The eCommerce platforms have undoubtedly proved to be one of the best profit earning platforms in today’s world of tough competition. The online world has set the quality level of various products higher. Every brand’s seller is working hard to fit and survive in this sturdy online marketplace. It is a folksy and friendly eCommerce platform for selling and buying products. If you can build a marketplace like Etsy, then no one can stop you from earning plenty. Also, creating such a multi vendor marketplace will boost the finances of the country prominently.
What is Etsy?
Etsy is an online marketplace promoting sales of handmade items, vintage goods, jewelry, collectibles, toys, clothing, custom-designed products, home decor items, art and crafts made by independent artisans and crafters. Etsy is considered the hub of an enthusiastic, creative community such as crafters, vintage sellers, artisans, and other individual sellers.
Etsy is a user-friendly eCommerce application. As the IT professionals say, Etsy is nothing but a derivative contract that allows two or more parties to make healthy commercial exchanges. Etsy is a transactional eCommerce platform that majorly focuses on various handmade or vintage items. Etsy is the eCommerce hub for those sellers and buyers who love to sell and purchase art & craft and handloom products.
The Power of Marketplace Platform
Etsy is just not an online store to sell and buy products. Instead, Etsy is a wide and global commercial platform where people come together to develop, sell, purchase and collect various unique and exclusive items. Etsy is a universal online marketplace. It possesses an envision since its inception to bring a positive, optimistic, and efficacious change in the lives of small or mediocre craftsmen and sellers in the world.
The best part of Etsy is that it does not have a specific warehouse. It is an online marketplace that supports independent makers. The global online marketplace forms a nexus between the makers and sellers of various handmade and vintage products. It, in turn, makes it easy for both makers and sellers to provide something exclusive to their buyers and also helps them to develop a strong customer base.
Importance Of Data Safety in A Marketplace Scenario
Whether it is the identity of the product maker, product seller, or product buyer, every information is stored about them in a secure manner. Since Etsy is an online global commercial marketplace, there are high chances of leakage of data and information about the people associated with this platform. It is thereby, Etsy always uses an impeccable and adroit security system to maintain holistic security and safety.
Also, if the product maker, seller, or buyer is in need of any support or assistance, the dedicated employees of Etsy are always ready to step forward and resolve their issues.
The handmade products include an eclectic range of jewelry sets, bags, home décor, and clothing. The vintage items also include furniture, art & craft supplies, various types of handmade tools, and toys made up of different natural products.
Opportunities An Online Marketplace Can Bring to Users
An online marketplace like Etsy gives abundant opportunities to different handmade sellers, artisans, and craftsmen to make a good profit in the online eCommerce industry. The protocol of an online marketplace like Etsy is that all its vintage products should be at least twenty years old or can be more than that.
It was surveyed in the year 2018 by a registered organization that the online marketplace like Etsy approximately had over 60 million items in its marketplace. The multi vendor marketplace like Etsy connected almost 2.1 million sellers with almost 39.4 million buyers. And at the end of that year, 2018, the online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods, namely Etsy, had about 874 employees.
How Is Etsy Beneficial to Sellers?
Etsy offers sellers to create their shops on this platform free of cost. Each listing of products on Etsy will cost $0.20 for the seller. And Etsy allows each of those listings of products to remain on the shop’s page for a maximum period of four months. If some buyer buys any of the listed products before four months, the product will automatically get removed.
Etsy does not fix the prices of various products listed on its page. The sellers on Etsy can autonomously fix the price of their handmade products. What Etsy claims is just five percent of the final sale price on each listed product. If you want to create a marketplace like Etsy, you too have to give a lot of beneficial transactional benefits to the sellers to make your application popular.
The eCommerce marketplace for handmade and vintage goods provides the shop owners with a bill at the end of every month. The bill elucidates the fees so charged by Etsy to the sellers for that particular month. It is not that the sellers have to pay the amount on the very next day. Etsy gives them almost till the 15th of the next month to make payment.
The payment mode on Etsy is too flexible. The sellers have the opportunity to offer different payment options to their buyers. The buyers can pay through their credit cards, debit cards, and also through PayPal.
