So as you all know, I have recently opened my own shop! I've gotten asked a LOT of questions about what platform I use, how/why I picked it, the pros and cons of it vs other platforms, etc....so I decided I would answer them all here!
Before I start, let me just say that I am NOT AN EXPERT. What I know was learned from countless Youtube videos, blog posts, and trial and error. The only goal of this post is for YOU to not have to pour as much blood, sweat, and tears into the research.
Okay, let's get into it!
I'll start by going over the general categories of ecommerce platforms creators use, and then I'll do an in depth breakdown and comparison of the most common platforms.
general categories
There are two main types of platforms: marketplace, and personal website. (At least that's what I'll be calling them; I made those terms up.)
Marketplace platforms refer to platforms that host a wide variety of shops under their domain, within a large "marketplace". Etsy and Storenvy are examples of marketplace platforms.
Within marketplace platforms, there are print-on-demand platforms. These only require you to submit a design, and produce the product for you. Society6, Inprnt, Zazzle, and Redbubble are examples of those.
Quick note: flash vocab lesson!
royalty rate: aka a profit margin; the royalty rate determines how much you earn for each product you sell on a print-on-demand website. For example, if your royalty rate is 10%, for an item that costs $100, excluding shipping, you only earn $10.
commission: in the context of online stores, the commission is what the store takes from your sale. Basically the opposite of the royalty rate with print-on-demand platforms, but you'll see where the commission comes into play when I discuss Storenvy.
Pros of marketplace platforms:
prexisting, large customer base
*theoretically* easy to use
*usually* not a huge upfront cost (sometimes there are listing fees though)
built in shipping, payment, etc. structures (I.e. Etsy payments)
Pros of print-on-demand platforms:
virtually no upfront cost for you. no risk really.
easy. not super time-consuming
don't need to worry about customer service, shipments gone wrong, etc.
Cons of marketplace platforms:
99% of the time, you pay a % of your profit.
usually there are also other fees on TOP of that
you are limited in your storefront design
Cons of print-on-demand platforms:
no control over packaging, quality or customer service
your profit margin is usually EXTREMELY small (aka limited royalty rates)
usually have limited control over pricing
Who is best suited to use a marketplace platform? People who haven't yet built up a huge customer base. People who don't have the room in their budget to splurge on a personal domain. People who are looking to network. People who don't have a registered business. Who should use a print-on-demand platform? People who don't want to worry about producing/shipping the product themselves. Busier people. People who want to see if their art even sells. People who don't need the money. Etc.
Obviously, even if none of these criteria sound like you, you can still totally use a marketplace platform! These are (by far) the most popular option for small business owners who are just starting out.
Another thing I should note: most big artists you see actually START with a marketplace-platform-shop, and later move to their own website or other personal platform once they start making a steady income. So don't feel confined to any one choice!
Personal platforms essentially refer to platforms(usually website builders) that allow you to create your own shop website, under your own custom domain(or you connect an owned domain). There is no shared marketplace. Your customers are all driven by your own marketing. Examples of these or website builders that have online store widgets: Shopify, BigCartel, Wix, Squarespace
Pros of personal platforms:
much more freedom with design + structure
option of connecting your own domain*! (i.e. your store url has no '.etsy' or '.storenvy')
less individual purchase fees / transaction fees
Cons of personal platforms:
usually a pretty hefty monthly (or other) fee
nearly impossible to get sales without a different marketing platform/social media (like Instagram)
* let's talk domains. A domain itself is hard to explain, but you can consider it as the url of your website, minus the 'http' part of it as well as the TLD('.com'). For example, for the website "storenvy.com" , 'storenvy' is the domain. For the website "wavylinesem.storenvy.com", the 'wavylinesem' is called the sub-domain.
