If your small biz includes your handmade creations, check into Etsy, an online market for handmade items.
You can sell anything that is handmade or, a bit more loosely put, hand-assembled or hand-altered. … If human hands put some love into the object, odds are you can sell it on Etsy.
It is a marketplace only; Etsy does not handle any part of the buy/sell transaction. You can set up a free “shop” with your own username. Sellers can be located anywhere globally. It includes a simple feedback system.
The fee structure is also pretty simple:
It costs $0.10 per quantity to list an item on Etsy, regardless of the selling price.
When you sell an item, there is a flat 3.5% commission fee assessed by Etsy.
Most Intriguing Searches
The ability to search by color, place, time and material has got to be unique! That seems to suit a marketplace for unique and handmade items. I think this will contribute to better browsing and, hopefully, more purchases.
Etsy could be another way for crafty rural biz people to reach a world-wide market.
small biz rural entrepreneurship Etsy crafts handmade marketing
- Rural business idea: sell foraged fruits and more - August 3, 2021
- Best practices for rural housing - July 19, 2021
- How to be more open to new ideas #IdeaFriendly - July 3, 2021
- Market your small town as a movie filming location, attract movie and game fan tourists - June 28, 2021
- Survey of Rural Challenges 2021 results, analysis of themes from 2015 through today - June 7, 2021
- What makes a small town a micropolitan or nanopolitan? - May 22, 2021
- Improving Rural Housing: turning blighted dilapidated houses into new homes - May 7, 2021
- Are marijuana shops good or bad for small towns? - April 22, 2021
- Downtown is your town’s core: How to make your case - February 22, 2021
- Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
It’s $.20 per quantity to list an item on Etsy.
Thanks for the update! Not surprising that it has changed in the two years since I first wrote about Etsy. I’d love to hear feedback from anyone who uses the service, too.