As most of you may already know, I recently started selling my designs on Creative Market and Etsy and wanted to write a post comparing the two websites strictly on their ease of use when opening a shop. This isn’t going to be a numbers post where I compare the success I’ve had on both websites (don’t worry that is going to come much later), but instead I wanted to give you guys a clear idea of what it is like to open a shop on these two websites for graphic/surface pattern designers. I am going to be comparing both websites on 4 main points:
- How easy it is to apply for a shop
- The overall market for your designs (let’s call this the selling atmosphere)
- How easy it is to add products to your shop
- What each website charges you to sell on their website
To make this post shorter I am going to split this comparison up into two posts so view my previous post to see my break down of Creative Market.
Let’s get started!
Etsy
Applying for a Shop
Applying for a shop on Etsy is moderately easier than if you were to apply to open a shop on Creative Market because anyone can open a shop on Etsy. In fact, with Etsy you are not “applying” for a shop, but rather you are signing up for a shop. I mentioned this is the Creative Market post, but I view not having to apply for a shop as a disadvantage for Etsy. When you limit the market for people selling on a website the website becomes less saturated and more focused on creating designs that stand out rather than focusing on outcompeting other sellers. For people who are just beginning in a field and only have 1 to 2 products ready to sell, Etsy might be a better option, however, because you won’t have enough products/designs to put in your portfolio for your Creative Market application.
Etsy’s Selling Atmosphere
I’ve been on Creative Market and Etsy for a while now as a customer and there are a few things I’ve noticed. Creative Market is more for the graphic designers who need fonts, brushes, and textures for their designs and do it yourselfers who may have a blog or a website and want to create their own logo. There is also a percentage of Creative Market customers who own shops and want to buy designs to put on their products. Etsy, however, is mainly known for its handmade goods. Unlike Creative Market, digital designs are not really promoted by Etsy on their website. In fact, if you look at Etsy’s homepage or through their past emails you will notice that there are almost no mentions of Etsy’s digital designs. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sell your digital designs on Etsy, however, I always think Etsy shouldn’t be your first adventure in selling your digital designs, but rather used in conjunction with a more digitally focused website.
Adding Products to Your Shop
The nice thing about Etsy is they let you copy individual listings so if you are creating a similar listing you don’t have to enter everything all over again. Etsy also allows you to add multiple files to your listings so you don’t need to compress your files into zip files. Despite all of these positives, there is one very huge negative to selling your digital designs on Etsy. Etsy has a file restriction of 20 MB. This meant that I couldn’t sell any of my hand-drawn patterns on Etsy because my file sizes were too big. If your designs tend to run over 20 MB I wouldn’t even consider Etsy as a viable option to sell your designs.
Etsy’s Cut of Your Profits.
There are 2 main fees you need to pay when selling your products on Etsy. Etsy has a listing fee of 20 cents which applies to every item you list for sale on Etsy. Let’s say you have a digital design you want to sell. When that design is sold, Etsy requires you to post another listing (this usually happens automatically) and you have to pay another 20 cents even if you are selling the same design. Listings expire every 4 months. You also have to pay what Etsy calls a transaction fee which is 5% of your sale. To learn more about other fees you may have to pay you can read more here.
That is all I wanted to talk about right now. If I think of anything else you should know about Etsy I will update this post. What have your experiences been with selling digital designs on Etsy?
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