A Multi vendor marketplace like Etsy provides essential benefits to its sellers and is also a very buyer-friendly application. The Etsy homepage has a search bar option where the potential buyers can type their required products. The buyers can also alternatively browse through a list of handmade and vintage items. Etsy holds hundreds and thousands of craft items which are positioned on the left side of the homepage. And buyers have can choose their favorite one from a long-listed category like:
- Home Décor
- Home & Living
- Jewelry
- Women
- Men
- Kids
- Vintage
- Weddings
- Handloom
- Trending items
- Mobile Accessories
- Handmade gift items
- Toys & Entertainment
Furthermore, the list does not end here. The buyers can also choose more items by clicking the option of “more ways to shop” on Etsy.
To build a marketplace like Etsy is just not a very easy cup of black coffee. A lot of hard work, expert team spirit, and a proficient web developer are required.
Etsy gives a lot of monetary benefits to its buyers. Etsy has the feedback option on its product page. If the buyer doubts the chosen product, then the feedback page will help the buyer decide upon shopping for the particular product. Other than this ‘add to cart ‘option, the buyer can add the selected products and then continue shopping.
To register on Etsy, the buyers do not have to open a different email id. Rather the buyers can register with Facebook or with their existing g-mail account.
How To Create an Online Marketplace Like Etsy?
Suppose you are thinking of building a marketplace like Etsy before consulting a reputed web developer like WebRock Media. In that case, you must sketch an outlook or a framework of an online marketplace. To build a marketplace like Etsy, you must construct:
- Niche products for your marketplace
- Good seller community
- An easy-to-use application
- A profit-oriented eCommerce application
- Help turn pastimes into profits
- Benefit your sellers with your marketplace policies
- Help build sellers a good customer base
You can also build a marketplace like Etsy on WordPress. That will make your application handier and more user-friendly.
App Design Specifications for a Marketplace Like Etsy
An online marketplace has two kinds of users; product sellers and buyers. So, the platform needs to be user friendly for both categories of users. The marketplace app development work should be done wisely to ensure all its users are able to use the site comfortably and conveniently.
You must seek help from an expert web development agency that houses a team of expert developers. Focus on the following areas while creating an online multi vendor marketplace like Etsy.
User Interface (UI)
The user interface (UI) plays a major role in deciding the app’s success. Once the website or app layout is ready, the UI designers will start working on the interface. Your team of app designers will come up with the best interface to ensure user convenience and comfort while navigating through the app. Understanding the user preference is a key area while deciding the app or site’s interface. The use of a trendy marketplace theme, along with cohesive colors, fonts, forms, etc., should all be centered around the app users. This will help the app users to explore the site and use its services.
User Experience (UX)
User Experience (UX) plays a significant role in an app’s success. Hire an experienced UX designer from a renowned web design agency and discuss your web app requirement. The UX designer will identify the app user’s expectations and motivate them to explore the app. Also, a high-end UX design will be able to cater to the users when they visit the site or app. Remember, in today’s date, app users only spend time on the site if it can effectively woo them. They will not waste any time if the site is not able to cater to their expectations. So, design wisely and design to perfection.
Hiring a team of app developers and designers will help you get what you desire from your marketplace app like Etsy. There can be times when the development team will act as designers. All you need to do is discuss your project requirements thoroughly before beginning with the work so that there remains no gap between the expectation and project delivery.
What Technology Should You Use For Developing Online Marketplace Like Etsy
If you want to have a large audience like Etsy, you must ensure that your app functions on all platforms. Going for cross-platform app development will help you target a wider audience and also ensure a highly functional marketplace app.
Offering a great user experience to your audience is the key to gaining their attention, building trust, and eventually promoting transactions. Your app should perform equally on mobile devices, desktops, laptops, tabs, etc., and offer uninterrupted navigation through the app.
It is best to discuss your project requirements, your expectations, business goals, etc., with the app development and design team. Having more transparency and clarity on the project expectations will help them offer what you seek from the marketplace project.
