Show Your Style with Etsy

Filed in archive business ideas on February 12, 2010

© jared


• Do you hand make little presents for your loved ones?
• Do you decorate and paint your own home accessories?
• Do people tell you how cute the little bracelets and necklaces you make for yourself are?

If you do any of the above you've probably thought: I really enjoy making things but how can I sell them?

If there's a little creative in you, then Etsy might be your best bet. Etsy brands itself as "Your place to buy & sell all things handmade". Etsy is not an instant money-maker and takes plenty of marketing, but a shop is easy to set-up and start.

A shop on Etsy is free. It costs nothing to open an account for one. For each item you place in your shop it costs twenty cents. That's twenty cents per item, so if you have a large inventory you might want to just add one or two to items to start. Every Etsy listing you make stays up for four months. Each time an items sells on Etsy, they take 3.5% of the selling price, so be sure to build that in. Also, Etsy allows you to set-up shipping profiles that meet your needs.

Etsy is a little different than the often used Ebay. It is much more tailored for art and handmade work. It has most of the same ways to accept payment but allows buyer feedback instead of just feedback on the sellers. Etsy also steps in to help both buyers and sellers during bad transactions (at least better than Ebay does).

If you're feeling a little arty and want to make some money too, an Etsy store might be the right work from home option for you.

Have you tried Etsy? What was your experience?