Selling online without handing over a commission
1 articles on selling online, for stores that already sell somewhere and would like to keep more of it. A marketplace brings you buyers you would never have found and charges you on every order, including the ones from customers who came looking for you by name.
What selling online on your own site changes
Do the arithmetic before having the argument. On a $22 order the fees at a marketplace come to more than most sellers think, and the orders you’re paying the most for are the repeat ones you brought in yourself. That doesn’t mean closing anything. Moving your best sellers across first and leaving the marketplace to do the discovering is usually the sane answer.
Should you sell on Etsy, or on your own site compares the fees on one real order, and selling online without paying commission on your own sales is the six week plan for moving them.
Where to start
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Should you sell on Etsy, or on your own site?
Should you sell on Etsy or your own website? The fees on one $28 order compared, what Etsy gives you that a site can’t, and when running both makes sense.
Nia Okonkwo · 9 min read
Questions
What people ask about selling online
Short answers, with the long version linked. Anything not here, ask us on live chat or by email and a person answers, usually the same business day.
Is it cheaper to sell on my own site than on a marketplace?
Per order, almost always. On your own store the only charge is the card fee, a percentage and a few cents charged by whoever you take the money with. What the marketplace sells you is traffic, which is worth real money if you have none yet. The two are compared on one $22 order, fee by fee.
How do I set shipping rates without losing money?
Work out what a package costs you, packaging and time included, then charge in three bands rather than trying to be exact. Shipping and delivery also has the arithmetic for where to set a free shipping threshold so that it earns rather than costs.
Do I need professional product photographs?
No. A window, a sheet of white poster board and a phone will do it, and consistency across the whole store matters more than any single photograph. Product photographs you can take on a phone has the setup, the five shots each product needs and the file sizes to save them at.
What does my returns policy have to say?
Less is written for you than sellers elsewhere get: there’s no federal right to cancel an ordinary online order, so the window is whatever you publish, and a policy you do publish is enforceable against you. Say the number of days in one sentence and say who pays the return shipping. The eight lines a returns policy needs are set out with the deadlines.
Can I keep my marketplace store and have my own as well?
Yes, and most of the stores we build do exactly that for the first year. The one thing to get right early is stock, because two registers selling the same last item is how you end up apologizing. Stock control for a small store with an online side covers the buffer that stops it.
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