If you are an online seller, picking the right eCommerce platform for selling your product becomes the defining decision on how your business is going to perform in the market. Irrespective of the product that you are selling, whether it is something creative, artsy, or technical, you need to be able to reach the right audience who will be interested in your product.
So far, Shopify and Etsy have emerged as the most promising platform for online selling. But out of the two, which one is better is the existing question, especially for businesses that have the budget for only one eCommerce platform.
So, let’s look into the comparative features of Shopify vs Etsy and understand which would better suit your business needs.
Shopify and Etsy are both leading eCommerce platforms that have distinctive features and are worth investing time and money in for the business.
Shopify caters to some of the biggest names in the industrial sector, including Louis Vuitton, Unilever, Redbull, Tesla, Pepsi, and more. It is just so preferred because of the customization options that Shopify provides. It is even possible for you to easily build an online store without the need for any technical experts. You can create a website, sell and deliver unlimited products, integrate payment modes, and scale your business.
There are also more than 160 customizable themes like Debut, Minimal, Brooklyn, Venture, Supply, etc., that you can choose from. If used smartly, you can make a unique name and identity for your business on Shopify that any online visitor won’t be able to miss.
The automated features of Shopify further simplify the maintenance of online stores.
Etsy, with more than 7.5 million sellers and over 96 million buyers, have become one of the best online marketplaces to launch your new products. It is better known as a creative platform that lets you identify more artisans like you and lets you understand the market and competition for it. Esty is popular among hand-made goods and vintage items sellers that are into apparel, jewelry, and other creative supplies.
When selling products on Shopify, it’s like renting a space for setting up a store. That space will be specific to your niche. The myriad of options available on Shopify will let you configure things on your online store just as you like. This way, you have more control over your business online.
Some of the customizations that will make your business stand out in the crowd of competition include:
These customizations are recommended for maximizing the store’s performance on Shopify.
Shopify caters to a broader scope of services, so it lets you sell pretty much anything on its platform. Anything that’s legal to sell. The 4 million stores powered by it clearly indicate its credibility._
Etsy, on the other hand, is an online store in itself. It serves like a supermarket for your products. In other words, Etsy, as an online store, sells different types of related or unrelated products. So, if you sell on this platform, your product will become the part of listing it offers. However, unlike Shopify, you won’t have a dedicated website for your offerings.
Although while selling on Etsy, you don’t have to worry about getting traffic on your website because Etsy already does it for you. All Etsy customers will automatically become your customers. But! There is a catch. Etsy, with its pool of products and its sellers, can have your competitor sell similar products alongside yours, so the stakes on your product quality and presentation become high. It determines if the interested customer will pick your product over others.
Etsy only allows certain types of products for sale on its platform. The broad categorization of these products is as follows:
Esty works best for creative sellers to thrive online as it provides them with a pre-built target audience to head-start their sale.
Both Etsy and Shopify are big names in the eCommerce world that let you have access to a large pool of target audiences to kickstart your business journey. But they still are very different tools. Below are some of the key differences between these platforms that you must know before you decide and pick one platform for your business.
Shopify is continuously advancing with the features it offers. Most recently, it introduced the Selling Plan API, which is subscription-based. It will let you include more deferred purchase options. Selling Plan API can be a game changer for merchants because it will further simplify the cash flow and inventory management and integrate more features like pre-orders and try-before-you-buy options.
The buy now and pay later option is another feature of Shopify luring more customers in. Buyers have the flexibility of paying the purchase amount in installments through Shop Pay. It has been shown to boost sales, attract more repeat business, and reduce cart abandonment to much extent.
Product bundling is yet another upsell strategy by Shopify that increases the Average Order Value (AOV). It does so by creating combos and FBT (Frequently bought together) mix-and-match bundles.
The new Shopify Bundle Products Upsell app lets you create and sync a variety of product bundles with the inventory. Your customers will be able to buy similar products as a bundle in just one click. It also allows them to mix and match their favorite products and create a custom bundle for themselves.
Customized filter trees for smart search supported by Shopify suggest relevant results based on spelling and synonyms and even display no-search results based on the demand forecast and consumer behavior data.
Some of the features common across All Shopify plans are as follows:
Esty offers basic but all essential features that are vital to sustaining your business online. It keeps the process easy and allows you to manage things even on the go.
Etsy integrates with marketing and advertising tools to increase its customer base. It makes it possible for you to get more audience to engage with your product and make a purchase.
Social media integration is another highlight that further increases the visibility of your products. You can link and share your product page on Instagram and Twitter and also explore third-party tools like Google shopping to widen your reach.
You can use the paid plan Etsy Plus to upgrade your online store, as it helps you:
Etsy operates on simple yet powerful tools that make a perfect fit for small vendors selling handmade, vintage, and artsy products.
Etsy and Shopify are intuitive platforms that provide online vendors with an easy selling experience. The learning curve for both Shopify vs Etsy is not steep. However, they are completely different.
Shopify features make designing and maintaining an online store a straightforward process. There is an extensive variety of video and textual content available online that you can use as a step-by-step guide to setting it up.
However, on Shopify, you create a completely new website for your business. So, the input that goes into building one is also more elaborate. You must know how to create a brand, what goes into designing a website, and the kind of customization you would need.
You don’t need technical expertise to sell online using Etsy.
For Etsy, you would require to add your product listings. It is not as much elaborate work as Shopify, but it does require much thought in creating visuals, product photos, descriptions, and pricing of the products. All this is because, even if you get a ready-made audience, you still have to outstand what your competitors are doing.
Shopify has a transaction fee for online sales that you make for your products. It starts at 2.4% of the sale plus 30 cents. These charges are slightly more expensive for vendors with low-priced Shopify plans.
