I’ve moved my storefront from Etsy to Printify. Currently, my Etsy store is in vacation mode. At some point, I may try to create some sort of digital product to offer there. As for physical products, they are all currently on Printify.
I feel like I’ve wasted time and money on Etsy. I had a digital offering there originally, listed for about a year. Nothing sold. I let the listings expire, regrouped, and returned with print-on-demand product via a linked Printify account. I sold a few items to a friend. After a month of the design being listed on Etsy, I did a keyword search on its title: “property of the Holy Spirit.” My search returned NO RESULTS. As far as I knew, I had the only property of the Holy Spirit design on all of Etsy. The keyword search returned neither my products bearing the design, nor my store even. It was then that I began to think Etsy was not where I needed to be.
I will admit that I did not pay to advertise on Etsy, and I get the feeling that, unless you pour some money into advertising, they aren’t really going to help your store out. Hence why I got no search results. I can’t prove that, but I experienced what I experienced and draw conclusions from that.
Etsy charges a fee to list your items. If you have variations, each one gets a listing fee. Different sizes? Each one gets a listing fee. If you sell something, Etsy also takes a commission plus a transaction fee. I may well have spent more money than I made.
I unlinked Printify from Etsy and put my Etsy store in vacation mode while I rethink it. Then I set up a pop-up store on Printify. Setting up an account with Printify was free. Setting up a pop-up store was also free. There are no listing fees and no transaction fees. Printify gives you a base price. You figure how much profit you want to make and set your retail price accordingly. Printify handles order processing, shipment, and customer service.
So far, I am happy with product quality. Printify allows the store owner to order samples of product at the base price before the product is published to their store for public consumption. This way, you can test a product and see how it will look before it goes live.
Because there are no listing fees, I can offer more items and more designs. So now, in addition to the original “Property of the Holy Spirit” design, I can offer “Free Pastor Hugs,” MessyMuffin.com merch, and our new “Positive Vibes/B+” design.
In addition to offering a MessyMuffin.com t-shirt, there is a bucket hat (small and large sizes), a hoodie, and three sizes of vinyl kiss-cut stickers (2″x2″, 3″x3″, and 4″x4″), all bearing the messymuffin.com logo. There’s also a “Property of the Holy Spirit” sticker in the same three sizes, along with a yard sign and a 22 oz, copper insulated travel tumbler.
There are some challenges with not using Etsy. Folks will need a direct link to the store because they can’t search for specific designs. If I do decide to advertise, I will have to figure out how to do that on my own.
If you would like to support me or this website, I invite you to consider making a purchase from the store. I make a few dollars from each sale, and I’ve tried to keep prices reasonable. Additionally, a percentage of the money made from all items bearing the “Property of the Holy Spirit” and “Free Pastor Hugs” designs, which were created in collaboration with my pastor and friend, Ray Morgan, goes to my local church for missions and outreach. And even if you never buy anything from my store, I appreciate you dropping by, taking the time to read what I’ve written, and generally checking out messymuffin.com. I appreciate it.
Jeanna