So, make a list of the features and functionalities that you want to integrate on the multi vendor marketplace and enjoy attracting customers. Remember, the more audience you can attract to use your marketplace, the more chances you will have to generate revenues.
Importance of App Testing While Launching Marketplace Like Etsy
As you gear up for catering to a large number of users through your online marketplace, you must ensure the best of its kind app functionality. Your marketplace should be able to effectively cater to the requirements of its users. And, for that, your marketplace web app should pass through a quality check of all the parameters. Following the minimum viable product model will help you to ensure all that you want to inculcate on the web app.
As you are planning to build a marketplace like Etsy, you must have made a list of all the features you want to add in the web app. So, discuss the same with your app development team so that they incorporate all the special features in the web app and also run it through quality check so that it offers the best functionality and keeps the users engaged on the app.
How Etsy Generates Revenues
It was recorded in the year 2018 that Etsy earned a revenue of about US$603.70 million. Etsy registered with a net income of about US$41.25 million. There are few streams through which Etsy generates money. They are:
- Through the marketplace sellers, Etsy earns 5percent of the sellers’ final sale value.
- Each listing product on the Etsy page is charged $0.20
- Services fees like ‘promoted listings,’ payment processing, various purchases of shipping labels
- Fees received from the third-party payment processors.
The online global e-commerce marketplace is Etsy. It is a gigantic e-commerce platform that offers various uniquely designed handmade and vintage products. A marketplace like Etsy is an e-Commerce swap that forms a strong nexus between artisans and craftsmen and product sellers and product buyers. An online marketplace like Etsy holds unlimited listed handmade products on its homepage. The categories of handmade and vintage items range from:
- Home Décor
- Home & Living
- Jewelry
- Women
- Men
- Kids
- Vintage
- Weddings
- Handloom
- Trending items
- Mobile Accessories
- Handmade gift items
- Toys & Entertainment
The multi-vendor marketplace, Etsy, is designed so that it can earn easy revenues without creating much of a hassle for the product sellers associated with it. Whenever the seller makes a successful sale, a service charge of 5 percent is claimed on the product’s final sale by Etsy. On the listing of products by the seller on Etsy’s homepage, a particular amount is charged on each product. Apart from this, there are various additional sources of revenue income for Etsy. Revenue earned through the following:
- Website building tool
- Etsy plus service for the seller
- Product advertising
- Payment processing
An online marketplace like Etsy was founded in the year 2005. It is mainly based in Brooklyn. Public got access to the company in the year 2015. In the year 2018, the global online e-Commerce platform earned huge profits. And now, the multi-vendor marketplace like Etsy is a hugely successful e-commerce company that celebrates generating approximately more than $1.7 billion on average every year.
Working Procedure Of Etsy
Etsy is an online universal e-commerce marketplace where hundreds and thousands of product makers, product sellers, and product buyers work together every day. Etsy is a multi-vendor marketplace that provides a huge profit earning platform, especially to the small and mediocre craftsmen or handmade product makers and small businessmen.
The major forte of Etsy is its handcrafted items. The handmade products are non-branded, non-replicable, originally crafted, and designed by proficient craftsmen. The products listed on the Homepage of Etsy by the Etsy product sellers are genuinely unique and solely available only in the humongous well-established online global marketplace, namely Etsy.
The best part about Etsy is that it caters to various sectors of demographic buyers. Whether it is about the young millennials between 18-35 or the old generation, the sellers on Etsy can easily create a good customer base by offering exclusive handmade and vintage products even for bridal parties, brides, and gaudy occasions.
A marketplace like Etsy holds certain idiosyncratic protocols. Etsy, too, holds one such perk for all the sellers. Almost all the vintage products listed on the Etsy homepage must be at least twenty years old or can be even more. So you being a buyer, if you want to purchase something from Etsy, then get ready to possess something vintage and exclusive from all other products.
If you sign or register as a seller with Etsy, the process is extremely lucid and simple. Etsy would not even charge you a penny on your inauguration of an online shop on the platform. The simplicity of the joining procedure and free-of-cost online shop opening facility has added more product sellers to the e-commerce company.
