Moving From Etsy to Shopify: An Ecommerce Migration Story

In 2009, the Polder family decided to become farmers. At the time, they were living on a half-acre property in Melrose, Florida, and had no prior farming experience. They made the small space work for them, raising rabbits, making jams, and selling them both locally.

Today, the Polder family lives and works on a 115-acre farm, where they run a successful handcrafted wooden home-goods business. The majority of their sales comes from their own Shopify store, but it wasn’t always this way.Old World Kitchenmade its living offline before launching an ecommerce presence on Etsy.

The family credits Etsy with getting their start online, but moving to Shopify in order to scale was critical to their growth.When the Polder family made the shift, they increased conversion, expanded to resale goods, and built an owned email list.

Here, the family’s business manager, Loran Polder, speaks about her family’s journey and the benefits of moving beyond the marketplace.

Meet Old World Kitchen

After dabbling in basket weaving, blacksmithing, and leather work, Loran’s dad, Trevor, found his stride withwoodworking. The family began selling his handcarved wooden spoons at local farmers markets, garnering positive reception. The success of the spoons prompted the family to pursue the farming business in a serious way.

“We just went for it," says Loran of the family’s early days. "We certainly weren’t getting rich doing it, but it was moving in the direction of our dreams."

You just don’t see people bringing this kind of product to your doors these days.

Loran Polder

The Polder family then packed their bags and moved to a larger farm property in Tennessee, adding dairy cows and beekeeping to their scope. True to their Old World approach, their initial sales channel was also a throwback. The Polders packaged their honey and handmade goods into gift baskets, andsold them door to-door. “You just don’t see people bringing this kind of product to your doors these days,” says Loran.

低田发现与约略惊人的成功oach, but it was time consuming and unsustainable. That’s when a neighbor suggested an Etsy store. But at the time, the family didn’t even own a home computer. “We were actually going to the local library to check emails,” Loran says.

“We knew nothing about marketing,” says Loran. “It just seemed to us, sheltered as we were, that you put up a website and people got to it somehow.” The main benefit of a marketplace, however, is that high-intent buyers are built in. And three days after launching, they made their first sale. “That was hugely encouraging to us,” says Loran.

Building a brand on their own terms

It was when a pop-up opportunity landed on their plate that the Polder family realized they hadn’t invested enough in their actual brand. As theyimagined their brandmaterializing in a physical way, it helped them hone in on their message and vision for the company as a whole.

The investment in their brand led to even more success—until the family hit the peak of their handmade production capacity. That’s when they asked themselves: How do we scale?

I think that a lot of crafters have this idea that you have to be the poor struggling artist, like there’s something wrong with figuring out how to make your business profitable.

Loran Polder

The family considered investing in aCNC machineto create another line of wooden spoons at a lower price point. The move, however, would contradict the brand’s by-hand ethos. The alternative? Increase their prices. “I think that a lot of crafters have this idea that you have to be the poor struggling artist,” says Loran, “like there’s something wrong with figuring out how to make your business profitable.”

Their customers are happy to pay the higher prices for products rather than buy from other producers selling comparable products at a fraction of the cost. That’s because the family behind Old World Kitchen isn’t selling just a spoon. They’re selling a way of life, their story, and an experience.

As their brand grew, and their prices became more aligned with a luxury brand, the Polders found Etsy could no longer meet the needs of their growing business. Loran felt the typical Etsy shopper—younger and more budget conscious—was no longer their target audience.

The Polders began to grow their social channels in an effort to build a customer base outside of Etsy. In the meantime, they upgraded their camera and learned photo software to drastically improve theirecommerce photography. When they were ready to move away from Etsy, they tried other ecommerce platforms before landing on building a new store on Shopify.

The new Old World Kitchen

Moving from Etsy to a new store on Shopify was a game changer. “We were just absolutely blown away, because our conversion rate went up so much,” says Loran.

While the family needed to learn marketing on the fly, the efforts meant their visitors were high-intent. “There’s a huge amount of distraction on Etsy,” Loran says. “It’s more like strolling through a crafts fair rather than intentionally driving up to a brick-and-mortar store."

Old World Kitchen held firm with the new prices and continued to grow a following. The new pricing model allowed it to scale while staying true to goods made by hand. Each year, as they continue to hit the ceiling of their production capacity, the family regroups to decide how they can continue to grow while maintaining brand integrity.

One of those strategies was partnering with other brands as resellers—another avenue of growth that would not have been possible with Etsy. Now, complementary products like cast iron cookware and tea towels are available in the store.

When (and why) to move from Etsy to Shopify

Loran credits Etsy for getting the family’s business off the ground. The platform was the perfect place to experiment with ecommerce, learn about online customer service, and bring their product to an existing audience.

Eventually they outgrew it.

The freedom and flexibility of running a business on Shopify lets them scale their business and automate a lot of Old World Kitchen’s commerce processes, while also focusing on what they do best: making.

When to migrate from Etsy to Shopify and build your own ecommerce store depends on your goals, growth rate, and the features your business needs from a platform.

As a store owner, you might be ready to move your handmade business and open a new Shopify store if:

• Brand is integral to what you make.If your story or your visual branding design are important to you, it’s more challenging to center these on Etsy. Port your products to a platform, like Shopify, that allows you to own your brand story and customize the experience for your customer.
• You want to scale by converting your handmade production to a manufacturer.While Etsy now allows some mass-produced goods, the audience is still predominantly those looking for handmade or vintage goods. When you make this move, you may have outgrown the Etsy customer.
• Your target audience exists outside of the Etsy community.This may be the case if your brand decides to target a more luxury-focused customer. Setting up an online store lets you optimize for the search terms that are relevant to you.
• You’re interested in expanding your brand beyond products you make yourself.Etsy prohibits reselling, except in the case of vintage items. If you’re looking to partner with other brands to curate products, your own Shopify store will give you more flexibility to do so.
• You want to have control over your ownmarketingand customer lists.When you build on platforms like Etsy or some social channels, you often don’t own your audience or customer lists. Owning a store on Shopify lets you collect customer emails and market your business your way. Communicate directly to your loyal customers to ensure repeat business.
• You have surpassed a certain number of sales per month.Etsy’s pricing model relies on per-listing and per-transaction fees. This is ideal for new businesses, but the costs may not be worth it for large-volume stores. Once you’ve crested a certain sales threshold, Shopify’s monthly plans and lower transaction fees may be more attractive.

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In a lot of cases, businesses elect to keep their Etsy shops active even while growing a Shopify store. It’s a tactic the Polder family employs, using their Etsy store as a secondary sales channel.

A business for generations to come

Today, Loran handles all of the tasks involved with keeping the online store running, including everything from social media to email marketing. Her younger sister manages theshipping and fulfillment, while most of the family makes up the production team, with Trevor at the helm. Matriarch Angela Polder heads up quality control. “If anybody’s slacking, she makes sure they know it,” says Loran.

Old World Kitchen is a business designed to support generations to come, with room to incorporate future spouses and children into the mix.

The Polder family’s own story is one and the same with the brand. Being able to tell it on every page of their own site is critical to the success of their business and the preservation of their legacy.

Photos courtesy of Old World Kitchen