When you think of selling your handmade items online, the first site you are probably thinking of is Etsy. Probably the biggest handmade marketplace, Etsy provides sellers with a huge platform to sell their crafts. You can also easily get lost in a sea of sellers, too. I was just browsing the scarves section, which features at least 60 scarves on a page…and there are over 33 pages. If your piece doesn’t make it to the front page, it can end up being lost in the crowd. Are there other options? We’re happy to say yes! Below we’ve compared some of the smaller sites, to figure out which one best suits you.
Photograph from PicassoMediaGroup.com
Etsy:
It’s the big honcho of the online marketplaces for handmade goods. It’s one of the most recognized online shopping sites next to Amazon and eBay. The upside you have a large audience going to the site. The downside there are fees and you can get lost in the very, very large inventory. It also costs $0.20 when the listings published, and they’ll charge you 3.5% transaction fee once you make the sale.
Artfire:
A bit of research online tells me that this is the second best marketplace following Etsy. They offer plenty of categories, although the categories with the most items listed are Housewares, Jewelry, Accessories, Weddings and Clothing. The best part about this site is that there are no listing, commission, or selling fees. That’s right – it’s free. For $12.95 a month you can get unlimited listings, too.
Zibbet:
The founders of Zibbet describe it as an “alternative eBay for artisans”. With the basic page you get 50 listings, which is free. For $9.95 a month, you can upgrade and get unlimited listings. Just like Artfire there’s no set up or commission fees. When browsing through the “handmade” tab on the site, the main categories that come up are Jewelry, Accessories, Housewares, Children, and Paper Goods. They offer other categories, but based on the fact that those are the first five tabs you see, it’s safe to say they’re the most popular.
Goodsmiths:
Goodsmiths is a newer marketplace and has the same feel as an Etsy page. They have plenty of categories to choose from, but based on the products that they feature in the first page there are a lot of jewelry pieces. Goodsmiths also has no set-up or listing fee. The starter package is free and gives you 25 listings, but for just $5 a month you can have unlimited. There is a commission fee of 2.5% on each sale no matter how high or low the price of the product is.
Bonanza:
Bonanza is a “marketplace of 25,000 sellers and 5 million items”. They offer a wide variety as far what they sell. It’s not just handmade items, but collectibles, CD’s, and books, too. There seem to be a lot of electronics as well. They have low fees though (you keep 97% of the money from the sale) and free listings. If you have a higher-end product this would probably be a good site to check out.
eCrater:
eCrater looks like a Google search bar. There are no featured projects on the home page, instead you have to search for what you’re looking for and then there will be category options. It’s free to create an online store and according to some of the reviews also a very easy process.
Craft Foxes:
This site not only shares “How To” tutorials, but also has a marketplace. It looks like they only allow a limited number of sellers, which means you have to be accepted first. They focus on handmade goods though, and from the bestsellers is seems like there’s a great variety among the products.
Where do you sell your goods online?
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I use Etsy and Goodsmiths but most of my sales come from my own website hairmagicusa.com
I use Craftsy to sell my Crochet Patterns, free no charge
I use Etsy, but gonna check out Goodsmiths. I’m still debating if I want to set up a website or not.
I have two Etsy stores but I’m considering a new one called American Artisian. It just opened this year but is for handmade only
You may want to review the content in this post. Since original publishing, Zibbet has undergone some changes, as has Artfire, if I am not mistaken…
I currently have my woodburnings listed for sale on Zibbet, but as a budding web developer, I am in the process of learning to set up a solid shop on my stand-alone website.