Shopify vs Etsy – Which One Is Best For Your Business?

Both Shopify and Etsy are big names in the e-commerce world. They both are completely different but they share a few similarities also. Both platforms are good in their own way. Shopify helps in building beautiful stores and managing them easily. Whereas Etsy provides exposure to your business by presenting it to its millions of shoppers which will also lead to some free sales.

Quick Summary

#7 Main Differences

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1. Ease of Use

Etsy is easier to set up and manage than Shopify. Shopify’s learning curve is more and for this reason, it provides a 14-day free trial, so you can try and test before launching a store.
Winner: Etsy

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2. Domain and Hosting

Shopify provides inbuilt hosting. It provides a free domain on the annual plan. Etsy also provides inbuilt hosting, they will provide an Etsy subdomain for your shop. In Shopify, you have 100% ownership of your store, but in Etsy, they own your store. They can ban me at any time (This happened to me! & I lost all my hard work. Because the Etsy team said that I copied someone’s product image. I explained below)
Winner: Shopify

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3. Themes & Editor

Shopify provides free & paid themes. In Shopify’s Theme editor, you can Customize the homepage, product, Collection, blog, Newsletter page, etc. whereas Etsy doesn’t provide themes.
Winner: Shopify

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4. Marketing Features:

Both Shopify and Etsy provide good marketing features. Shopify doesn’t provide internal traffic whereas Etsy provides automated traffic through the Etsy marketplace and also via Google, Facebook, etc. However, you can get a lot of advanced marketing features from the Shopify app store. But you may need to learn how to use it.
Winner: For beginners: Etsy, For advanced users: Shopify

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5. Small business:

Both Shopify and Etsy are good for small businesses, but Etsy has better features as it provides exposure to new small businesses and helps them get sales quickly which is vital for them.

Winner: Etsy

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6. Payments and Charges

Shopify provides 70+ payment providers and charges transactional charges on sales if used any other payment method than Shopify Payments. Whereas Etsy has limited payment options and charges a 6.5% transaction charge on each sale.
Winner: Shopify

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7. App store

Apps help in automation, design, marketing, and adding new features to your store, Shopify has over 6000+ apps to assist in online business, Whereas Etsy has around 20+ apps.
Winner: Shopify

Features	Winner	Shopify	Etsy
Ease of Use	Etsy	4.3	5
Pricing and Plans	Etsy	4.5	4.6
Payments and Charges	Shopify	4.7	4.3
Small business	Shopify	4.8	4.6
Themes and Customization	Shopify	4.8	1
Products and options	Tie	4.4	4.4
Marketing Features	Etsy	4.4	4.7
SEO	Etsy	4.4	4.7
Shipping	Shopify	4.6	4.5
Support and Resources	Shopify	4.8	4.2
Analytics and Reports	Shopify	4.6	4.5

Author’s Advice: Since you can easily sync all your Shopify products on Etsy also, It is better to start with Shopify. Because just relying on Etsy is too dangerous. Here is how my account got banned just because I copied an image! They have not even warned! You should start both, But I highly recommend Shopify free trial to get started, then sync your Shopify products on Etsy.

Overall Winner: Shopify

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FAQ: Shopify vs Etsy

In-Depth Review

Pricing and Plans

	Shopify	Etsy
Trial Period	14 days free trial	No trial period(free plan)
Starting Pricing	$29/mo	$0
Ecommerce Plans	$29/mo – $299/mo	$0/mo – $10/mo
Enterprise Pricing	custom pricing	No enterprise plan

#Shopify

• Shopify Lite: $9/m
• Basic Shopify:$29/m($26)
• Shopify:$79/m ($71)
• Advance Shopify: $299/m ($269)
• Shopify Enterprise: $2000/m

(Prices in the Bracket are applicable when you buy a year plan)

Shopify’s new plan “Shopify Lite” which costs $9/month offers a cart button that can be embedded in other websites like Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, etc and Social Channels like Facebook and Instagram, etc. Shopify has an enterprise plan “Shopify Plus” that starts from $2000/month.

#Etsy

Etsy has 2 plans

• Etsy Standard – Free
• Etsy Plus – $10/month

Ease of Use

#Shopify

Shopify is a store builder that provides a 14-day free trial to try and test its platform. although Shopify is easy to use, it requires some time to learn and get used to its features. Once the setup is done It’s easy to manage as it has features and applications that can automate your store function. It comes with inbuilt hosting which takes care of setting up and managing a server. Shopify has lots of third-party applications to ease the process of shipping, SEO, marketing, accounting, reporting, etc.

