Why I left Etsy and opened my own shop
Welcome to the new shop!! I hope you took some time to check out all the products! If you are brand new and have never heard of Bean Stuck Designs, hi! My name is Gillian and I am the owner! I recently moved my shop off Etsy and onto my own website.
You might be asking yourself "Gillian why in the heck would you move your shop from a website that you where THRIVING on?" Well, here is the low down.
Etsy is a great platform for handmade items and in my opinion, shops that range between 10-30 orders per month. Once you bypass the 30 orders a month mark Etsy starts getting pretty pricey. Etsy charges per listing, then takes 5% of every transaction + 5% of shipping costs, then depending on the payment type used there is the 3%+$0.25 processing fee, then the ad campaigns they automatically sign you up for once you bypass a certain $ amount per month, then you have your relisting fees. It was just getting to be too much. Not to sound cocky or bragy, but when you have a thriving shop that is selling approx 100 items per month at an average of $45 per order, I felt like I was barley breaking even after Etsy took its share.
One of the advantages of Etsy was the search bar. Anyone can go to Etsy and type in a keyword to what they are looking for and have a huge list of products and shops come up in seconds. This was without a doubt one of the reasons my shop did well on Etsy, I have a niche enough array of items that I was doing really well with the Etsy search. As mentioned before, Etsy also spotlights and markets shops that do well and make them big $$. This marketing that Etsy did for you, wasn't free. They also made it VERY difficult to get out of- like I'm serious, you couldn't get out of it.
After talking to more creators, I realized I wasn't the only one who was feeling this way, a lot of creators took the plunge and took their shops off Etsy. Everyone seemed to have the same advice for me: Try another platform, market the shit out of your shop, and hope for the best... so here we are doing all 3 of those things.
I decided to use Shopify as my platform for many reasons, a few are that there are more payment options for customers around the world and there are less fee's. This website also allows for more customization of my shop and has fun features like this Blog. There are more shipping options now, which if you are in Canada is SUPER RAD. I can utilize the flat rate boxes if it will be cheaper than normal shipping. Some changes you are going to see in the shop are blurred images of products that are ✨potentially✨ creeping copyright infringement territory. All these products will have a link to direct you to my Instagram page to see what you are buying before purchasing. Another change you will see is processing times, as outlined in my FAQ page I have set my own processing times for items. This will allow for me to not get overwhelmed and I will have the ability to extend process times if needed without getting penalized- another fun Etsy situation.
It might look like I have this site all figured out, but I am still learning some of the ins and outs, so please bear with me while I learn.
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out and send me a message on Instagram, Facebook, or by Email.
Facebook: facebook.com/beanstuckdesigns
Instagram: instagram.com/beanstuckdesigns
Email: beanstuckdesigns@gmail.com
You might be asking yourself "Gillian why in the heck would you move your shop from a website that you where THRIVING on?" Well, here is the low down.
Etsy is a great platform for handmade items and in my opinion, shops that range between 10-30 orders per month. Once you bypass the 30 orders a month mark Etsy starts getting pretty pricey. Etsy charges per listing, then takes 5% of every transaction + 5% of shipping costs, then depending on the payment type used there is the 3%+$0.25 processing fee, then the ad campaigns they automatically sign you up for once you bypass a certain $ amount per month, then you have your relisting fees. It was just getting to be too much. Not to sound cocky or bragy, but when you have a thriving shop that is selling approx 100 items per month at an average of $45 per order, I felt like I was barley breaking even after Etsy took its share.
One of the advantages of Etsy was the search bar. Anyone can go to Etsy and type in a keyword to what they are looking for and have a huge list of products and shops come up in seconds. This was without a doubt one of the reasons my shop did well on Etsy, I have a niche enough array of items that I was doing really well with the Etsy search. As mentioned before, Etsy also spotlights and markets shops that do well and make them big $$. This marketing that Etsy did for you, wasn't free. They also made it VERY difficult to get out of- like I'm serious, you couldn't get out of it.
After talking to more creators, I realized I wasn't the only one who was feeling this way, a lot of creators took the plunge and took their shops off Etsy. Everyone seemed to have the same advice for me: Try another platform, market the shit out of your shop, and hope for the best... so here we are doing all 3 of those things.
I decided to use Shopify as my platform for many reasons, a few are that there are more payment options for customers around the world and there are less fee's. This website also allows for more customization of my shop and has fun features like this Blog. There are more shipping options now, which if you are in Canada is SUPER RAD. I can utilize the flat rate boxes if it will be cheaper than normal shipping. Some changes you are going to see in the shop are blurred images of products that are ✨potentially✨ creeping copyright infringement territory. All these products will have a link to direct you to my Instagram page to see what you are buying before purchasing. Another change you will see is processing times, as outlined in my FAQ page I have set my own processing times for items. This will allow for me to not get overwhelmed and I will have the ability to extend process times if needed without getting penalized- another fun Etsy situation.
It might look like I have this site all figured out, but I am still learning some of the ins and outs, so please bear with me while I learn.
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out and send me a message on Instagram, Facebook, or by Email.
Facebook: facebook.com/beanstuckdesigns
Instagram: instagram.com/beanstuckdesigns
Email: beanstuckdesigns@gmail.com