 In this video I'm going to share the 10 reasons why to open an Etsy shop in 2022 and I'm also going to share three reasons why not to as well. As an artist or creative it can often be really confusing to know exactly where to start out selling your artwork or art products online. What should you do? There are so many options available out there right now so where do you start? At a course you can waste hours of your time and oodles of your hard-earned cash. Building, creating, designing a website where perhaps you're not quite sure exactly what you're going to be selling it and even if you have got the website up it's likely taking you maybe a few weeks or months to get it to that point of launching. You launch it and then nobody comes along and you don't make any sales. Now whilst this route won't be for everybody today it will be for some of you and for some of you I'm hoping it's going to be the place to start, get on and start selling that art so that you can head towards making a real living from your creativity. Well hello and welcome or welcome back to my channel I'm Sophie and I help artists just like you to set up and grow a successful profitable business doing what you love. Build around your existing art practice. Now if you like tips and tricks on how to build that profitable business then you're in the right place because that's exactly what I share on this channel so why not subscribe to my channel and hit that bell to get notified every time I post a new video. Now as I already mentioned there's a big reason to stay right to the end of this video because I know that a lot of you are skeptical you've heard a lot of reasons why not to be on Etsy it's like it's really hard it's a big marketplace there's too many people out there it's saturated people's shops get closed down all of the things all right stay to the end of the video as I am going to share with you the three reasons I believe you would not want to be starting your Etsy shop right now in 2022 but in the meantime are we ready to get stuck in on those 10 reasons why starting your Etsy store right now as an artist would be a good idea and of course don't forget to let me know in the comments if you already have a store or whether you're thinking of opening one number one if you've discovered that your target audience is already on Etsy they're looking they're saving and they're shopping then that's the perfect reason for you to be there too now we talk a lot about how to find your target audience so don't forget to check out this key video to help you discover where they are once you've discovered where they are that's exactly where you want to be right so that number one reason for opening the Etsy store would be if your audience is already there so you're there and they're over here doesn't make any sense right you want to be in the same place reason number two you're just starting out you don't want to build that website yet or you haven't got the time or the finances Etsy is a great place to start out if you're brand new to selling your artwork or your art products online reason number three you might want to start an Etsy shop and that is you have a lot of potential listings so I your that artist that has a stockpile of originals prints online designs loads of ideas perhaps lots of options lots of products lots of things lying around and you're thinking goodness me if I just collated all of these and put them online I'd have an instant shop right then that is the perfect thing for you Etsy would be a great place for you to get started reason number four to start an Etsy shop this year would be if you have a good range of pricing so if you're somebody that says oh I have things right down from a few dollars right the way up to whatever your upper limit is so if you have a good range of products and you make sure that you have quite a few low and medium because at the end of the day shoppers like to buy things online and if you make it easy for them quick purchase little pack of cards something small and easy to mail out easy for you to manage and really easy for your customer to buy and ideally buy again and again and again right because we do love a repeat customer reason number five if you have something a bit unusual that you know because you've done some research that people are really looking for because let's face it right Etsy is a big marketplace and there's a lot of people on there there's also going to be a lot of competitors and if what you do is very similar to hundreds of thousands of other people it's going to be really difficult for you to stand out so if you do something that's a bit quirky that's either on trend or you know has a group or section of people that desperately looking for this particular product or this particular niche then that's another reason why you'd want to start out on Etsy reason number six Etsy costs virtually nothing to set up alright so if you like to compare it to setting up shop on Etsy which is just a few cent or pence for a listing compared to building a website which can run into the thousands of pounds or dollars all right depending on what sort of site even if you take something basic it's still going to cost you a certain amount every month to keep that site up there and then there's the design and the bills and all of the things so actually you can get started from next to nothing and don't forget to check out the link below this video where I give you 40 free listing so that's only for somebody who hasn't set up yet so if you're watching this video and by the end you think you know what I think an Etsy store would be exactly what I'm looking for and if you want to get going and you haven't signed up and you're brand new to Etsy check out the link below you'll get the first 40 listings free what a great place to start okay number seven of course Etsy is what we call a marketplace i.e. people already know about it and they're flocking there in their droves and they're looking for things they're searching they're saving and they are shopping so therefore by having a shop there you're already putting yourself in front of your potential customers and the difference between that and setting up your website which is floating out there in the ether and unless you are a marketing guru and you have a gazillion ways to send people to your website putting yourself on a marketplace of any sort is a smart move reason number eight Etsy seller tools are really quick and easy to use all right so it's really easy for you to upload images for you to title and add the description and once you've created a few listings you can then put them in collections you could have featured like all the tools for setting up are really easy to use there are many many benefits to having a store as well which I'll talk about in another video but right now this would be a reason