Thinking of starting an online store, or have an idea for some products and want to know the best way to sell them to the vast audience of the internet? Can’t decide if Etsy or Shopify is better for you? Wait, what if we throw Squarespace into the mix?

If you’re even a little bit unsure about which one of these platforms is right for you - I’m here to help! And I’ll even give you the bottom-line, short answer up front:

…wait for it…

Shopify!

Not the answer you were expecting? Honestly, it all depends on you and your needs when choosing a platform to sell online products. I know, I know, not really the answer you were looking for. But not to fret! We’ll dive into all the deets on each of these platforms and by the end of this article you’ll have a better grasp on what’s important to you and how you can get it.

Let’s get going!

Etsy

You’ve probably bought a few items on Etsy or at least browsed around the site, so you know setting up shop there is basically like putting your items up for sale in a supermarket. You’ve got lots of people (potential customers) browsing your products, but will they ultimately reach for you or someone else (competitors!) on the shelf?

When you build your Etsy store, you’re fairly limited in the number of visual customizations you’ll have. You can choose a logo and banner, but not much beyond that. This leads to every Etsy store feeling very similar, and makes it harder to stand out amongst your competition. On the flip side, because Etsy is a dedicated marketplace, it makes sense that each store has a similar feel. If every store on the site looked vastly different it would detract from the user experience.

Etsy does bring built-in traffic to your site

simply by way of being an online marketplace. And that traffic is almost certainly an audience who wants to buy - a great advantage! (They did search specifically for items to buy, after all!) However, it also brings you built-in competition - even in a niche market. 

Another factor of Etsy is that you are only allowed to sell certain types of products on the site (think arts & crafts, handmade items, or things that can be classified as “vintage” - 20+ years old). There is a way to get around this rule with Etsy’s Pattern product, which allows you to have a standalone site that can be powered in the background by Etsy. However, Pattern has limited options (no email marketing, SEO features, dropshipping, abandoned cart savers, etc.) so just keep that in mind.

As for support resources, Etsy does provide a series of articles and videos but some are noticeably outdated. They also provide customer support via phone, chat and email in 11 different languages - not bad!

If you’re wanting flexibility when it comes to your listings, Etsy’s got you covered. Their app available for iOS and Android allows you to both create and update listings right from your phone. That can be a big time saver if you’re using your phone to take product pictures. Using the app to create the listing allows you to skip the step of transferring the photos from your phone to computer.

Handy!

When you’re ready to ship your items, you have a few options with Etsy. You can choose to ship the items yourself by printing postage labels from within your account, or connect to certain carriers (USPS, FedEx, Canada Post) and save up to 30% on postage at the time of writing. Because Etsy specializes in custom, handmade items many sellers do indeed choose to go the route of shipping things themselves. But if that’s not for you, Etsy also integrates with some fulfillment services like Shipstation and Amazon’s FBA. If you’re ready for full dropship mode, things will be a bit tougher for you, as you can only have products fulfilled by other businesses if you’ve designed them yourself. 

If physical sales are important to you (think selling goods at a tradeshow or similar), Etsy does integrate with Square to accomplish this. But unfortunately this feature is only available in select countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia), and the hardware options are somewhat limited.

Now let’s talk about search engines and SEO. Etsy is the clear winner when it comes to getting your store in front or as many eyes as possible. Why? Because you can optimize your listings for 2 separate search engines: Google and Etsy’s search engine (which is definitely different from Google!). This will take a bit of effort on your part to learn the ins and outs of Etsy’s algorithm, but if it brings you more business then I’d say it’s worth it! 

Ok, time for the most important info: pricing! Etsy only charges you a flat listing fee of $0.20 per item and a 5% transaction fee per item sold. If you want to use their Pattern product that will set you back $15 per month. Etsy does not offer a free trial, but it’s technically free to open a shop and your first 40 listings are free.

Shopify

If Etsy is like selling your goods in a supermarket, Shopify is more like renting a dedicated space to sell your goods (think opening a new store in a strip mall). You have much more flexibility to customize your site, since you are indeed building your very own website (as opposed to having a storefront on someone else’s website.) You can add HTML and CSS coding if you’re so inclined, which will definitely make for a unique and nothing-like-the-template user experience.

All this customization means more work upfront, though. Shopify does have templates for you to use as a starting point, but you’ll need to think about other things like branding, building web pages, mapping domains, marketing, and more before you even start loading products to sell. This can be good or bad, depending on your personality and how you’re wired. If you’re super into marketing, PR, and graphic design (or even if you just like them a little bit) then you’ll have lots of fun customizing your Shopify store. If you’re someone who just wants to get to the nuts and bolts you might not be as thrilled with this part.

