No doubt that Etsy has been a great platform for those who want to sell their creations, be recognized nationally and internationally, and thus, have some income. This platform offers nice benefits such as allowing you to connect with different artisans and suppliers.
However, Etsy also has its disadvantages such as its fees which can be a bit high for some users, which is why many artisans look for alternatives. If you want to know Etsy alternatives, you are in the right place. Find them out here.
1. ArtFire – ETSY Alternatives
On this platform, you can sell your handmade, vintage, and DIY items online, which was created by American artisans for artisans around the world.
It puts at your disposal some tools to promote your products, as well as a support team available via chat and a community.
You can choose between different plans when it comes to selling with them. For the most popular you will have to pay $ 20 per month and a 3% commission for each item sold.
What benefits does ArtFire offer you?
- It has SEO tools.
- Integration with Google Analytics.
- The ability to create discount coupons.
- It offers help to businesses of all sizes.
- It offers excellent customer service.
- It helps sellers with marketing strategies.
- If you are a seller, offer a toll-free number for assistance.
- Customers can buy without having a user profile.
- Commission rates are much lower.
2. Zazzle
This platform also allows you to sell your crafts and is available in multiple languages. An online store can be created in a very short time for free and easy, as long as the administrators of the page find your artisan products interesting.
The most interesting thing about this page is that you can adjust the commissions according to your needs, however, it must be taken into account that any decision can affect the final price of the product.
One of the most logical and easy ways to generate income is by changing the commission rate that you are going to receive for the sale of a product. Typically, the preset rate is 10% of the sales price. A strategy that works correctly is increasing the commission rate up to 5% on special dates, such as Easter or Christmas.
What benefits does Zazzle offer you?
- The platform takes care of the packaging and shipping of your sale.
- The commissions are much lower than Etsy.
- You can create your store for free.
- You can list your products for free.
- The platform offers unique products designed by artisans.
- The platform is associated with major brands so that artisans can use their images.
- The platform promotes your products.
- The platform offers a payment of 15% to those who refer to the page.
- The platform offers free blogging panels, banners, and link building tools.
3. ArteNet
This is an online platform to buy paintings and original art directly from artists around the world that have a section dedicated exclusively to crafts.
This website works more as a showcase in which to display your works than as a store because Artenet does not get involved in transactions or manage payments.
Whoever is interested in buying your pieces can contact you directly and together you will agree on how to make the payment and shipping of your work.
What benefits does ArteNet offer you?
- Signing up in Artenet is free.
- Publishing your creations is free.
- The platform does not charge a commission for sales.
- It brings you closer to national and international buyers.
- Sell your works without intermediaries or commissions.
- The platform offers a premium subscription with the following benefits:
- Verified Artist Guarantee Seal.
- Show your work without advertising.
- Promotion of your work on social media.
4. Artmosfair
This is an online fair trade market where you can buy and sell exclusive handicrafts. An art that can range from handicrafts created by a housewife to art on the Da Vinci level.
Although this marketplace is focused on Europe, it has a place for painting, crafts, and sculpture of all cultures. For Artmosfair, “Nothing is too small or too exclusive”.
They charge a small commission for the publication of articles and a percentage of the sale amount in each transaction that varies depending on the chosen plan.
What benefits does Artmosfair offer you?
- You are offered a Basic plan, which is great to start with. They will charge you €0.10 per published article and you can sell your first 6 articles without commission. Then a sales commission of 6% will be applied to you.
- You are offered a Plus plan. You can publish your articles at no cost and the sales commission that will be applied in this case will be 3%. Besides, you will have the possibility to upload your articles to the first positions in the search results at no cost.
- You can sell a wide range of handicrafts.
- The platform offers a section for suppliers.
- You can set your profiles as a personal, premier, or business account.
- The platform does not charge you for increasing the number of your products, you only have to pay one fee for each list, regardless of the quantity.
- You decide the price of the shipping cost.
5. Zibbet
This is a marketplace for freelance creatives that allows you to create your own independent store, with its own domain, in addition to the one on its platform.
From the control panel, you can manage both your store in the marketplace and your website and analyze your statistics.
Also, if you already sell on Etsy you can import your items from there and save yourself the trouble of uploading all the products again.