If you are a buyer, you do not need to register with Etsy from a separate email ID. You can highly register or sign in with your Facebook or G-mail account.
The buyers can choose from an eclectic range of products like:
- Home & Living
- Art & Collectibles
- Jewelry & Accessories
- Toys & Entertainment
- Clothing & Shoes
Even if the buyer is not satisfied with the list of products included in all these categories, Esty has more to offer. The potential customers or buyers can choose from more items by clicking the option of ‘more ways to shop’ on Etsy.
An online marketplace like Etsy has facilitated the sellers with lots of selling-friendly options through which the product sellers can increase their customer base easily and earn a good amount of revenue.
The handmade product sellers can easily opt for certain process steps like payments, storage, and shipment of products handled by Etsy. By following such processes, a gigantic marketplace like Etsy will get a better space to compete with other reputed online e-commerce marketplaces like eBay, Poshmark, or Vinted, which also endeavors to cater to its buyers holistically.
There is a special feature of Etsy product sellers, which is a forum and an Etsy Team. The Etsy forum and Etsy Team allow various small, mediocre and even big businessmen to collaborate with their nearby sellers. The Etsy forum also helps the merchants and product sellers to form productive business strategies to welcome a good amount of profit in their collaborative or joint venture business.
The availability of a multi-vendor marketplace like Etsy is very simple. You can get the user-friendly application by logging in to the company’s website. You can also download the application through Apple’s Application Storage and also from Google’s Play Store.
How Does The Online Global Marketplace Etsy Work?
The wide and popular online marketplace: Etsy has developed a very healthy revenue-earning methodology. It was recorded in the year 2018 that Etsy earned a revenue of about US$603.70 million. Etsy registered with a net income of about US$41.25 million. The years 2019 and 2020 were not so good for the online e-commerce marketplace, with time, it is again reaching back to its previous position.
From the early days, Etsy has planned certain unique policies to earn its revenue very easily. Moreover, one of the attractive parts is the most demanding online marketplace like Etsy. The urge to earn a hefty revenue amount has never created pressure on its product sellers. Rather the product sellers get a good portion of time to pay the service fees to Etsy every month.
The multi-vendor marketplace like Etsy earns revenue or money in several ways. They are:
- Listing product fees
- Seller transaction final sale fees
- Promotional advertisements
- Subscription fees
- Payment processing fees
From Etsy’s origination, it is operating upon a marketplace business model.
The various revenue collected by Etsy are as follows:
- The Listing fees per item or product is charge $0.20
- Transactional Fees for every successful sale are 5 percent commission of the total sale price. The company increased its commission fee from 3.5 to 5 percent in the year 2018.
- Promotional advertisement fees are only taken from the seller when any potential customer or a casual user clicks on the given advertisement. The cost varies from one click to another depending on the advertising spots. Usually, the businessmen or associated merchants pay about twelve to fifteen percent of commission if a sale takes place from the offsite advertisements.
- Subscription fees are charged every month of about $10.
- Etsy allows merchants to build their domain with the help of the Pattern website. For this particular service, Etsy charges a monthly fee of about $15.
Etsy provides its sellers with a flexible payment mode. Sellers can pay through credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, and Etsy credit. Apple Pay and Google Pay are also acceptable by Etsy.
An online marketplace like Etsy recorded about $1.7 billion for the year 2020. An increase of almost 100 percent revenue from the year 2019, which recorded approximately $818million. Etsy has generated revenue or net income of about $348 million over a similar timespan.
If you want to know how to create an online marketplace like Etsy, visit one of the best web developers, WebRock Media.
What Is The Target Audience For Etsy?
According to an article by Fortune.com, it has been noticed that since the year 2018, Etsy’s major sellers are women. Etsy is an online Global commercial platform that possesses approximately 86 percent of women sellers among other product sellers.
The huge catastrophe of Covid-19 could not deteriorate the popularity of Etsy.