to start out it's easy to use reason number nine you want to start your Etsy store in 2022 or any other year that you might be watching this in and that is as comparatively low at seller fees now this is something that it's talked about all the time it get winched and moaned about out here on YouTube and no doubt other places Etsy seller fees go up they're too high all of the things so let's just dispel that myth straight away if you are a hobby artist you're probably not expecting when you put something up for sale you've made a craft item an art item you put it up for sale and you're perhaps not used to the fact that that platform is going to take a percentage when you're building a business you're building that into the price you're selling price and you're looking at your profit margin and Etsy is really low in terms of seller fees so if you put your artwork or prints or some such thing on another platform you're likely going to be they're like that platform is likely going to be taking at least 30% if not more plus a section of the postage and packaging etc so actually Etsy seller fees are around 10 to 20% depending on the different options that you use but even if you allow 20% as the highest possible margin it's still a lot better than 30 alright so this is a really good thing so if you're not sure and you're in sitting in that kind of well I'm not really sure if I'm a hobby or a business don't forget to check out this video where I talk about the difference between being in hobby state and being in business state being in business state means you understand your profit margins you're moving forwards you're pricing effectively you're doing all the right things and therefore you're going to expect seller fees on any online platform you're using and by the way you set up your own website if you don't send traffic to that website you're going to struggle to make any sales and the way you're likely going to be doing that is spending money on marketing and ads so it's kind of for me it's sort of it's either either you're building a business you're going to outlay one way or the other this is a really good way I think and reason number 10 why I think you know could be really good to open Etsy store right now is that you can now add a third party production partner so for example you've created some artwork you want to sell it onto t-shirts or you just want to sell art prints or you want to put it onto products you don't want to have to deal with inventory yourself then you can connect to a third party print on demand site and then they will fulfill the order for you so you'd set up the third party site you link it to Etsy you put the listing out on Etsy people would click to buy that and it would be fulfilled by the third party production partner pretty cool now I think for a lot of people when they first started their Etsy store this was not an option all right so this is a really useful tool for us artists and creatives to be able to do because I did about you I don't really want piles of inventory at home or in my studio I don't want to outlay it I don't want to deal with it I don't want to have to mail it all right so by using another company to do that that means that you can sell globally and you can you can build a business that works really well for you no matter where you are in the world all right so as I promised here are they three biggest reasons I reckon why you should not and I repeat that why you should not open an Etsy shop this year number one you only sell high priced original artwork you know listen there are lots and lots of online art galleries that you can submit your work to or upload your work to and sell through them and they're going to be a better place for you to even if you're going to take even if they're going to take 30 35 or 40% you're going to price your items accordingly so that you make a profit anyway so it doesn't really matter does it so you'll be better off placing your original art there it's not a great place for high priced and you won't find high priced original art you'll find medium priced original art perhaps on Etsy and lower priced and more prints and products so that would be reason number one reason number two is you really only have a few listings the few items so Etsy works best when you have 50 plus and ideally these days at time of shooting around the 200 listings mark now before you panic don't forget your original artwork can be one listing the prints in various sizes the products are different things you can do with one image you could make one image into 10 listings according to where you perhaps place that piece of artwork so it may be not so bad after all but you know it's going to be up to you if you have multiple things if you're that person falling over potential listings like we mentioned earlier then you'll be fine if you're not you're starting out you've got a handful of things then I'm going to suggest Etsy's not a good investment in your time and reason number three you definitely definitely do not want to open an Etsy store right now if you're not prepared to put in the time energy and effort it takes to really set up a successful Etsy store if you say oh I really don't have any time I'm just going to put a few things on there and I'm going to leave it be then that's probably a waste of your time setting it up in the first place because like anything it is going to take time to create beautiful listings to put it all up to do the research etc etc so it's not for you if you're not prepared to put that time and that ongoing time into updating adding new listings talking to customers doing all the things that you need to do right then it's definitely not for you either so here we are we're getting to the end of this video and I hope that you're a lot clearer with whether you should and you definitely are and you're now excited to open your Etsy store or whether you're thinking no do you know what I absolutely know this definitely wasn't for me like I said let me know in the comments if you have an Etsy store if you're thinking about it and obviously if you're in that place where you're like now you're fired up you want to get going then check out the link below and get your 40 free listings because you know what that's still a massive saving for you and a great place to start and look out for more upcoming videos letting you know how to set up the shop how to optimize your listings and a cool strategy to keep you moving forwards as well okay so thank you so much for watching the video if you really liked it don't forget to give me a thumbs up and then check out all the other links below this video for other useful resources as well I've got lots of freebies and things that might be helpful for you whilst you build your profitable art business all right keep creative and I'll see you on the next video