Unlike most marketplaces, Zibbet will not charge you transaction fees or for publishing your products. You must pay a monthly fee that varies depending on the plan and the chosen payment method, from $ 4 to $ 20 per month.
What benefits does Zibbet offer you?
- It helps you place sales in up to four different markets: Etsy, Zibbet Marketplace, AC Moore, and Stitch.
- It offers you a free 14-day trial.
- Zibbet charges you $ 5 per month for 50 products per page.
- You do not pay any sales or listing fees for the items listed.
- If you already have an Etsy shop, you can link it to your Zibbet account.
- Offers SEO service.
- Offers 3 subscription plans for sellers.
6. Amazon Handmade
Amazon has its own section for those works that carry a more artistic stamp known as Amazon Handmade that focuses on all those items handmade by thousands of artisans or artists. These are mainly gifts (posters, decorative objects, jewelry, etc.), but also tools and other utensils related to crafts.
The spectrum of articles is very wide, so if you are an artisan or dedicate yourself to some type of artistic activity, you will likely find your site in this variant of the marketplace.
The requirements to sell your crafts is that they must be handmade products, and 100% created by you. Products made by companies with less than 20 people or cooperatives with less than 100 people are accepted and industrial products, made in series or made by another artisan are not accepted.
To join the Amazon artisan community you must access the web and fill out a form. You will have to enter your data, confirm your market (the area from which you are going to sell; for example, India), and answer the questions in the questionnaire. The Amazon team will be in charge of evaluating your request and giving you a response in the following days.
Amazon Handmade rates for artisans are simple: the platform keeps 12% of the total final price of each product (this percentage is the same for all categories). Afterward, you will be charged a commission per sale that will no longer be promotional, but the standard reference commission, which will vary depending on the category in which your products are found.
Besides, there is the possibility that your products will be classified as Premium although no monthly subscription fee is required.
What benefits does Amazon Handmade offer you?
- It offers a more professional image to your brand and a more personalized shopping experience.
- It can be very helpful in reaching more customers.
- The costs are very low, so the investment of money and time can be more accessible than doing eCommerce on your own.
- Your artisan profile on the platform will have a personalized URL so that customers can easily find your products.
- You have the possibility of converting your products into Premium, with all the advantages that this entails.
- You can benefit from Amazon logistics and marketing.
7. Bonanza
Actually, in this marketplace, you can sell everything you want, including your crafts. It has tools for importing and synchronizing with different web portals such as eBay, Amazon, or Shopify, as well as other useful tools to make everything easier.
As in other platforms, the process to start selling here is simple. You must register your account on the platform. You will be asked for an email and a username. Once you have your account active, you will have to access the seller panel. You can configure your position as a seller by following the instructions that the marketplace itself requests.
Also, you must select the option to add elements to be able to create your listing page with your products. If you select items, you will be able to open your listings page and add new products or edit them. You will receive a confirmation for each product you activate.
When uploading your articles, you must complete the title of each one. The more specific and descriptive it is, the better. Upload the images of your products, select the category of the same, add the number of units available, complete the detailed description of each article and establish a price.
If you want to try this marketplace before getting serious about your sales, you should also know that it offers you a 14-day trial period, totally free and that you can cancel at any time if you are not interested.
What benefits does Bonanza offer you?
- It has, in general, fewer restrictions than other marketplaces.
- If you don’t sell on the marketplace, you don’t have to worry about management fees or the like. If in other similar platforms you may have to invest some money before getting your first sales, in this case, they do not charge registration fees.
- The monthly rates, once you start selling, are low, about $ 25 a month.
- Publishing articles on Bonanza is completely free. Also, the average rate for each sale is low (3.5%).
- Allows full customization of your store. You can create an independent online space, with your characteristic stamp and with some of the themes that the platform offers you.
- It is integrated with Google Shopping, good news if you want to stand out from your competition.
- It has its own marketing tools, so you can carry out your own campaigns and improve your visibility on the platform.
- It has a tool for you to edit the images of your store.
- The platform accepts payments through PayPal, Amazon Checkout, and credit cards.
- It has a Rewards program for each action you take in the marketplace that can be used for, for example, discounts on rates or promotion of ads.