#Etsy

Etsy is an open-selling platform that is super easy to set up, just signup, and an account will be created, and you will have an option to become a seller, after that you just have to complete 6 steps like shop preference, providing a shop name, stocking shop, payment, billing, and shop security information done you are ready to sell. It is also easy to operate and manage products, orders, etc.

Sell on Etsy

Shop preference

Name your shop

Payments and Charges

	Shopify	Etsy
Payment methods	70+	5+
Transaction charges	Transaction charges (2%,1%,0.5%) on sales value respectively on 3 plans for non Shopify payment users.	6.5% on each sale
Credit Card Charges	✔	✔

#Shopify

Shopify has provided over 70+ options for payment providers which include popular Credit card companies and payment providers like PayPal, stripe, etc.

Charges associated with Shopify

Transaction charge on each sale if payments are accepted through other payment providers like (PayPal, stripe, square, etc)”, then Shopify charges[2% on (the $29 plan), 1% on (the $79 plan), and 0.5% on ($299 plan)]. Zero transaction fees are charged when “Shopify payments” are used to receive payments, but it’s available in America, Europe & other developer countries only.

Credit card processing rates can vary for different payment providers, but if you use Shopify payments you can get special credit card rates 2.9% + 30¢ USD for $29, 2.6% + 30¢ USD for $79, and 2.4% + 30¢ USD for $299 plan. an additional fee of 1% for US merchants is applied upon selling cross-border countries.

In the process of operating and managing Shopify, one might come across Shopify apps although they are free and paid you may need a paid subscription for the enhanced specific feature.

#Etsy

Etsy doesn’t have much of options with payment providers, you can receive payments through Etsy payments. it’s supported in more than 40+ countries including the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, etc. Etsy payment supports a wide range of credit cards and also includes payment gateways like google pay, apple pay, and PayPal. If you are from a country where Etsy payments are not supported then you can use PayPal.

Charges associated with Etsy

• Transactions fees of 6.5% on each sale and this can’t be avoided.
• Etsy’s standard payment processing fee of 3% +25¢ on each sale
• The product listing fee is 0.2$ for each product
• Product renewal fees are 0.2$ for each product (note: products automatically renew once in 4 months or auto-renew happens when someone purchases a product)

Small business

If you are getting started online with your small business then you might need to check the following features from both the platforms

#Shopify

Shopify can house any kind of business small, medium, and large business. whether you have a retail business, restaurant, home-based business, etc. It has all those inbuilt features and themes to give your shop a brand look and provide features. It provides lots of email automation tools and social media features so you can communicate with your customers. Shopify has a Point of sale feature to help offline stores.

#Etsy

Etsy can be a good platform to get started if you have a product-based business it can help you in creating awareness about the product and also can help you in getting some sales. Etsy supports lots of small businesses and provides them with valuable customers. Etsy has integration with a square to provide a point of sale feature.

Themes and Customization

	Shopify	Etsy
Themes	80+	1
Free Themes	10+	1
Mobile-Friendly	Yes	Yes
Theme Customization level	Good	Bad
Prebuilt Sections	No	Yes

#Shopify

Shopify’s theme store has 13 free and over 70+ paid professional themes, It has provided themes according to the Catalog size and type of the industry as shown below.

You can add gallery apps to make your website beautiful.

You can change site-wide styling

#Etsy

Etsy doesn’t offer themes and templates, they will create a shop manager where you can manage and list products. you can’t design your shop, However, Etsy lets you create a new separate website through the pattern.

Pattern by Etsy

Etsy Pattern is a website builder platform by Etsy. It lets you sync items from the Etsy shop manager on the pattern website. The pattern is not free but offers a 30-day free trial and then on it’s $15/month. Etsy pattern customization and feature options are in no way near to Shopify. The pattern website builder will be different from your Etsy shop & you have to bring traffic on your own. it also lodges fees which you can check here

Products and Options

#Shopify

Shopify’s Product section consists of options like inventory, Collections, Gift cards, etc. Import products In the CSV file and upload them here, In the media, the section adds Images, Videos, 3d Models of products. add multiple variations of the product like color, size, material, etc. Each variation can be specified for different prices, SKUs, etc.