Custom domains have to be bought(usually a per year fee). There are plenty of websites that let you do this (such as godaddy.com ), and often, personal platforms will have an option to buy a domain directly from their site. To check your domain availability (i.e. has someone already taken it?), go ahead and check domain.com . You can also read up on how to buy a domain and what you need to think about here! https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-choose-the-best-domain-registrar/
Keep this information in mind when I go in depth about the options!
Alright! That's all for the categories. Thinking that you know which type of platform you want to go with? Great! Scroll to whichever section you're thinking of. Let's dive into the different options!
marketplace platforms: options
Print-On-Demand Options:
REDBUBBLE: redbubble.com
What they offer: Merch, T-shirts, Stickers, Notebooks
Fees: Redbubble predetermines base prices, and you can set a royalty rate that adds to it.
How You Get Paid: Monthly deposits to your PayPal. Minimum of $20 earning to get paid in the next 'monthly cycle'.
SOCIETY6: society6.com (My *discontinued stores: society6.com/wavylinesem )
What they offer: Merch, T-shirts, Stickers, Notebooks, Prints, Tapestries, etc.
Fees: $1.00 to open a store, default profit
You can set base price markups on select (expensive) products if you want to profit more, but it does increase the price of the product.
How You Get Paid: Monthly deposits to your PayPal. NO MINIMUM! (Why I chose it lol)
ZAZZLE DESIGNER: zazzle.com
(Zazzle.com actually gives you two options: you can join it as a Designer, or as a Maker. The designer option is the print-on-demand option. I'll talk about the Maker one later.)
What they offer: So. Much. Stuff.
Fees: Zazzle predetermines base prices, and you can set a royalty rate in between %5-99
How You Get Paid: Monthly deposits via Paypal. Minimum of $50 earnings for regular payments. help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/219577928-Earnings-Payments-to-Zazzle-Designers
INPRNT: inprnt.com (My store: inprnt.com/gallery/wavylinesem)
Note: Inprnt is specifically for artists who sell prints! I still have an Inprnt ALONG WITH my other store (back when I used a print-on-demand store, I had a Society6, and now I use it w/ Storenvy)
What they offer: Art prints, Canvas prints, Acrylic prints, Phone Cases
Notable Features: Can create promo codes (I.e. 10% off from June 5-10th)
Fees: They take 50% of each transaction.
How You Get Paid: Paypal transfer. You can only get paid once you've earned $100. If your earnings are less that $100 you must contact support. help.inprnt.com/article/80-how-do-i-view-my-sales-and-withdraw-earnings
think: if I can earn such a big profit by setting my royalty rates, how come you said you don't actually earn a lot? Even though print-on-demand websites will usually offer pretty a reasonable royalty rate/profit margin range, you have to consider what that does to the price of the item. If you're comfortable selling a sticker for nearly $5, go ahead! But keep in mind, that's going to be REALLY hard to sell. These websites aren't dumb. They set their base prices high, because that's how they earn money. Anything you add onto that becomes competition with the thousands of other sellers on the market.
note from a cynic: take this advice with a grain of salt, but I tend to think of the companies that I use for online stores as... a greedy boss. It's easy to get caught up in the marketing tactic of these platforms, as they're always telling you how 'their goal is to bring your dream to life' or 'they're here to support small businesses'. But honestly, it's far more likely that they know how enticing it is to start a small business and produce your own products, and they're capitalizing off of our desire to do just that. They're making a profit. Nothing more, nothing less. (Let me reiterate: this is how I like to think so I can expect the next unnecessary fee or base price increase.) Perhaps the biggest example of what I'm talking about is Ebay and Etsy. My dad likes to call Ebay an 'evil company'. And upon further thought, I've realized Etsy is pretty much the same.
(You can watch this video by Creative Hive to see what I mean, and why I decided against Etsy EVEN though it's customer base is unrivaled. https://youtu.be/g9X0fsya7wY )
Self-Run Marketplace Store Options:
I will be talking about these with a little more detail! They're much harder to understand.
