Marketing through social media

Marketing through social media is an inexpensive way of getting your crafts found. Posting your items through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and more frequently will lead to new and reoccurring traffic to your shop. Featuring hashtags that connect to your items in ways can lead to interest being found and sales being made. Have fun with it. Make your posts interesting and standout. Don’t be afraid to post frequently, because all traffic is good traffic.

Comparing Etsy and ShopEnvy

Pricing

• -      Etsy charges $0.20 fee per listing (3 month listing) + 3.5% of the sale price.
• -       StorEnvy does not take a percentage of final sale and offers up to 100 listing for free.
• -       StorEnvy is free for basic but costs $4.99/month for use of private domain.

Design

• -       Etsy shop does not allow for changes to basic look.
• -       StorEnvy allow for colourful changes on the basic domain, but if you chose your own domain the design is entirely in your hands.

Security

• -       Feedback from customers on both Etsy and StorEnvy are similar to that of eBay where a rating is made by positive, neutral and negative.
• -       Payment on both up until recently was done through PayPal, but new developments for both are being launched. Etsy has expanded payment to direct Visa, Mastercard, other major credit cards. StorEnvy on the other hand are launching Stipe (competitor of PayPal) to be their primary payment source as of the new year. This is looking to favor Etsy as Stipe is the new relatively unheard source of online payment offering.

Traffic

• -       Etsy has a great sense of community along with a powerful marketing campaign. Their source of incoming traffic is majority of the market share.
• -       Both Etsy and StorEnvy have product placement through Google, and other search engines.
• -       StorEnvy is gaining a larger presence of late with there launch of their shop directly in Facebook. A user can buy from your StorEnvy shop without leaving the Facebook page or app.

Result:

I have used both Etsy and StorEnvy to launch separate online shops for my business and Etsy is the clear winner. It is acceptable to launch both as different shops, but can require a lot of online labour. Etsy just owns the market. They have a huge following in Europe and is really starting to break into the North American market. The cost are higher to run this shop, but it is easy to use and sales will be far greater than StorEnvy or other formats.

Welcome to Online Craft Marketplaces

This blog is coming soon. We will be featuring the diversity of online craft marketplaces. Finding out the pros and cons of the most popular online markets such as Etsy.com and Storenvy.com, as well as uncovering some new and upcoming markets. Please stay tuned...