Handmade craft marketplaces and their fees
Today I’m going to be blogging about some of the popular the handmade marketplaces that are available for crafters to sell their goods on. Etsy is one of the top craft marketplaces due to its amount of traffic but with its constantly changing venue coupled with its decrease in shop sales for all customers on the platform and its most recent rise in fees a lot of crafters are starting to wonder whether or not to start looking for alternatives.Etsy fees as of recent are as follows. Etsy charges a $0.20 USD for each item that you list for sale,and a 5 percent transaction fee on item sale and shipping cost.Etsy also specifies on their terms about fee avoidance and how it is strictly prohibited to encourage sales on other venues aside from Etsy.Etsy’s marketplace traffic seems to be what has kept its loyal members with them over the long haul but as of recent there has been a lot of change with that also.Bonanza is another marketplace to sell handmade on but does not have the amount of traffic that Etsy does.
Bonanza charges fees based on the sale price of your item, plus any amount of the shipping cost over $10.It also charges a fee based on the sale price of your item, plus any amount of the shipping cost over $10.Amazon has a handmade marketplace of which you has to pass a screening process to be eligible to join.Amazon’s fees are as follows. For the standard Individual selling plan, you’ll pay Amazon 99 cents per item sold and the referral fee is a percentage of the item’s total sale price including shipping costs but not taxes, and generally ranges from 8 % to 20 %. There are others also like shopify who charge monthly fee plans ranging from $29 thru $299 per month.And yet there are many smaller craft sites that lack traffic but still may be worth checking out due to the commercialization of all the bigger craft sites.
No matter which venue you choose you should always set up a website of your own to start building traffic to it and also to be able to establish yourself as your own solo business entity and to avoid paying excessive fees.I have visited a lot of forums and have read a lot of posts from some very unhappy craft sellers and their main complaint on the marketplaces had to do with traffic fluctuations and increased fee. I would like to hear some comments from any crafters out there who are unhappy with the handmade/commercial marketplaces and their loss of focus on strictly handmade.