Art Shop,  Journal

Art Shop Diaries 2 – Online Storefront Options

Once I decided to start a shop, one of the biggest things I had to consider was how to structure the shop itself. There are so many ways to sell art, from the very easy plug-and-play of an Etsy shop to buying a table at a trade show to sell to customers in person. There are pros and cons to every option and I’m going to go through some of my personal considerations when weighing my choices.

Etsy seems like the most no-brainer choice. I had an Etsy shop once upon a time way too long ago from which I sold portrait commissions and I did fairly well. At that time, it was a wonderful way to get your products in front of a lot of people with the built in audience on the site that are already kind of targeted to have an interest in purchasing handmade items. The problem is that Etsy has changed a lot since I had a shop there. It’s oversaturated and there are a lot of companies using the site to sell drop shipped items for dirt cheap. Their algorithms are set up to favor artists undercharging for their art, driving costs lower and lower to the point where if you’re actually hand making items with quality materials, nobody is going to see what you’re putting out there and even if you do make a sale, you’re unlikely to see any profit. I have an artist friend who recently started a shop on Etsy and noticed a lot of pressure to undercut herself in order to make sales. With Etsy’s alarmingly high fees and pressure for artists to sell really cheap, artists aren’t profiting in the way they should when selling their work. I’m going to make an entirely separate post about pricing artwork and prints so stay tuned!

Big Cartel is another site where you can essentially sign up and create a shop with templates and get a URL to direct customers to, set up payment info, manage inventory, etc. They charge a monthly fee for your shop past a certain point, but have a free option if you only have a few items you are selling. The free option is limited in how many photos you can post per product, and how many products you can have. Initially, I thought this would be the perfect option for me because they really seem to have minimal fees and haven’t succumbed to the corporate greed nickel and diming of artists that Etsy has. If I didn’t have a website already, I might have chosen Big Cartel to host my shop. I like a lot of what they stand for, but at the end of the day there are still additional fees and the URL for my shop would have to be a separate entity and linked to from my existing site. I worried this would create a disjointed experience, and trying to get the branding/styling to look right on my shop template would have been a hassle.

My website (where you’re reading this right now) is self hosted by me on WordPress. I pay for hosting through Green Geeks (shout out to them for having eco friendly hosting that I’ve enjoyed for several years now) and my site is completely within my control. I have fine tuned my theme to look just how I want it and I can change anything I want on the back end. So I thought to myself, why not just find a way to set up a shop on my existing website? Turns out it was really easy to install e-commerce software (I’m using WooCommerce). It integrates with my existing theme and provides functionality for everything from a customizable shopping cart to product pages, shipping management, and even tax collection. I am still in the process of setting things up, linking services and fine tuning the checkout experience. By the time of launch (still TBD) I will know it inside and out and every step of the shopping and checkout process will align with my vision for the shop. Ultimately, this was why I chose to host my own shop. I want to be connected with and involved in every part of the process. The more I am able to do myself, the less I have to rely on (and pay for) the services of others. I’m going to have quite a few payment options available at launch, and even bought a thermal printer for shipping labels so once a customer places an order, I am linked up with shipping companies on the back end so I can automatically print off the label for an order and save myself time at the post office.

The downside to self-hosting a shop is that it’s a little more difficult to set up. Had I gone with the Big Cartel option, I would not have to tweak or fiddle with everything the way I’m having to with WooCommerce. While there are no fees for creating a shop or receiving orders, obviously there are still some transaction fees for payments but my fees should be a lot lower overall compared to having someone else host my shop. WooCommerce is very modular. There’s an add on for shipping, one for payments, different ways to utilize inventory management structures, product photos, marketing, coupon codes, and the list really does go on and on. It’s more work for sure, but I think the benefit will be that I am building skills I can always use, I can be more independent, and most importantly I can refine all parts of the process so it works for me in the ways I need it to. Since I’m hosting it on my own site, I won’t have to worry about a third party site I need for my business getting sold or closing down, leaving me scrambling for a solution.

This is where I’m at currently in the process of setting up, and what is eating up the most time each day. Learning a completely new skill or system or process requires an amount of mental bandwidth I just don’t always have after a long day at work at my day job. I am having so much fun going through this process and learning new things. It’s really making me feel more empowered as I go. It feels nice to build something for myself.


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One Comment

  • Jennifer Harris

    Your thought process is amazing. Many moving parts but sounds like the best option. You’re just so bright you glow, Wendy. The Northern Light!

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