Detailed Comparison: Pros and Cons of Shopify vs Etsy [2024]

Shopify and Etsy are both major players in the online shopping world, attracting millions of sellers worldwide. These platforms can help grow your business, but which one is the right fit for you?

In this comparison, we'll break down the features of Shopify and Etsy, including their costs, how simple they are to set up, and most importantly, which one might be the best match for your business. Let’s help you decide which platform fits your needs better.

Key Differences of Shopify vs Etsy 

1. Difference in the way you sell

Shopify is a widely used platform that helps you create your own online store, with more than 5.4 million stores using it.

Etsy, on the other hand, is a large, established marketplace where around 9 million sellers offer their products to approximately 91.5 million customers.

Selling on Shopify is like renting your own shop space where you have full control, while selling on Etsy is more like having a spot in a supermarket.

With Shopify, you’ll need to handle more setup tasks and work on attracting customers. However, you also get to control key things like:

• Your store's domain name
• How your brand is presented
• The design of your store
• How you sell your products

On Etsy, the customers are already there, but so is your competition. It’s like sharing a shelf in a crowded aisle, where buyers might choose your products or go for a competitor’s.

Both approaches have their benefits and challenges, which I'll explore in detail later. But first, let’s talk about what you can actually sell on each platform.

2. Difference in the products you sell

Shopify lets you sell almost anything, as long as it’s legal in your country. On the other hand, Etsy has stricter rules about what you can sell. Etsy products must fit into one of these categories:

• Handmade by the seller – items you personally create.
• Designed by the seller – digital designs made by you.
• Vintage or nature items – products handpicked by you, such as vintage goods or natural items.
• Craft supplies or personalized goods – items like party decorations or materials for crafting.

Etsy is a go-to platform for arts and crafts sellers. It limits you to selling your handmade goods, vintage items, craft supplies, and digital products.

If you're not selling these types of products, Shopify (or another platform) might be a better fit. However, if you are, both platforms work well, but Etsy has the advantage of an existing audience that loves handmade and creative items.

*Note: Etsy does offer more product options through its 'Pattern' feature.

Now that we’ve covered the basics of Shopify and Etsy, let’s explore how easy they are to use.

Shopify vs Etsy: Detailed Comparison

Let's take a brief lock at this quick table of comparison to have a better overall view first:

1. Getting Started

Whether you’re new to building online stores or have lots of experience, both Etsy and Shopify make it easy to get started. 

Shopify Getting Started

Setting up with Shopify is also simple. After you answer some important questions about your website, you'll get a personalized setup guide. If you're new to eCommerce builders, this helpful guide to set up a Shopify store will show you what steps to take when creating your online store, so you’ll know exactly what to do.

You can also make the setup process easier. For example, Shopify Magic, its AI website builder tool, helps you create content for your store. You can generate text like product descriptions, headings, and email subject lines, or use the image editor tool to improve your site’s images.

Etsy Getting Started

With Etsy, it’s really easy. You just need to sign up for an account, pick a store name, upload your products, enter your payment details, and you’re all set!

Uploading products can take the most time because it requires a lot of information. However, it’s also the most crucial step because it determines if your product stands out on Etsy and attracts customers.

Etsy will help you through the process and even suggest store names. You don’t have to build a complete store to start selling on Etsy. With many tasks simplified, you can become an Etsy seller in just a few hours

However, there are key differences in first steps getting started. Shopify is a platform that helps you build your own website, while Etsy is a marketplace where you simply list your products on an existing template. It means you’ll need to invest more effort in learning curve of how to maximize your Shopify store.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can connect your Etsy store with Shopify while setting it up. When Shopify asks if you’re using another platform, you can select Etsy and import your products from your store.

Both platforms are simple to set up. Each step is clearly marked, so you’ll know exactly what to do from beginning to end.

2. Target Audience 

Deciding between Shopify’s flexibility and Etsy’s focus on community means understanding the different audiences each platform attracts. It’s better to understand who’s your target audience to determine where your store will fit best and how to connect with your potential customers effectively.

Shopify Target Audience

When you create a Shopify store, you’re starting from the ground up. To build a customer base, you’ll need to work hard on things like:

• SEO
• Content marketing
• Online advertising
• Online PR

This can be costly and take a lot of time, and there’s quite a bit to learn.