A year back in 2020, the world of handmade and vintage products was especially dominated by women. Various product makers, sellers, and buyers who seemed to be mostly women or females have successfully developed a healthy and awe-inspiring online transactional ambiance. Etsy has become a great source of income and collection for small and mediocre female makers, sellers, and buyers.
The universal online marketplace like Etsy does not possess only female product makers or sellers, but the involvement and engagement of women makers and sellers are undoubtedly more in numbers.
The Classic Audience On Etsy
The distinctive age range of the audience on Etsy is the Millennials. The age group is generally between 18 and 35 years of age (eighteen to thirty-five years). Other than that, the older generation finds it interesting to buy handmade and crafted vintage items through the e-Commerce platform.
The survey shows that among the millennials, most of them are women. Etsy is a favorite majorly for bridal parties, brides, and weddings. Mostly searched categories on Etsy are jewelry for bridal parties, accessories for brides and weddings.
Since the early days of Etsy, various changes have taken place in the multi-vendor marketplace like Etsy. There have been ups and downs in earning revenues, changes in employee policies, etc. But one thing which remained almost constant is that Etsy possesses mainly women or female products sellers. And such a type of female predominance has created more of a feminine design structure for various handmade and crafted products.
A marketplace like Etsy also has male sellers who cater majorly to women buyers. And it is again obvious that having a majority of women sellers will mostly cater to female or women buyers, including male buyers. But the number of male buyers is again lesser compared to female buyers.
According to a holistic survey by Statista, which is an online statistics tool recorded that:
- The Year 2017 – Percentage of female or women buyers – 81 percent
- The Year 2017 – Percentage of male buyers – 19 percent
The survey also recorded:
- 81 % of Female buyers – 15 % were younger than 25 years of age.
The Statista survey declared an approximate age between 25-40 years of age (twenty-five to forty years of age) are the major buyers on the online global marketplace – Etsy.
So, this result portrays that an online marketplace like Etsy has developed prototypical demography. The major buyer population on Etsy is young and mainly females.
Archetypal Etsy Customer
According to different genuine sources, in 2020, the classic average customer base on Etsy was identified as young females. The typical customer base on Etsy is majorly between eighteen to thirty-five years of age. If you are a product seller on Etsy, you will sell your listed products to the average buyers or branch out for another customer base in the online niche marketplace.
Identify Etsy’s Audience And Target Market
With all the above information and after reading various recorded surveys, it is understood that the multi-vendor marketplace’s target market and audience like Etsy are majorly young millennial women.
Moreover, one thing that is important about such young millennials is that they too have the money to spend on various handmade and vintage products of Etsy.
The audience on Etsy has various choices and requirements. But bright color pallets, original handmade and vintage designs are enormously preferred by the majority. However, such streamlining of product choices does not claim that Etsy’s product list is limited to certain typical items for their dedicated classic buyers.
Instead, the global online e-commerce platform has showcased various other types of handmade and vintage products.
Since Etsy majorly caters to bridal parties, brides, and weddings, the products associated with these categories have earned major feedback and responses. And other top-rated and high-selling shops developed a tendency to gear towards such products on Etsy.
Women generally buy jewelry and accessories related to bridal parties and weddings on Etsy. And the shops selling such items or listing such products on the homepage of Etsy are gaining in plenty. This picture, too, made other shops and makers and sellers follow a typical pattern on Etsy. Hence landing up in catering to the particular demographic buyers or audiences.
Current Number Of Sellers And Customers On Etsy
An online marketplace like Etsy is not only global but humongous too. And since the e-commerce platform is user-friendly, hundreds and thousands of product makers, product sellers, and product customers or buyers get associated with Etsy. Such a gigantic association generates huge traffic and revenue every year.
Just three years down the line, in 2018, the active number of sellers was 2.1 million. There were 39.4 active customers or buyers.
The active number of sellers earned approximately 3.9 billion dollars in revenue selling on Etsy. And the global e-commerce platform itself earned almost about 604 million dollars as Etsy’s Fees and as its service charges.
Both the active number of sellers and buyers continuously helped in generating revenue for Etsy. And the year 2018 became one of the most successful years for Etsy in its history.
