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Selling on Etsy? You Should Consider Expanding to Shopify

If you are selling on Etsy and having success, it’s time to consider creating your own direct to customer channel with a Shopify ecommerce site.

Why should you consider selling outside of Etsy?
  • Take Control of Fees – Per transaction fees are less on Shopify.
  • Become an Owner not a Renter – More control over your ecommerce storefront.
  • How to Move from Etsy to Shopify – Pick a Shopify theme and then export your products from Etsy to Shopify
  • How to Transition Customers from Etsy to Shopify

Take Control of your Fees

Trying to compare the fees on Etsy vs Shopify can be complicated, here is a simple table that highlights the differences:

Etsy Shopify
Monthly Fee Free $29.99/month
Item Listing Fee $.20/item* Free
Selling an Item Fee 3.5% Free
Transaction Fee 3% + $.25 2.9% + $.30**
Total Variable Fees 6.5% + $.45 2.9% + $.30

*The listing fee is good for 4 months, also if you sell 3 units of the same item your listing fee will be $.60

**On Shopify you get your transaction fee down to 2.7% if you sell in person using a POS system.

On Etsy you don’t have to pay a monthly fee, but you do have to pay much higher per transaction fees. Let’s go through a hypothetical example of selling for 1 year on Etsy compared to Shopify. In this example you have 200 items in your store and sell 30 of them each month at an average sale price of $30 so your monthly sales are $900.

Etsy Shopify
Monthly Fee (12 months) Free $360
30 Sales/month (Assume 200 items listed) $240 Free
Average Sales Price $30
Selling an Item Fees $378 Free
Transaction Fees $414 $421.20
Total Yearly Fees $1,032 $781.20

You can see that if your store does only $10,800 a year in sales you will save $250.20 in fees on Shopify vs what you would pay on Etsy. As your volume on Etsy goes up that is the time to start thinking of creating your own Shopify store, not necessarily to replace Etsy, but to create additional revenue that has much higher margins.

Become an Owner not a Renter

When you are using a 3rd party platform to sell your products you are really just a renter. Etsy is your landlord and can kick you off their platform at any time if you violate their terms of service. In addition if Etsy decides to change direction and disallow certain types of products, your store could get caught in their broad action and shut down.

What is the first step to becoming an owner? You need to come up with your company name and then purchase your own domain name. You can buy your domain name at GoDaddy for $15 a year and often even less with all of the coupon codes that GoDaddy offers. Owning your own domain name is like owning the raw land of the internet. You can develop whatever you want on that land and create a valuable business where you are own landlord.

Owning your own domain name will also allow you to get a legitimate business email. You can create YOURNAME@YOURCOMPANY.com and that is so much more professional than YOURNAME@GMAIL.com. If you love using Gmail you still can use it with YOURCOMPANY.com, head on over to G Suite and for $5/month you can get all the benefits of Gmail with your new domain name.

How to get Started with Shopify

The first thing you will want to do is pick out a free Shopify theme. This theme will be the framework for your new store where you can add your company name, pictures, videos, text and customize the colors.

If you don’t want to find your own theme and do all the work yourself you should consider hiring web development professionals. If you are local, a Seattle web development firm can work with you to create the brand and look that you want and take care of all the custom coding on your site so that it looks beautiful.

There are many tools to help you move your Etsy products to Shopify, here is one of our favorites:

Etsy to Shopify Product Importer

  • Import your product CSV quickly
  • Assign product collections during import
  • Use title, description, images and variants with pricing

With this product importer you can get your products out of Etsy and into Shopify. You will have to know your way around Excel and how to create a CSV file, but if you can do that you will be able to move all your products over to Shopify.

If you are running a large operation on Etsy and need helping managing inventory, look into Stitch labs inventory management software

  • Manage inventory in one central location across multiple channels
  • Automatically sync inventory availability across channel
  • Avoid overselling with email alerts

How to Transition Customers from Etsy to Shopify

How do you start transitioning customers from Etsy to Shopify? To start with let your new Etsy customers know via your store email that you have a brand new store and include the URL. If you interact with customers in customer support, create a signature that includes a link to your Shopify store.

In the About Us section of your Etsy store, include a link to your Shopify store. Send coupons and promotional offers via email to Etsy customers and provide an incentive for them to purchase your products on Shopify.

Don’t get overwhelmed about making the transition from Etsy to Shopify, jump in and start learning and don’t be afraid to ask for help!