On the bright side, if you succeed, you'll have a strong online asset that you mostly control. Plus, Shopify offers some customer attraction strategies that you won’t find on Etsy such as blogging or email marketing which we will discuss more later.

Etsy Target Audience

If you want a ready-made customer base, Etsy is the better choice compared to Shopify. With 91.5 million customers and over $13 billion in annual sales, having a shop on Etsy puts you in front of a large audience that spends a lot of money.

If you’re selling handmade goods, vintage items, or craft supplies, it’s hard to find a more relevant and engaged audience. This existing customer base is a big advantage of using Etsy over an online store builder like Shopify.

3. Design Flexibility

Even though both Shopify and Etsy have limited design flexibility, Shopify comes out on top because it offers many free modern themes and lets you customize your store's design.

Shopify Design Flexibility

With Shopify, you can choose from over 200 themes, both free and paid, in the Shopify themes store. Paid themes cost between $150 and $480.

You can filter themes by industry to find the best fit for your business.

All Shopify themes are specially designed to be SEO-friendly and work well on mobile devices. Switching between themes is easy, but some may need you to reformat your content.

You can customize your online store’s design using a template editor that doesn’t require any HTML or CSS knowledge. If you know HTML and CSS, you can also use Shopify Liquid to create a stunning look for your eCommerce website.

An even simpler way to customize or personalize your Shopify store is to utilize the Shopify Page Builder app such as EComposer, no code, but various elements.

Etsy Design Flexibility

Unlike Shopify, Etsy offers a simple and easy way to design your store. Your shop will fit right into Etsy's existing layout and style. This simplicity can be a big plus, as it lets you focus on creating and curating your products without worrying about complicated website design.

However, this convenience means you have limited customization options.

Etsy's branding choices are restricted to your store name, logo, product images, and descriptions. While this straightforward approach helps maintain a consistent look across the platform, it might not be the best fit for sellers who want a unique brand identity.

With these few options on Etsy, it can be challenging to make your own products stand out in terms of design.

4. Sales Features

In terms of eCommerce functions, Shopify clearly offers more than Etsy, even though having more features on Shopify might mean higher costs. If you want to keep things simple and small, Etsy’s basic features are enough.

Shopify Sales Features

(Image Source: https://www.shopify.com/products)

Even with Shopify's basic plan, the wide range of features this all-in-one solution offers retailers is impressive.

Here’s a list of some features included in each Shopify plan:

• Gift cards
• Discount codes
• Shopify POS
• Multichannel selling
• Abandoned cart recovery
• SSL certificate
• Dropshipping
• Financial reports
• Fraud analysis
• Blogging
• Inventory and order management
• Unlimited bandwidth and online storage
• Shopify Mobile app

One of the key features is multichannel selling such as Social Media icons, Point of Sale and Buy Buttons, which can help you reach more potential customers.

Abandoned cart recovery reminds customers who almost completed their purchase but left the checkout page, ensuring you don’t miss out on sales.

You’ll also need an SSL certificate for secure transactions on your website. It helps build trust and reliability with potential customers, and every plan includes SSL certificate authentication by default.

Etsy Sales Features

Etsy excels in providing you with tools to help you run your business smoothly.

With the "Sell on Etsy app," you can manage orders, edit products, and respond to customers while you're on the go. Etsy also offers marketing tools to help you attract more visitors, grow your customer base, and promote your brand.

Another important feature is performance analysis. This is crucial for any business, and Etsy does it well. Every plan on Etsy comes with an analytics report feature that shows detailed information about performance trends and where your traffic comes from.

5. Marketing & Traffic

In terms of marketing, Shopify provides many tools to help you connect with customers. However, Etsy's popularity and established customer base make it simpler for people to discover your products.

Shopify Marketing & Traffic

Selling on an eCommerce platform like Shopify means you need to attract a consistent flow of visitors to your online store. You can promote your business on Google rank and social media or use SEO techniques to gain organic traffic.

Fortunately, Shopify provides many useful tools. What impresses me the most about Shopify includes:

• Shopify Email: This tool helps you create and send professional email campaigns to subscribers using customizable templates and automation features.
• Shopify Inbox: This lets you manage customer conversations across different channels, like email, chat, and social media.
• Marketing Automations: This feature automates repetitive marketing tasks, such as recovering abandoned carts, sending welcome emails, and segmenting customers.

While it takes a lot of effort and work, you’ll have complete control over how your brand engages with customers and runs effective marketing campaigns.