ETSY: etsy.com
Etsy is THE most popular platform small creative businesses will use!
Fees: they all boil down to: 8% of your product+shipping price + $0.45
breakdown: $0.20 listing fee(PER item sold!), 5% product fee, 5% shipping fee, 2.9%+$0.25 payment transaction fee (CRAZY, right?)
here's the official link for the fee breakdown: help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014483627-What-are-the-Fees-and-Taxes-for-Selling-on-Etsy-?segment=selling
Selling Points:
Etsy has a HUGE customer base. If you're a small creative business (i.e. an artist or scrapbooker, etc.), Etsy is where your customers live. The platform is FULL of people who are looking for exactly what you probably offer. It is the ONLY platform I have heard of that gets you sales, even WITHOUT social media marketing. (*cough* that's why it can afford to get away with all it's fees)
Etsy has a ton of powerful tools and customization options. It has the best product interface I've seen by far, giving you options specifically for digital media, product variations, customization boxes, auto-calculated shipping, etc.
How You Get Paid:
Etsy has it's own payment system (Etsy Payments) that allows their customers to use a variety of Payment options. That means you have to connect a bank account to their system, and you can choose the time intervals you get paid (most sellers choose a weekly payment).
Who Uses It: @katnippstudios, @odnatymyara , @neimykanani
STORENVY: storenvy.com
This is the platform I use!
Fees: When you accept payments through PayPal, it all boils down to: 8.9% of the product+shipping price + $0.30 OR Your customers pay $0.99 'processing fee' on their order, and YOUR fee is simply the Paypal processing fee (2.9%+$0.30)
breakdown: Storenvy gives you two options to pay them money: You can either charge your customers $0.99 on every order, or have Storenvy charge you a 6% commission fee of the total price.
For me, I sell relatively low-priced items, so the 6% doesn't quite hit 99 cents, and it's more worth it to pay the fee myself. Also, charging my customers so much 'extra' is VERY likely to drive them away.
Full disclosure: I didn't realize that Storenvy had this nasty 6% commission. If I did, I probably would have looked into something else. This fee is literally worse than Etsy's fee, and Etsy's platform has MANY more customers, is MUCH more powerful, and has so more options. The only reason why I didn't switch over to Etsy is because Etsy doesn't give me the option to deposit payment to my PayPal --only a bank account-- and I can't create a bank account for this business.
How You Get Paid: Payments via Storenvy are basically payments via PayPal (unless you connect a Stripe as well). So that means I get my payment IMMEDIATELY! :) Of course, this is after the transaction and commission fee are deducted.
BIGCARTEL: bigcartel.com
Okay, so BigCartel is sort of an inbetween the two categories. There is no marketplace, but there is also no monthly signup fee or anything. There is a limit of 5 products you can list for free. Even with their paid plans, you're capped at 500 products.
Check out the pricing page for more details and features!
Note: you can upgrade your plan for bigcartel to act like a personal platform (like Squarespace). It just costs money.
WIX ECWID: https://www.ecwid.com/pricing (for the pricing and features)
Similarly to BigCartel, Wix (the website designer) has an online store plugin (called Ecwid, I believe) that is FREE (NOT their default store option) to setup and use. I considered it for a while given my website is on Wix but ultimately decided against the risk.
There is a limit of 10 products you can list for free.
I'm not going to say too much about these because I personally decided against these 'middle steps'. If I ever decide to upgrade from a marketplace store to a personal store, I will go straight for the bigger, more powerful options that don't have limits. Also, the product # limits would not work for me, given I plan on offering a LOT of different products.
Of course, do your own research though! I know plenty of artists who use these sites because they're free and the artists only offer a few products!
Personal Store Options:
By personal store, I mean a store where you basically have full control over everything: # of products, product categories, production+shipping, email marketing, etc.
SHOPIFY: https://www.shopify.com/ So Shopify is probably the most popular option for artists looking to purely start an online store (vs integrating it with their existing website)-- THOUGH Shopify does have a blog option!