8. Shopify
This is not a marketplace, it is a platform to make your website with e-commerce in less than you imagine, fully personalized. It is a company dedicated to offering your complete page to be able to sell online simply but also professionally. The only one of the options on this list that can be personalized from your address (the URL or www. yourstore-name-workshop) to the shipping rates, discounts, image, and sales channels.
It is a specialized platform to exploit social media, blog, sending emails, among many other digital promotional media already integrated into the platform through applications.
It consists of being able to register your online store yourself, give it a name, establish an image, create the products you need and choose the image that best suits you among hundreds of options to sell your products. Especially chosen by many for the versatility it can have for artisans and artists since its templates are of great visual appeal, perfect for products that need to stand out mainly by sight.
On the other hand, you should consider that you only have a free trial period to launch your store for 14 days. After this time it becomes a platform with a cost of different plans.
What benefits does Shopify offer you?
- It is a platform where you can have your eCommerce and website.
- All your contact details can be public so your clients can contact you.
- Your customers can pay with credit, debit, Paypal, Bitcoin, and cash cards, all according to your preference.
- Contains excellent administrative tools.
- It has no limits on the number of products you can sell, so if you have a wide catalog it benefits you a lot, if not, you have options to integrate page designs specially designed for a few products or designer or plastic artist portfolios.
- Its design includes the way to create content or blog, to be able to take advantage of different strategies to bring customers to your online store.
- You can link all your social media very easy to keep your followers connected directly with your site.
- You don’t need to know about programming. The platform is very intuitive and friendly.
- It has multiple templates, free and paid, that you can choose to customize your online store.
- Your entire online store is directly in the cloud.
- All the plans that the platform offers, from the most basic to the most advanced, have a security certificate.
9. BigCartel
This portal is an e-commerce solution aimed at small businesses. It is an e-commerce platform with an economic price, very attractive templates, and a series of very simple but useful functionalities to set up an online store. It is a perfect platform for artists who need a simple technological solution with which to quickly monetize their creations.
BigCartel is a fairly inexpensive tool. Anyone who wants to develop a store here to sell their crafts can hire it and leave it without any problem. It has a freemium version with which you can upload up to 5 products. This version helps you get an idea of the possibilities of the platform and see if it meets your needs.
On the other hand, it also has 3 more payment plans, ranging from $ 9.99 to $ 29.99, with which you can go from 25 to 300 products, and access more advanced features.
Unlike Shopify, BigCartel does not charge a commission for each sale. This makes you have more profit margin. Anyway, you will not get rid of the commissions that Stripe or Paypal will charge you when you make a sale.
Another advantage of Big Cartel is that the payment is month by month. That is, you are not subject to a multi-month contract, so you can cancel your subscription whenever you want. In addition, you can upgrade whenever you want with just one click.
What benefits does BigCartel offer you?
- It is aimed at users with little web knowledge. Hence, your page is full of notices and tooltips that make life easier for the user.
- The platform is very easy and intuitive but, even so, you can get assistance at any time.
- You can adjust all CSS design elements without adding or editing code.
- Product pages are very easy to design. You can easily upload images, include prices, descriptions, etc.
- It has an intuitive dashboard, which allows you to quickly view your main KPIs.
- It has a simple order management system.
- Although it has a limited range of templates to create e-commerce stores, these are very modern and attractive. Besides, all of them are adapted to the mobile.
- It has the possibility of charging via mobile.
- It makes it easy to create a store on Facebook.
- does not charge any commission.
- The basic subscription is cheap compared to the rest of the services and it has a free plan that allows us to test the system before paying.
- It also has some premium features in case you want to further optimize your online store.
10. Society6
This platform is aimed more than anything at those who are dedicated to photography and would like to have an income with their work. Although it is not about crafts, photography is also considered an art.
This is a web portal that allows photographers, illustrators, and other visual artists from all over the world to market their work in different products. Thus, your photographs can be sold as prints of various sizes, iPhone liners, clothing, laptop cases, among others, including cushions.
This website is seen as an ideal opportunity to do what you like the most while receiving financial benefits and without going through many complications. So far it sounds attractive but surely you have some questions. Exactly how do your images transform into all that variety of products? What do you have to do to make that happen?
First, you must register. You can do it under two modalities: a member (to explore the wide variety of designs) and as an artist (by registering as a creator you can start selling your works).
