To Etsy or not to Etsy ……

I am once again questioning whether I should stay with Etsy, start my own website or join another online selling platform. I have a lot of really nice supplies , plus handmade items I am proud of, and at good prices but they do not get seen. I would be okay with lots of looks and then they did not sell, then I could adjust my price and make any needed changes . But one after another, none of the items I have listed have views. Only a few. I have a bunch falling off over the next few weeks and I am not sure if I want to relist them. Spend even more money for them to not sell, or more importantly , not even be seen.

On top of this, Etsy just raised the final value cost to 5 percent from 3.5 and now they even count the shipping. So, the shipping I have been charging, which just covered actual shipping costs and the price of my shipping materials has to be raised five percent to cover the Etsy charges. I do not understand that at all. How can they make profit on shipping ? That is directly costing my customers more money.

I am so unsure of what to do. Starting my own website is seeming more and more a smart option. I am not getting views on Etsy , they are so big now, I cannot find most of my things on a search because they are so far back they do not show up on the pages they allow. If you are far enough back , you will not come up in a search. Period. So, some items come up, but most do not.

I was starting to list on Ebay but have been following folks on YouTube that sell and do well on Ebay. They say unless you list 15 to 20 items every day, you are not going to be seen. Ebay rewards heavy listers with more views, by putting you out in the searches.

I am wondering if that is what Etsy does as well. I used to get a lot more views, I have been with them since 2008. That is a long time. I have to say it is so discouraging to not get seen when you have nice items to sell. Especially when I have seen stuff not near as nice on the front page because they paid to be seen, or they are a heavy lister. I have paid for the key word search of whatever that is, I got no more views and stopped after a few days.

So, just thinking out loud. I am not quiting my business, I am most definately staying in business . I just need to decide if I need to do something else to sell my items ? I can sell here on my blog, WordPress sent me something about that, so that is an option as well. I will look into that.

So, just trying to figure out before I spend money relisting things that have never had a single view. To Etsy or not to Etsy, that is very much the question of the day. No rash decisions, going to really research my options. I am open to advice from anyone who has experience to share and good advice !!

here are a few random things that are expiring , that have had either no views , or one or two views only. Mostly supplies, but I have a lot of handmade wine glass charms, earrings and some bracelets, all with zero views. I did not put pictures of most of those, this is a small sample.

so, anyway. I am still in my thoughts about all this. I have a few weeks until everything is expired. A few t hings I did renew through the end of the year a week or so ago. Some holiday stuff mostly.

I will keep you posted on my research. No moves until I am sure. I can list 50 items for free on Ebay, so I may be doing some of those listings while I figure it out !!

thanks so much for stopping by !!

Stephie