The best Etsy alternative is owning your own store
Why
Consider A Brand Site
Your an Etsy seller and you’re happy with offering your products on the Etsy platform…. for now.
Open your brand and expose it to the world outside of Etsy. Show your creations and work through beautiful galleries and communicate with your customers with a blog.
Start your journey of email marketing with collecting email addresses from Etsy customers and potential customers from outside of the Etsy marketplace.
Add a store when you’re ready to start selling directly within a few days!
But
You Really Should Have A Shop
Whether you are just wanting to expand your selling outside of Etsy or you are getting product take down notices and risk having your Etsy shop closed at a moments notice, you should always consider having your own store.
Etsy can close your store without notice, so be prepared by having your own online Shop.
The term “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies more now than ever.
Concerned about the increasing fees on the Etsy platform? Having your own eCommerce website means no commissions, no listing fees, and no random offsite advertising fees that are now a requirement for Etsy sellers and impossible to audit.
The best alternative to Etsy is to own a store that you can completely control.
Our goal is to make this process as easy as possible for any shop owner or business owner to have a professional site done affordably and quickly. So we have simplified the process for our clients.
1. You will complete a quick form about your business so we can better understand your industry.
2. We will present you options with an overall “Look and Feel” for your brand website, also known as “wire frames”. We will work with you to choose a color scheme and an overall look to the site.
3. You will provide us with relevant content written by you including written content (about your brand, mission, bio, etc) and photographs for any galleries Bio pictures testimonials, etc.
4. In approximately 7 working days, we will forward you to our client portal to review your site and make note of any changes.
5. We publish your site after approval and it’s yours to work with moving forward.
* Included email addresses that are setup on your behalf when hosting using our service. More addresses are available via the self service panel.
** Available when using our hosting service.
Brand + Shop
We’ll create an amazing website + shop for your brand
$599(4 Months Free Hosting – $100 Value)
Custom Brand + Shop Website
Up To 5 Content Pages / Features
Full Blogging Experience
Galleries / Portfolio
5 Email Addresses *
SSL Security ** / GDPR + Privacy Policies
Integration To Mailing List Apps (Mailchimp)
Email Collection Forms
Analytics Integration
Social Media Integration
4 Months Free Hosting
SEO For eCommerce Setup
Ad Retargeting Setup
Store Setup (We’ll Ad First 10 SKUs)
Ask Support
If you are unsure about any of our services, fees or how the process works with getting your site built, please take a moment to contact us! We’re always available to help you figure out what the best options are for your business.
More Questions?
More questions about our services? See these Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Of course if they don’t answer your exact question, you can always chat with us or send support an email.
We have spent a lot of time templating portions of websites that are commonly used with the best design practices. With these templated sections, we save an enormous amount of time creating client websites. Less time = less cost.
So when choosing one of our packages, we’ve already done a lot of the time consuming construction.
We aim to have each project completed within 1 week. However, some sites are more complex and require more time. We will advise if there is additional time required.
Additionally, the 1 week completion assumes the client provides all information necessary in a timely manner.
For each website build, you will need to provide all text for each of your content pages (we do not do copywriting). Additionally any images for galleries, portfolios, etc.
If you are having a Shop built, we will need product pictures and images for the first 10 products that are included. (You’ll be given instructions on how to add more products moving forward)
We offer live chat and support email. On occasion we may need to speak by phone. But you can reach us any time with your questions with our support chat (when we’re online) or through our forms on our support page (link)
This depends. Not all chat services and apps are compatible – however MOST are. So if this is a feature you’d like on your shop or brand site, let us know – we’ll help get it going for you.
Unfortunately, we are not content writers. Not that we’re unable to, but no one understands their business and products like the site / shop owner. So we encourage our clients to take the time and write amazing descriptions and content about their brand. We’re happy to look it over for typos, however!
Absolutely! You have full control over everything in your site. We prefer you update your own content so you can learn how simple it is and be encouraged to keep adding photos, blog posts, products and more!
You can even hire someone else to make changes (we can help as well)
Of Course! If we have built a Brand Site for you, and you haven’t altered it substantially, it’s a simple and quick process to add a shop. The cost of your original site build is credited towards the shop site!
Of Course! While most shops and brand sites can be professionally presented with only 5 static content pages, some may require more. In this case, you just tell us what you need and we will come up with the most affordable way to get exactly what you want / need.
First, we hope that is not the case, ever! But if it does happen, we will work with you to fix things that are incorrect and make it great. But you should know, prior to ever starting – you will have the ability to choose layouts, pages, and everything that makes up a professional website. We do this in advance so there are no problems when the site is finished!
If you are using our Hosting Service – we take care of that for you! Our hosting includes update services to make sure your website / shop is always running on the most stable versions of templates, store software, security patches, etc.
If you decided to host your own store or have a third party hosting company host your website / shop, then they will have tools for you to do updates as needed.
Absolutely! We do not see your customer payment details nor can anyone else. NO CREDIT CARD DATA IS STORED ON OUR SERVERS This is stored (if ever) with the payment provider like Stripe, Paypal, etc.
This is possible for sellers that have a lot of products already on Etsy. This is not included in the standard shop that we build, however it is not expensive. The import prices start at $69 and go up to $250 for shops with thousands of products. This is quoted on a per shop basis.
We have been doing multi-channel selling for nearly 20 years. So if you need help with multi-channel management, let us know and we can point you in the right direction or you can request a cost analysis of your project.
Every Store (and Brand Site) is equipped with industry standard SSL for security. If you have a special request for a different secure certificate from a third party, we will assist on getting that installed.
We use the best quality commercial hosting partnerships to provide maximum speed for your site. We also include caching with each site build to maximize performance. However, if you begin to add software, plugins, video, etc – you may see decreased performance.
This depends, actually. We use various corporate hosting partners for services. But we do require all hosting data centers that hold our data and our customer websites to be located in the USA. So your sites will never be in a third world country in someone’s basement running off of a car battery 😉
For all practical purposes, there are no limits to the services. However that is also determined by “fair use”. For example if you have signed up to have a web shop selling hand made buttons but then start streaming pornography from your account, that is obviously not acceptable.
Of Course, the site is yours and you can host it anywhere you want! We will give you a site package at the end of development that you can keep as a backup and put on any compatible hosting service (most). In case of the need or desire to move to a new hosting company, we will help export your site and a current snapshot of everything currently published on your site (blog posts, products, etc)
As for securely hosting your site? We have you covered!
We’re not just going to hand over a site and send you on your way (unless that’s what you want!). We will host and manage the security and updates for you so you don’t have to worry about the little things that take time away from your business.