Etsy Marketing & Traffic

On the other hand, Etsy is a well-known marketplace that attracts about 90 million buyers each month, many of whom are returning customers looking for vintage items or handmade products. This is why a lot of new eCommerce sellers choose to start on Etsy.

Etsy's marketing tools mainly help you promote your products within its marketplace to its current audience. However, it's important to remember that buyers don't search for your products directly; instead, they browse Etsy's platform, which has around 100 million products.

So, it's essential to think about how to make your products stand out from the competition on your own.

6. Apps and Integrations

Shopify and Etsy offer two very different options in this regard.

Shopify Apps and Integrations

The Shopify App Store has over 8,000 free and paid apps that offer a variety of features, including marketing, sales, shipping, and inventory management. This ecosystem enables sellers to enhance their Shopify stores to adapt to changing needs, improve customer experiences, and make operations more efficient.

For example, businesses can use apps like EComposer to customize their Shopify web pages without any coding. These app integrations can automate different parts of the business, from finding products to connecting with customers.

Etsy Apps and Integrations

Etsy’s options for apps and integrations are more limited compared to Shopify, mainly because it functions as a marketplace. While Etsy does provide some integrations, they mainly focus on marketplace features rather than extensive eCommerce operations.

Etsy’s integrations include tools for managing your shop, marketing, and analytics. For instance, sellers can use Etsy’s marketing tools to promote their listings or connect with social media platforms to reach more customers.

Overall, Etsy has fewer choices for third-party apps and custom integrations. This is partly because Etsy has more control over the customer experience, ensuring a consistent feel throughout its marketplace.

7. Local Selling and Point of Sale (POS)

Shopify vs Etsy: Local selling

Many brick-and-mortar store owners turned to Shopify, and it's easy to see why—the platform provides numerous options for selling online, handling product collections, and offering local delivery services.

Shopify is highly customizable, allowing businesses to create their own websites instead of just listing products. This enables local businesses to establish a strong online presence that truly represents their physical stores.

By having a standalone site on a custom domain, like yoursitename.com, you can also use local SEO strategies to improve your business's visibility in your area.

While Etsy has a feature called Pattern that can help reach a local audience, it primarily focuses on selling niche products to a broader online market.

So, if your business is centered around a local market, Shopify is generally the better choice because of its extensive SEO and customization options.

Shopify vs Etsy: Point of Sale (POS)

Shopify offers robust point-of-sale (POS) features, allowing it to function as both a store builder and a payment processor for physical locations. This means retailers can manage all their online and offline sales from one platform and keep their inventory data synced, no matter where a sale happens.

While Etsy does have an integration with Square for some point-of-sale situations, it only works in select countries (the US, Canada, UK, and Australia), and the hardware options are limited.

Overall, Shopify is the better choice for in-person selling. You can find more information about Shopify's POS features here.

8. Shipping and Dropshipping

One key aspect to consider when comparing Etsy and Shopify is shipping.

Shopify Shipping

With Shopify, you can ship your own products and customize your shipping rates and rules based on factors like weight, price, and quantity. This gives you a lot of flexibility.

Depending on where you operate, you can also access significant shipping discounts through "Shopify Shipping," which provides real-time quotes from certain carriers. These discounts can be very generous, reaching up to 88% in some cases.

If you prefer not to handle product fulfillment on your own, you can link your Shopify store to a third-party fulfillment service, just like you can with Etsy.

Etsy Shipping

Since Etsy focuses on handmade and unique items, many sellers choose to ship their own products. The platform makes this simple by letting you print postage labels directly from the site, so you don’t have to visit the post office to buy stamps!

Etsy also provides some great discounts on shipping labels. For example, you can save up to 30% on shipping costs when you print labels from USPS, FedEx, and Canada Post through Etsy.

If you prefer not to handle shipping yourself and sell enough products to warrant a fulfillment service, many options are available that work with Etsy, including Shipstation and Amazon's popular FBA service.

Alternatively, you can consider dropshipping. 

Shopify vs Etsy Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a method of selling products that you don't have to create, store, or ship them yourself. Instead, when you receive an order through your store, you forward it to a supplier, who then sends the products directly to your customer.

Shopify is a much better platform for dropshipping because it is specifically designed to support this kind of online selling.

