Etsy alternative for sellers: Sell from a shop you own, and keep the customers you win.
A website for Etsy sellers ready to stop paying for a stall on someone else’s market. A storefront made for your work instead of a marketplace layout, a returns page laid out for personalised orders, and every buyer’s details kept in your own account. The build price is on this page, Shopify bills its plan to you directly, and we take nothing from a single sale.
Set range build £5,500, paid once. Ex VAT.
Trust, without the marketplace
No shop badge, no review count: what a stranger needs to see before buying from you
On Etsy, the marketplace’s name does some of the reassuring. On your own site these four answers do it, and each one belongs on the page where the buyer is deciding.
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Is there a real maker behind this?
Your name, a business address and email, a few lines on who makes the work, and photographs of the bench rather than stock. On your own site those carry the weight the marketplace used to.
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When will it arrive?
Made-to-order lead times and delivery costs on the product page itself, not tucked into a policy nobody opens. A buyer told up front that a piece is made for them will wait for it.
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Will it look like the photographs?
Dimensions, materials and every variation written for a buyer rather than for Etsy search, with one photograph beside something familiar, so the size is never a surprise.
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What if it is wrong, or I change my mind?
A returns page that says plainly what can come back, and that personalised or made-to-order pieces are refunded only if faulty. Never a blanket “no returns”, which gov.uk says is illegal.
Your checkout, your duties
When Etsy stops running the checkout, these land on your site
Here are the five rules your own pages pick up, from gov.uk and the ICO, current at the time of writing.
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Say the 14 days out loud
Most orders can be cancelled up to 14 days after delivery, with no reason needed. Leave that unsaid on your site and the buyer can cancel at any point in the next 12 months.
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Personalised work is the exception, stated properly
Personalised and custom-made pieces only have to be refunded if they are faulty. Your returns page says exactly that, rather than a blanket refusal that misleads buyers about rights they still have.
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A download waits for a yes
Before a printable, pattern or font downloads, the buyer confirms they know they lose the 14-day right to cancel and agrees to the instant download. Miss that step and they keep the right without paying.
Source: gov.uk, selling online
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The whole price before the pay button
The total price and delivery cost, your email address, a button that makes plain the buyer is paying, and an email confirming the order as soon as it is placed.
Source: gov.uk, selling online
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Marketing email needs a yes too
Only to people who agreed to it, with one narrow exception for your own past customers, and only if each was offered a clear way out when you took their details and in every email since.
Source: ICO, marketing by email
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Check the exceptions
gov.uk lists exceptions to its distance selling rules on the same page, so check whether one covers what you sell. After launch, what you list and how your policies read stay yours to keep right.
Source: gov.uk, the exceptions
Etsy’s shop, or your own
Listings that renew, Etsy’s commission on every sale and buyers who arrive through the marketplace. A storefront of your own drops all three; on each sale, only card fees remain.
Your Etsy shop
- A listing fee of $0.20, charged in US dollars, for four months on the shelf, then again at every renewal, and again for each further unit one listing sells.
- A transaction fee and payment processing on every order, an offsite ads fee when Etsy advertises an item and the sale follows, and a regulatory operating fee in some regions.
- The reviews and sales record you build there belong to the Etsy shop, so they are not yours to take with you if you leave, and that shop runs on terms Etsy writes, including when it may close a shop or hold back a payout.
- Every buyer arrives through Etsy and is contacted under Etsy's rules, so the list of people likely to buy again is not one you hold.
Current rates are on Etsy’s own fees page. We quote only the listing fee, the one rate we could confirm on Etsy’s own pages.
Your own storefront
- No listing fee and no renewals: a product stays up until you take it down. Shopify bills you for its plan directly, from £19 a month for Basic on a yearly bill at the time of writing, plus card fees.
- No transaction fee to us on any order, ever, and a storefront on your own domain in place of a shop page on etsy.com.
- Every buyer's details land in your own account, and the ones who tick the box join a mailing list that stays with you.
Whether to stay on Etsy, leave it or run both, and the order to do it in: Etsy vs your own website.
Our suggestion for a maker’s shop
Set range
£5,500 ex VAT, paid once
After launch you pay your Shopify plan to Shopify, and nothing to us.
Price your shopA complete storefront built around the range you sell now, with filtering that suits it: by material, occasion or size, say. The build price carries 20 products, Shopify’s checkout takes payment under your own domain name, Sanity lets you change any page without us, and the first draft of every page’s copy comes written. Support runs for 90 days after launch.
Listing more than 20? Each product above that adds a little, at a rate that eases as the range grows, and the configurator shows what your count comes to. Past 300 products, we go through the catalogue with you before putting a figure on it. Bringing your listings across is part of loading the catalogue, priced per product in the configurator.
Forever adding new kinds of product, downloads beside prints or made to order beside stock? Open range is £6,950 ex VAT: faceted filtering from day one, and room for a new kind of product without rebuilding the shop.
Etsy sellers ask
How is this different from other Etsy alternatives?
Many of the Etsy alternatives you will find listed are other marketplaces: a different crowd and a different set of fees, but still a stall on somebody else’s site. This is a storefront of your own, so nobody stands between you and the buyer, and the people who arrive are mostly the shoppers you bring.
Do I have to close my Etsy shop?
No. Etsy can stay open for the shoppers who search there, while your own site serves the people you bring yourself: repeat buyers, followers, anyone who picked up your card at a fair. Whether Etsy stays for good is a decision for later, once you can see where your orders come from.
Do you take a percentage of what I sell?
No. Our fee is the build, charged once, and no order ever sends anything our way. What keeps running is Shopify, which bills you directly in your own account: Basic comes to £19 a month when billed yearly, or £25 month by month, at the time of writing, with card fees on each order on top. Your domain renews yearly with the registrar.
Can you move my listings across from Etsy?
Yes. Bringing your listings across, photos and descriptions included, is part of loading the catalogue, priced per product in the configurator. The build carries 20 products. A catalogue of more than 300 is looked at by hand first, and you see that figure before anything is agreed.
What changes legally when Etsy stops running my checkout?
Your own site has to say everything itself. At the time of writing, gov.uk's guidance asks for your business name, address and email, the total price and delivery cost before payment, a clear pay-now button, an email confirming the order, and a plain statement of the 14-day right to cancel and when it does not apply. Each of those has its place in the shop's layout from the first draft. What you sell, and how your policies read after launch, stay yours to keep right.
I sell digital downloads. What does my own shop need?
A confirmation before the file is released. At the time of writing, gov.uk says the buyer must confirm, before a download starts, that they know they lose the 14-day right to cancel, and must agree to the instant download. Skip it and they keep that right without paying. Where you sell downloads, the product page is laid out with a place for that confirmation from the first draft. Its wording, and repeating it in your order confirmation, stay yours to keep right.
Can I email people who bought from me on Etsy?
Do not assume so. At the time of writing, the ICO says marketing emails need the person's specific consent, with one narrow exception, the soft opt-in, for your own previous customers who were given a clear chance to opt out when you collected their details and in every message after. Etsy's seller terms may narrow it further, and only Etsy's own pages can tell you how far. The dependable route is a sign-up on your own site from the first day.
Who owns the shop?
You do. Your Shopify account is opened in your name and billed to you. The domain, hosting, code and editor are set up in your own accounts and we are added as a collaborator, so the site stays put whoever you work with next.