Shopify has advanced product management.

#Etsy

Etsy has a single-page dashboard to fill out product details, SEO details, and shipping details. you can add up to 9 Images, Etsy generally asks for photos at least 2000 pixels wide for the best fit. Etsy has recently rolled out the feature to add videos to product listings, however, the duration of the video should be between 5-15 seconds, and the video won’t be playing the sound

Note: Don’t copy images from similar Etsy listings, you might be blocked from Etsy

adding images to Etsy

adding videos to Etsy

In Etsy, you need to specify a category that will be helpful for customers looking for that category. You can sell physical and digital products on Etsy, you can brief more about products by mentioning Craft type, Occasion to be used, and meant for Holiday. you can provide multiple variations to the product and collect personalization information for the listing.

Marketing Features

#Shopify

Shopify has good features as it lets you automate social media and email marketing campaigns, Shopify has its own email software to send personalized messages for promotions, newsletters, cart recovery, cross-sell, etc. beside this it integrates with Over 100 third-party email Automation. Shopify automates ad campaigns for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Google from the Shopify dashboard. Shopify has over 1400+ apps that help marketing.

You can add many marketing-free apps.

This image shows the Shopify marketing channels.

#Etsy

Etsy is good with marketing features, It doesn’t come with much integration as Shopify, But it has integration with Pinterest, Outify, Crowd fire, Socioh, etc to help in social media marketing and paid marketing, it also has Email marketing tools such as Mailfold, Aweber, etc

Besides this Etsy itself is a good marketing company, As Etsy is a big marketplace it has huge numbers of shoppers. It provides inbuilt ads features like Etsy ads, offsite ads

Etsy ads are ad campaigns that run inside the Etsy marketplace. by running Etsy ads your listing will be shown on the first row of the page, hence chances of people buying it will be more. Etsy will only charge when someone clicks on the ads

Etsy ads

Etsy Offsite ads

Etsy advertises listings all across the web which includes search engines, social media, ad networks, etc. There is no upfront cost for running ads. Instead, Etsy charges a fee only when you get sales. the ad fee varies according to the sales volume you made in the last 365 days

If you made less than 10000$ /year in revenue you will be charged 15% on the sale attributed to offsite ads

If you made more than 10000$/year in revenue you will be charged 12% of the sale attributed to offsite ads

Etsy offsite ads stats

SEO

#Shopify

Shopify provides an SEO section after each product and collection page, Specify the meta title, description, and URL and see the preview of how it appears on the search engines. Add alt text to your product images.

Shopify search engine preview

These are the following features of Shopify SEO

• provides Auto-Generated Sitemap and Robot.txt
• Inbuilt Blogging Feature
• Auto Page Redirect.

Besides inbuilt SEO, you can get a lot of advanced SEO apps from the Shopify app store

#Etsy

Etsy is a marketplace that has plenty of regular shoppers and it also drives new visitors through search engines. so it has provided SEO features for both the Etsy marketplace and search engines.

Etsy product title is considered meta title, and descriptions are considered meta description. Make sure you add your targeted keywords in the title and description.

Etsy search engine preview

Etsy SEO

As Etsy is a big marketplace it has millions of sellers and shoppers, so when a search happens within the Etsy market, it provides results matching keywords, descriptions, and best-rated, trusted listings. So it’s important to know how it actually works. there are various other factors to rank on the Etsy marketplace.

• Mention category – Mentioning categories is vital as these will allow similar products suggestion to customers.

• Adding Tags – Tags let you add more keywords for your listing, your listing will be found in the tags you mention.

• Renewing post – Renewing a post is a good habit as it makes a listing fresh, it pushes the post up in the search results.
• Specify keywords in titles, description
• Etsy search analytics – Etsy analytics provides good insights on impressions, queries, positions, visits, conversion rate, and revenue as shown below.

• Etsy Seo tools for keyword research

Etsy has integrations with Seo tools like Marmalead, and eRank for analyzing listing SEO status, keyword difficulty, Seo improvement suggestions, new keyword ideas, etc.