Fees: Starts a $29 a month. Payment processing fees start at 2.9% + 30 cents. Pricing comparison!
Features: Blog included, unlimited products, discount codes and sales, shipping discounts, abandoned carts(when customers leave a product in their cart but don't check out, Shopify will send them an email), etc. See the above link for details :)
Selling Points: Super easy to use!
Extremely powerful; can handle a large business if yours grows.
24 HR customer support.
BIGCOMMERCE ESSENTIALS: https://www.bigcommerce.com/essentials/pricing/
Fees: Starts at $29.95 per month.
Features: Blog included, multiple payment platforms supported, coupons/discounts/gift cards, ,
Selling Points: NO TRANSACTION FEES!
SQUARESPACE: www.squarespace.com/pricing
Fees: Starts at $12 per month.
Features: 1 year free custom domain, unlimited products, multiple payment platforms supported, coupons/discounts/gift cards, etc.
Selling Points: Squarespace is a website builder, so you can smoothly integrate a website, blog, and store all on one domain. No more navigating around different platforms!
No transaction fees with the Business plan ($18/month).
Beautiful templates that are easy to use!
small tip: look around for art Youtube vids that are sponsored by Squarespace! Might as well grab yourself a promo code, right?
With Wix, any premium plan will grant you the ability to create your own store. Pricing comparison.
Features: Sell on social media. Others: https://support.wix.com/en/article/wix-stores-features (Honestly I'm not too clear on them myself, Wix doesn't make them easy to find. But the features are all pretty similar, I'm not going to lie.)
Selling Points: Wix is a website builder, so you can smoothly integrate a website, blog, and store all on one domain. No more navigating around different platforms!
Easy to use, beautiful templates (again)
Same tip as for Squarespace!
Alright, that's all I've got! There are PLENTY of other platforms, so don't think that the options I mentioned are the only ones! These are just the most common platforms among the artistic community. If none of them sound good to you, feel free to go out and do your own additional research!
One last comment: As you can probably tell, there are a LOT of similarities between a lot of these platforms. When deciding which one is right for you, a lot of it is: what are you familiar with? For me, I will most likely use Wix because my website is already there (you're here right now!). But others will use Squarespace because well, they either got sponsored, or they watched a video that was sponsored. Others will use Shopify because their friends told them to.
All of them are great options. They have to be! If any platform was significantly better than another, the worse platform would run out of business. It's that simple.
Anyway, I really hope this helped! When I was first opening my Society6 store, and later on opening my Storenvy, I spent SO. LONG. on research. I got really frustrated too, because I didn't want to ever regret my choice so I tried to find the perfect option. In the end though, there really is no "perfect option". None of these platforms will offer you full control.
Which brings me to the very last option you have. Code your own website. From scratch. (YOU specifically don't have to, but hire someone to!) @frannerd did this with her website. You'll have (basically) full control! You do need to use plugins though, probably. Anyway.
But of course, not everyone has that option, or is willing to put in that much work (me, for example. Nope.)
If you have any lingering questions, feel free to leave a comment, shoot me a message via Insta, or (yknow) Google it!
Alright! I'll leave you all with a bunch of artsy small business stores that inspired me! Hopefully they give you an idea of what you can do with these platforms.
Feel free to share this post to anyone who might need it. Wishing you all the best of luck in your entrepreneurial endeavors! Aaand, don't forget my shop is launching on June 26th! Stay updated via Instagram! <3
Love you all,
elissa (@wavylinesem)
Further reading: this podcast episode by Jake Parker, Will Terry, and Lee White discusses online shops in depth! Loved listening to it. https://www.svslearn.com/3pointperspectiveblog/2019/10/16/starting-an-online-shop
Sources Used:
The knowledge I somehow retained through the countless Youtube videos..
All the websites for the platforms mentioned.