Once inside, you should spend a good time publishing content and presenting a good profile in which you expose your works, personal and contact information, and all the merchandise that you offer to the public. To make your profile more attractive, the platform allows you to add a 1000px x 100px banner at the top of your page. This will enhance your appearance as an artist and as a salesperson.
What benefits does Society6 offer you?
- This platform works as an excellent way to present your portfolio.
- Users (be they members or artists) can help you promote your posts by giving you likes.
- The activity in your products will have a direct impact on how you position yourself on the web.
- you just take care of creating art and the Society6 team turns it into products by printing them. It is simple!
- The platform takes care of the printing, transporting, and everything else in the sales process while you receive money for your work.
- The platform is a very comfortable way to receive money on your own.
- The platform offers a clean and elegant design for the profiles in which your products are the protagonists.
- The platform is constantly updated adding more countries to which you can send orders.
- You can become an affiliate for $ 1 in easy steps.
- You decide the commission from a base price.
- Excellent quality of printing, products, security in payments, shipments, and returns.
11. Square Online
Who does not want to have their own online store in just a few minutes? If you are one of them, you can sell your crafts here. For this, you will not need to pay absolutely anything so you can start thinking about the name you want to give your store.
One of the characteristics for which this website is one of the most chosen by those who want to sell their creations online is its price. It offers you a free plan, you only have to pay 2.9% + $ 0.30 per credit card transaction you make.
Compared to Etsy, this platform is not that big but it is a very good option to consider if you are thinking of starting your DIY business. Another very good reason to choose it is because it allows you to set the prices that you think are most convenient for your products and on the other hand, it also offers different payment plans in case you want other options.
It also allows you to choose the way to send your products, for example, direct delivery, electronic delivery, or even curbside pickup.
What benefits does Square Online offer you?
- It offers a no-cost plan where you only pay the standard credit card processing fees.
- You can access more advanced options by paying an economic payment
- The platform is not complicated at all to use.
- It is an excellent option for small entrepreneurs.
- The platform offers a wide variety of sale of handmade products.
- The platform offers the possibility of selling different services and allows you to receive donations.
- You do not need to have prior experience in technical matters.
- The platform offers easy-to-use photo editor tools to make your products visually appealing.
- The platform offers templates suitable for mobile devices.
12. Saatchi Art
This online site is considered the best in the world so that artists can make their sales, its service is completely free and is available in more than 100 countries. In addition, it is characterized by providing artistic consulting services to each of its registered users, in this way it can improve the stay of each one of them as well as ensure that each object that is sold is of quality. In this way, both the customer and the seller can be satisfied.
Saatchi usually charges a percentage for each sale made through the platform, that is, the artist keeps 65% of the profit while Saatchi keeps the rest, but the website will take care of the logistics and the shipment of the package. In such a way that the creator of the painting or creations will only be responsible for the packaging.
Being one of the most reputable and recognized sites in the world to make artistic sales, the site requires a series of requirements to be part of the global community, some of them are: The artist will have to display a credential where reveal your identity and a logo, place a price on each of your works, place keywords on them and respect the quality parameters.
What benefits does SaatchiArt offer you?
- The platform sends a courier to where you are to pick up your product and send it to your client, so it takes care of the logistics.
- The artist keeps 65% of his sale. There are no additional fees for sellers.
- Artists have access to a huge audience as the platform has millions of followers on their social media.
- The platform promotes and gives visibility to featured artists on its own catalog section.
- The platform releases discount codes from time to time to attract more buyers.
- The platform supports women entrepreneurs.
- The platform provides space for painters, who are dedicated to art prints, drawings, sculptures, and photographs.
- The visibility of your work is worldwide, available in more than 100 countries.
- The platform offers artistic advice.
- The platform offers marketing tools and they are available to all sellers.
Final Thoughts
The choice of the web portal to sell your crafts will depend solely and exclusively on you.
The portals that we have mentioned are marketplaces for the sale of handmade products, they attract visits and sell through their platforms serving as a means to artisans who want to make their projects more visible.
Although Etsy is indeed a great trade of artisan products worldwide, the ideal is to know other portals and try them to find out which ones work best with your products. What may be giving good benefits to one may not be the same for others.
We hope this article has served as a guide to selling your crafts online.