Etsy: A Great Place to Buy and Sell All Things Handmade

When you visit www.etsy.com, the first thing you will notice is their logo: "Your place to buy & sell all thing handmade." If you are tired of mass produced good with very little thought to individuality, and love the idea of purchasing items that are lovingly handcrafted one at a time, Etsy is the place for you.

Etsy is a huge virtual marketplace, a forum for individual artisans to sell their wares. You will find everything from artwork, clothing, bath and beauty, jewelry, and much more. If you are a crafter yourself, you will also find several shops that offer wonderful supplies, both handmade and commercially made. Do you love great vintage finds? Etsy caters to that as well.

Why use Etsy over Ebay?Both sites have their own ups and downs. Ebay is an auction site (though you have the option to sell at a set price.) Etsy does not use an auction function, prices are set on each item, and you pay the set price. There's no guessing, and once you purchase an item there is no fear of having it bid out from under you. Also, I have found that sellers on Etsy are far more eager to establish a friendly and personal experience with their customers. All items that you find on Etsy were hand crafted by the shop owner, so there is a real sense of pride with every item. From a seller's point of view, the fees for Etsy are far lower than fees you'll pay on Ebay.

How do I use Etsy to purchase goods?

Etsy has several methods of searching for the goods you desire. The most basic is the search bar function. For example, if you're looking for a tea pot, you'll want to search "ceramic tea pot". If you just search "tea pot" you will get any item with a tea pot in it, including jewelry charms, paintings, etc... The key to using the search function effectively is to be specific.

You can also browse the Categories. Scroll down past the beautiful featured Treasury (we'll get to that) and look to the left. You will see all of the different categories. Clicking on a category will pull up all items that are listed with that "tag" as its primary section. If you click on the "Art" category, you will see the art showcase at the top of the page. These are slots purchased by the artisans. Below that you will see all of the items that are pulled up, and to the left of that are sub categories. You can use these to narrow down your search, or you can type a word into the search bar to look within that category. For example, if you click Art then Illustration, you can then search "Frog" to see all of the illustrations that include frogs.

There are several other fun features to help you search through the thousands of items on Etsy. The Treasuries are themed galleries compiled by Etsy members, and there is always a featured Treasury on the front page that changes a few times a day. Pounce shows recently sold items, and includes other items available from that seller. The Time Machine shows items as they are listed.

To set up your Etsy account as a buyer, all you need is an E-mail address. Most sellers only accept Paypal as payment, though there are several that accept money orders and checks as well. To purchase with Paypal, you can use either your credit card or checking account. If you have any questions about the type of payment that the sellers accept, always feel welcome to "convo" them by clicking "contact *shop owners name*" inside their shop. Most sellers are very kind and helpful, and will help you out the best way that they can.

If you ever have questions, you're also welcome to head over to the Forums and post a question for the general Etsy public to answer. Often one of the site administrators will pop in to give you helpful advice as well. To find the forums, click on Community on the top bar.

I'm a crafter! Why should I use Etsy to sell my goods?

Etsy is a very user friendly site. To create a sellers account, you will need to keep a credit card on file. You can also use this credit card every month to pay your fees. The cost to list your items is very low, only $.20 a piece. There is also a 3.5% flat fee on the price of all items that are sold, not including the shipping price.

Etsy has a wonderful community of sellers. You can join a "Street Team" to have fellowship with sellers who sell similar items, or have similar interests. Street teams help each other with promotion, questions with selling on and off of the site, and more.