In the year 2020, due to the pandemic, it was noticed that though, with almost the same active numbers of product sellers, the online marketplace did not earn the same amount of revenue. The number of sellers in the year 2020 was almost the same. But the number of active buyers or customers was less compared to the year 2018.
As the revenue of Etsy turned down slightly in the year 2019, many product sellers and other community forums are raising questions.
The reason behind the downswing of Etsy’s revenue in the year 2019 can be analyzed in the following ways:
- Etsy implemented more services for the seller like “pattern” and “Etsy Plus.”
- Such services claiming more Etsy fees than previous years
- Increase of seller service fees and decrease of product sale
- Etsy’s incompetent search engine
- Buyers spending almost an hour finding a particular product
Such loopholes on Etsy’s end have resulted in a little depreciation of revenue.
Etsy Future Plans
As of now, a marketplace like Etsy is too suffering through the pain of the pandemic. As per records, the years 2019 and 2020 have not shown a good revenue turn out for Etsy compared to the historic turnover in the year 2018.
Due to various reasons, an online marketplace like Etsy is declining slowly, and to sort this revenue shrink, both Etsy sellers and community members are working hard day and night. Their plan is simply nothing but mainly to reach at least the level of sales of the year 2018.
Niche Demographics on Etsy
Etsy is trying to diversify its target audience and target market by keeping track of special social cultures. The multi-vendor marketplace will cater to the majority section of women and various streams of customers and buyers. The plans for targeting the niche demographics are as follows:
- To create such products out of natural items like tungsten, oak, pinewood, and metal to cater to both men and women.
- It is giving more priority to its popular, driven handmade shirts, sweaters, etc.
- Not to produce items to cater to a typical customer base of young women or female millennials.
- Etsy is creating fake food-designed earrings and other accessories to cater to multiple buyers.
- They are producing stationery products.
Targeting The Main Classic Demographic Audience With A New Etsy Plan
It is always safer to target the old customer base by developing a new set of products. Here, the competition increases. It might also happen that you are producing listed selling items already seen by your potential customer in some other online shop.
Moreover, if you plan to go with a less-known niche, then target a small customer base. And if you have plenty of options in your listed products, then you have a chance to target a big customer base. The permutation and combination calculative are very important when a product seller in an online global marketplace like Etsy.
But the major task would be to:
- Study The Market Completely
- Know What You Are Selling
- Target Buyers From Different Demography
- Do Not Seek To Sell A Particular Age Group
- Follow The Trend Of The Online Market
- Try To List New Products On The Etsy Homepage Every Four Months
- Endeavor To Meet The Requirements Of The Customer
WordPress Marketplace Themes
Selling products would not have been so enchanting and easier if WordPress marketplace themes were not there in the IT industry. Whether it is for Etsy or any other multi-vendor eCommerce platform, WordPress can provide you with many marketplace themes.
All you need to do is choose from the list of themes for building marketplace like Etsy and let your team of developers work wonders in setting up your online multi vendor marketplace. An attractive theme along with a good UI/UX will essentially help you gain a large number of users on the site and eventually generate a good amount of revenues.
An eCommerce market is though not rocket science but is more complex than a regular online store. Without a few specific functionalities and features, you will not build a user-friendly marketplace like Etsy. Various special features like:
- Enabling vendors to register and also create their online store
- Easy search and filter functions
- Good Compatibility with recognized and popular eCommerce plugins, etc.
Collaborate with A Reputable Software Agency to Build Your Online Marketplace
If you are wondering about how to create marketplace like Etsy on WordPress platform, then you must know that taking expert help will be the best approach towards building such a platform. Collaborate with a reputable software agency like WebRock Media. You will get professional services along with top-class work.
If you are looking for the best way to set up marketplace like Etsy or create a marketplace like Etsy on a WordPress platform, then WebRock Media is the name for you. We are a recognized and certified web developer. Our state-of-the-art software developers not only know the specification of how to make Etsy marketplace, but these proficient professionals will also help you to build another eCommerce marketplace like Etsy. Fetch yourself with one of the best web developers to earn the maximum revenue for your business.