Having your very own standalone site also means that you won’t get automatic built-in traffic to it (that’s where that marketing comes in!) So you’ll probably need to work a little harder on your SEO and attracting people to your site to buy your stuff. Fortunately, Shopify makes it easy to do this! Shopify facilitates multi-channel selling across sites like Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, eBay, and even Walmart! 

Whereas Etsy limits the types of products you can sell on their site, Shopify lets you sell anything that’s legal. You’ll need to integrate the Digital Downloads app to sell digital products, but it’s free and relatively easy to install.

When it comes to support resources, Shopify has got you covered with lots of bundled resources and tools (including a dropshipping starter kit) that show you how to get started and be successful with a Shopify store. I would rate their resource library as more extensive than Etsy’s. Shopify also offers customer support via phone, chat and email in a whopping 21 languages.

Similar to Etsy, Shopify also has an app available to create and update listings, and their shipping integrations offer incredible discounts (up to 88% with certain carriers). Shopify also offers dropshipping through a variety of suppliers (Carro, DSers-AliExpress, Sprocket, Modalyst, and more).

Going back to our tradeshow example for selling products in person, Shopify can also be used as a POS payment processor. This allows you to use one platform to track inventory across both in-person and online sales, ultimately saving you time.

When it comes to SEO, Shopify makes that easy too. Don’t get me wrong - you’ll still need to do your own market research to accurately attract your target customer, but Shopify’s standalone nature gives you increased autonomy to get your store in front of more local eyes.

Shopify pricing ranges from $5 - $299+ per month, but they do offer a 14 day free trial. They also charge a transaction fee of 2.9% + $0.30 for online sales, and  2.7% + $0 for in-person sales. While Shopify does offer a host of integration apps, the cost for those can vary from $0 to $2750 per month, so be aware of that.

Squarespace

When it comes to website builders I don’t think you’ll find much of an argument against Squarespace as top dog when it comes to beautiful designs and ease of use. The user interface on the back end is incredibly intuitive and easy to pick up, making it a breeze for a newbie to build with. As you may have guessed, it’s extremely customizable (Squarespace has even more templates than Shopify) and you can always tweak things to your liking by adding HTML and CSS coding if you should so desire.

Just like Shopify, Squarespace is a standalone website builder meaning you will have more work to do in the beginning stages when it comes to customizing a template, creating your business brand, building out all the web pages, setting up SEO and marketing, etc.

However, unlike Shopify and Etsy, Squarespace’s main focus is not on creating a store or selling products. This platform is more of an all-around web builder that you can add a store to. It is possible to build a store and sell things on a Squarespace site, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you have a ton of different products. If you just have a few things you want to sell and are in need of some beautiful templates to create your space, Squarespace might be for you! It’s also much more affordable than Shopify, but with more limited store functionality (more on pricing later.)

There is also no built-in traffic to your site since you are creating everything brand new. There are no restrictions on what you can sell (as long as it’s legal in your country then you’re good to go), and you can collect in-person payments with the Stripe integration.

As of the time of writing, there are no integrated shipping options (you won’t be able to print postage labels right from the website). But you can get real-time rates from carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and USPS (flat rate or weight dependent shipping are also available options).

Squarespace offers incredibly extensive online support resources - more than both Etsy and Shopify. And there are plenty of community forums and YouTube video tutorials to show you how to do just about anything you can think of with your new website. Customer support is provided via chat and email (no phone support) in 11 languages.

Pricing plans range from $16 to $49 per month, and they do offer a 14 day free trial. Squarespace charges a transaction fee of 0% - 3% per sale depending on the plan you choose, and they do offer some third party app integration for an additional fee (costs can range from $0 - $39+ per month for additional apps). It should be noted that Shopify offers more integrations than Squarespace, though.

Already decided Squarespace is your winner but want someone else to build your site for you?

Check out my Services and Portfolio pages!

Comparison

So, to quickly recap - here’s what we’ve learned:

When it comes to purely selling products I believe Shopify is the winner. Their status as a dedicated ecommerce website builder, design flexibility, ease of use, multi-platform selling options, thorough customer support, and wide range of features will allow medium to larger businesses to thrive.

Not a medium to large business?

Etsy and Squarespace are both viable options for selling products. Just know what you’re getting for your money, and how you want to market your business.

Did I miss any of your favorite features?

What other ecommerce platforms
are you considering?

Let me know in the comments!

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