Shipping

#Shopify

Shopify has a good shipping setting, it provides an option to set domestic and international rates. it allows for setting flat shipping rates and automated courier shipping rates. It has integration with shipping companies like DHL, USPS, UPS, etc. You can print shipping labels directly from the Shopify dashboard. It has integration with various third-party apps to facilitate the shipping process.

#Etsy

Etsy has a shipping tab at the end of the listing, you can enter a flat shipping rate to let the carriers do it for you. It also integrates and displays carrier rates of popular shipping companies like USPS, customers can choose the carrier services at the checkout. Sellers in the United States, Canada, UK, Australia, and India who accept Etsy Payments or PayPal as a payment method are able to purchase Shipping Labels on Etsy.

Support and Resources

	Shopify	Etsy
Email	✔	✔
Live chat	✔	❌
Phone	✔	❌

#Shopify

Shopify support team operates 24/7. Their support system is available through Live Chat, Phone, and Email. There are forums and communities for Shopify-related discussion. They also provided plenty of blogs and videos for reference.

Shopify support

#Etsy

Etsy provides support through email only, their email team takes a longer time to respond usually within 24-72 hours, to get support go to the Etsy help center page, Select what you need help with and submit the request.

Etsy help center

Etsy marketplace has set rules for sellers on selling on their marketplace. If you seem to violate any of their rules they will suspend your account. They might also put suspension if you don’t pay overdue fees in time. you can check Etsy seller policies

Etsy suspension

If your account gets suspended then you can contact their seller team and most of the time they will reply and check on the suspension reason. The frequency of Etsy putting suspension is more than other platforms, they are too sensitive towards their rules, policies, and customer feedback.

Analytics and Reports

#Shopify

Shopify Dashboard includes lots of data around sales, sessions, customer behavior, Traffic insights, Conversion rate, and much more, this is really helpful to track and compare your store performance time by time.

Shopify Analytics

Shopify Reports

Shopify provides detailed reports on Sales, customers, behavior, etc. Shopify basic plans contain almost all of the reports, to create a custom report you need to upgrade to a $299 plan or alternatively look for an app in the Shopify app store.

Shopify live view

Shopify live view has a globe graphic representation that provides real-time data around the shop’s live add-to-carts, checkouts, and Purchases from all across the globe.

#Etsy

Etsy provides good insights into visitors, orders, and conversions. It represents the store visits on custom data by a line graph as shown below. It makes things simple by breaking down the user’s traffic sources, which helps in estimating the source for the maximum traffic driver.

Etsy dashboard analytics

Etsy displays stats and graphs for a particular listing over a time period. It shows traffic sources for the product and search queries for which the product was displayed. It also shows the traffic visuals from all social media platforms, it also displays the number of favorites the product got. If you need more data for the shop then you can connect Etsy with google analytics.

Product stats

Product Traffic and Search sources

Pros and Cons: Shopify vs Etsy

Shopify Pros	Shopify Cons
1. Zero Transaction fees on each sale for Shopify payment users	1. No free plan and pricing starts from $29/month for a standalone online store
2. you can own a shop and can also sell to different merchants.	2. No marketplace like Etsy to get sales, you have to drive sales on your own.
3. Plenty of integration and a good support system.	3. Sometimes shop requires third-party apps which might increase the overall bill of Shopify.

Etsy Pros	Etsy Cons
1. Cheaper plans and an entirely free plan	1. Transaction fees of 6.5% on each sale.
2. Drive free sales through the Etsy marketplace	2. Limited number of Integrations
3. Easy to set up and use	3. Etsy has the authority to block or ban your shop.

Conclusion: Shopify vs Etsy

Use Shopify over Etsy

• If you are trying to build the business to showcase the services and also sell them online as Shopify makes you enable this feature
• If you are looking to build an online store and want to customize and do branding, then Shopify is best.
• If you want to build a store with full authority and want to scale it then Shopify is best as it has all those necessary features and applications.
• If you want to start your eCommerce business seriously
• If you want a risk-free business (as Etsy may ban you)

Try Shopify For Free

Use Etsy over Shopify

• If you have few products and don’t have much of a budget, then Etsy is best as it has zero starting cost and also brings free sales.
• If you want to test out a product in the market then Etsy is best as you can try and test the product in the market without the marketing cost.
• If you are selling handicrafts, jewelry, arts, and collectibles then Etsy is best as it has millions of shoppers for these categories which will boost your selling.

Try Etsy For Free