Shopify vs. Etsy 2023: Pick the Best for You

On Shopify, you can own your own email list, website, and audience whereas on Etsy you don’t. Shopify gives you more control over your marketing as you’re the owner of your website. Since Etsy is a marketplace, you reap the benefits of free traffic but you can’t remarket to that audience after the sale is made. On Shopify, you can run retargeting ads for abandoned carts or even send that user an email. The ability to own your marketing is one of the best features of choosing Shopify over Etsy even at first glance the marketplace seems enticing.

On Shopify, you can upload an unlimited number of products for the same monthly price plan you sign-up for. On Etsy the listing fee is $0.20 USD per product added to your page. However, on Etsy, it’s not a one time fee. The fee renews every four months if it isn’t sold within that period. If you have over 1,000 Etsy products listed on your website for a full year that would equal $800 USD for listings alone. If you plan to grow your product inventory, Shopify may turn out to be more affordable.

Shopify vs Etsy: which hosts billion dollar businesses? Since Shopify allows merchants to own their own website, entrepreneurs can grow their business valuation to over $1 billion dollars. Some Shopify stores have already done this.

Shopify businesses are scalable allowing you to start out small and grow into a household brand. On Etsy, you aren’t promoting your brand but your products. Shopify allows you to promote both your business and products to help you build a successful brand. Shopify is built for small, medium, and large ecommerce businesses.

Shopify allows unlimited products on all price plans. One of the benefits of this is you can test or experiment with different trending products to see which converts the most sales. On Etsy, there are listing fees which limit the number of products you can add based on your budget. Plus, since not all products sell well, you won’t need to worry about losing money with tacked on fees on Shopify.

On Shopify, you can design your product page anyway you like. There are countless theme designs (plus you can also do HTML and CSS editing) to alter your website to improve conversions. On Etsy, you need to adhere to their website’s layout with minimal ability to alter things beyond pictures or copy.

When comparing Shopify vs Etsy, it’s clear that competition exists. Though the competition is less visible on Shopify allowing you to find nooks and crannies where you can promote your business away from competitors. You can market your business on any social platform, ad platform, with email lists, and so much more without direct competitors around your listing. On Etsy, when a customer browses a search term, your product blends with hundreds of competitor products making it harder to compete and stand out.

Shopify merchants can set their own prices reflective of the product quality and brand reputation. On a marketplace like Etsy, price competition is more common causing sellers to lower their prices to stay competitive.

When looking at Shopify vs Etsy you might be wondering which platform generates more sales for merchants. Etsy sellers made over $10 billion USD in sales in 2020. Not bad. But Shopify merchants made $119 billion USD in sales the same year. Shopify even had a 96% increase when compared to 2019. When you compare Shopify vs Etsy in terms of GMV, Shopify merchants outperform.