Etsy, on the other hand, doesn’t charge a monthly fee, in general. But, if you are using their Plus plan, the per-sale fee can get expensive to manage. The types of charges Etsy applies on online sales are as follows:
Selling on Etsy is comparatively more expensive than on Shopify.
On the bright side, both Shopify vs Etsy offer free trial plans, which you can avail of and try for your business. It presents a great opportunity for small business owners to try these platforms for free. You can continue with their paid plans thereafter.
Shopify has a 14-day free trial plan and charges around $29 per month after you switch to the paid one. This one is a basic plan preferred by most vendors.
Multi-channel and advanced retailers may also consider a $79 per month and $299 per month plan for detailed analytics and reporting.
If you already have a business website of your own and only want to integrate credit card payment with Shopify, the Shopify Lite plan for $9 per month can be the best pick for you.
Etsy plus plan has a 30-day free trial which provides you with 15 listing credits. You can avail of the paid plan thereafter, at the rate of $10 per month. Paid plan of Etsy provides you with more banner options and notifies you of customer restock requests.
Shopify offers more real-time assistance and customer support. It is available 24/7 and can be accessed through voice calls, email, and chat.
Etsy, although advertises 24/7 customer support, it doesn’t instantly provide solutions. Most queries are required in the form of an email, and it usually takes 2-5 business days to get a response.
For instant assistance, phone-based issues are prioritized on Etsy.
In addition to direct assistance, there are online resources like FAQs and other forms of video or textual content that you can refer to understand about the product. Lately, many eCommerce platforms, including Shopify and Etsy, prefer indirect assistance. Only when your issue is not resolved by it, do they offer you one-on-one assistance.
This approach helps Shopify and Etsy cater to more queries at once. However, many buyers don’t prefer it and might get annoyed.
Shopify offers customer support in 21 different languages. Etsy supports 11.
Shopify offers drag-and-drop design tools that let you customize your website according to your business needs. Etsy doesn’t support many design customizations because the store is Etsy itself, and the products you sell are displayed as listings.
However, Esty Pattern is a newly launched store by Etsy that lets you design your own website and run it in conjunction with the Etsy shop.
Both Shopify vs Etsy provide pre-built templates to help vendors quicken the process of getting their online business started. These templates are platform compliant, so sellers don’t need to worry about every parameter, policy, and procedure supported and required by the platform to keep the business up and running on the platform.
While selling on Etsy, you offer your customers a more or less standardized experience. It reflects more on Etsy than on your product and business per se. So, when a visitor explores your product, they are provided with an Etsy-optimized look and feel. It doesn’t leave much scope for making an impact on your business.
Shopify, on the contrary, lets you have complete control over how your website and products are perceived by the visitor. You can customize almost every aspect of the website design and make it unique to your brand.
Shopify allows your customers to connect with the brand itself, making way for long-term association and more chances of repeat business.
Shopify offers more than 100 website templates to choose from. You can tweak the features of these designs extensively to suit your brand image.
The Etsy Pattern platform has brought fresh air to the standard catalog-type version of Etsy. Much like Shopify, you can use it to create a standalone website for your business and its multiple offerings.
You can either link your product listing from the Etsy store or create a new listing of products and sell them separately on Pattern.
The branding options on Etsy are limited as compared to Shopify. Sure, you can add your brand logo and a banner, but that’s it. Your visitors will still perceive Etsy as a store. So, when your online presence is more Esty-like, you don’t have much control to offer engaging customers for your business.
Shopify stores are more independent in design and processing. It allows you to engage with the customers and showcase your capabilities in a much-defined way. You are freer to work on your brand image and how you want your customers to perceive it.
Etsy Pattern could be a game changer and provide resources comparable to Shopify. However, it is still in its maiden years.
When comparing two platforms, there usually is a winner. But Shopify and Etsy are two different platforms with distinct applications. So, it is hard to pick one over the other. However, the scale and variety of features and customization Shopify offers definitely give it an edge over Etsy.
To broadly define where Shopify and Etsy fit best, here is a summarized viewpoint:
If you wish to build a standalone website, Shopify is the platform for you. It offers a sophisticated POS system and a plethora of options to choose from, making it best suited for both small and large-scale businesses.
The basic plan of Etsy is free. So, you can start your journey of online business without any monetary investment.
Setting up a store on Etsy is straightforward. You don’t need to have any technical knowledge. This makes Etsy a preferred platform for local vendors.
Etsy brings in a specific pool of target audiences. So, artists and creative sellers can present their products to a larger audience without having to go through the hassle of attracting online traffic, which can otherwise take years to establish.
Shopify supporting Etsy integration is ideal for getting the best of both worlds.
You still can’t decide which one to choose for your business? We have good news for you. You can use both platforms together.
Using Shopify App Store, you can now integrate your Etsy listings into the Shopify store. It syncs both platforms and tracks real-time sales and inventory changes on both platforms.
Integrating Shopify and Etsy is a great option when you want to diversify your online presence. It will further widen your business reach and make the most of both platforms.
You can avail free trial of Shopify-Etsy integration, but it offers limited features and accessibility. Paid plans available for the same are mentioned below-
Shopify or Etsy, whichever platform you choose for establishing an online business, the first and foremost thing that attracts audiences to your website or product page is how well you present it.
The visuals you choose for your website and the product photos that you display to showcase your offerings can change the entire game for your business. It has the ability to determine how your customers perceive your product and services.
To make product photography easy and affordable for you, we have created the DoMyShoot app that will serve as an all-in-solution for creating compliant product listings for the eCommerce platform in just a few clicks. The best part is that you don’t even need a specialized camera to create high-quality photos. You can comfortably operate it on your smartphone.
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