.
Why We Recommend Using BigCommerce: BigCommerce is a helpful various to Etsy. It’s much like WooCommerce and Shopify in that you just get full management over how your on-line retailer seems and also you customise the whole shopping for expertise. But it nonetheless doesn’t have as a lot apps and superior web optimization options as these two platforms have.
Frequently Asked 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 Easy Digital Downloads for digital merchandise.
How do you promote artwork with out Etsy?
Easy Digital Downloads lets you promote {custom} printable arts. When a buyer locations an order, they’ll land on an order web page the place they’ll instantly obtain the product. You also can ship a duplicate of the file by way of e mail.
What is one of the best website to promote handmade objects?
WooCommerce makes it straightforward to promote handmade objects as a result of you may create product pages. You can customise the design of your on-line retailer to match your model. Plus, you may all the time 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 also can take a look at our list of Shopify Alternatives or our actionable tips to increase sales.
If you preferred this text, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You also can discover us on Twitter and Facebook.
