This is probably what I hear most often: if you start from scratch with your own website, you can’t “tap into Etsy’s traffic.” To an extent, that is true. Etsy gets millions of visitors coming to the platform with the intention to shop every month. That’s millions of targeted visitors who are actively looking to buy something and who are interested in shopping for handmade or vintage items.
If you decide to go the website route, you won’t be able to benefit from that flow of visitors and you’ll need to bring traffic to your website yourself, starting from scratch.
But hey, notice how I said “to an extent, that is true” just above? That’s because there are a few common misconceptions around this that we need to clear up:
02
No Building Up Traffic from Scratch
“Etsy already has traffic.”
Etsy does already have traffic, but it doesn’t mean that the traffic is going to be directed at your shop automatically. You don’t get “free guaranteed traffic” when you sign up with Etsy. You still have to work at making sure that out of all the shops selling similar products on the platform, people find yours. Competition is fierce and you will need to understand how the Etsy search works and how to use SEO for your shop if you want some of that “free traffic.”
“Having my own website means I have absolute control.”
That’s the other side of the same story. Being “ in control” and safe from algorithm changes, fee increases, etc. when you sell on your own website is also only true to an extent.
To drive traffic to your website, you will most likely leverage platforms like Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Google. All of these platforms can make changes to their algorithm at any time, without warning. It’s the same with fees! Paypal, Stripe, or any payment processor you might use for your website can change its fee structure at any given time.
54 WEBSITES | DO YOU NEED ONE