With Shopify, you can connect your ecommerce store to a variey of dropshipping apps and access a large number of suppliers—there are currently 604 available—without needing to make a big investment.

On the other hand, Etsy has strict rules about what you can sell (only handmade items, vintage goods, craft supplies, and digital products), making it not very suitable for dropshipping. You can have other businesses fulfill orders on Etsy, but only for products you’ve designed.

However, you can use services like Printful and Printify with Etsy. These are print-on-demand services that create and ship products based on the images and designs you upload.

9. Help & Support

When it comes to help and support, Shopify stands out compared to its competitors.

Shopify Customer Support

Shopify Customer Support is included in all plans, making it easy to reach their support team. You can get live chat and email support, and their support pages are available in 21 different languages. If you’re a 'Shopify Plus' customer, you can also access phone support.

This hosted solution provides excellent customer support. Like other eCommerce platforms, you can get help from Shopify experts and other users in the forums, or find answers in their documents and video tutorials. The Shopify Changelog is also available for the latest updates.

You can access live support 24/7 through email, live chat, and phone via the Shopify Help Center, and their support team usually responds within just a few minutes.

In addition to live chat, you can use the Shopify Chatbot for quick answers to your questions. It can guide you through the help documentation while you wait for assistance.

Etsy Customer Support

Etsy offers fewer support options compared to Shopify. You can visit the Help Center for clear and straightforward answers to your questions.

Etsy also has an active forum where you can discuss issues and get helpful tips from other users. You can also reach out for Etsy support via email and phone.

10. Security

Etsy has the advantage in security because it provides a more straightforward and low-maintenance option for sellers.

Shopify Security

As a hosted platform, Shopify provides important security features like SSL certificates, two-factor authentication (2FA), and fraud detection tools, along with regular security checks and updates.

Shopify Security

However, as a Shopify store owner, you also have some responsibilities for keeping your store secure, such as:

• Using strong passwords and turning on 2FA.
• Keeping your Shopify software and apps up to date.
• Adding extra security measures like firewalls or security plugins.

Ultimately, you need to choose the right options to manage your Shopify store's security effectively.

Etsy Security

One thing we really appreciate about Etsy is that they manage all the technical security aspects, such as server upkeep, payment safety, and fraud prevention. This means sellers don’t have to stress over these complex issues or spend extra money on security.

Another great feature is Etsy's seller protection policies, which cover things like unauthorized transactions, non-delivery of items, and fraud. This helps sellers feel more secure in case they face any problems with customers.

Finally, unlike Shopify, Etsy takes care of most sensitive data and security measures, which means sellers are less likely to be impacted by security breaches. This reduces the chances of losing customer information or having their shop compromised.

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Shopify vs Etsy: Pricing Plan

Price is the key factor to think about when choosing an eCommerce solution for your business, and this applies to comparing Shopify and Etsy as well. Is Shopify less expensive than Etsy? Let’s take a look.

First, it’s important to understand that prices and fees are quite different in this Shopify vs. Etsy comparison.

• Prices are what a seller pays for the service (like Shopify plans or Etsy packages).
• Fees are the costs involved during the selling process (such as listing fees, transaction fees, and so on).

In the first round of our Shopify vs. Etsy comparison, it's a tie! Selling on Etsy doesn’t have any monthly fees, while Shopify offers better features and tools through its various pricing plans.

1. Shopify pricing

Shopify offers five pricing plans: Starter, Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Shopify Plus. The higher the plan you choose, the more features you'll get access to.

There's also a free trial available for three days. If you decide to purchase a Shopify plan after the trial, you'll only pay $1 for your first month. You can get the trial and this offer on Shopify's site.

Along with the monthly subscription fees, Shopify also takes transaction fees for every payment made in your store. These fees can different widely depending on your chosen Shopify plan and payment method.

If you want to use your preferred payment option, Shopify integrates with over 100 payment gateways, including PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Stripe. However, you'll still have to pay transaction fees based on your subscription plan.

Here are the details:

• Basic Shopify plan: 2.9% + 30¢ for each online transaction
• Shopify plan: 2.6% + 30¢ for each online transaction
• Advanced Shopify plan: 2.4% + 30¢ for each online transaction

Alternatively, you can use Shopify Payments, the platform's own payment processor, which doesn't charge any transaction fees.

2. Etsy pricing

Unlike Shopify, Etsy offers only two subscription plans:

• Standard: This is the default plan for all sellers and has no monthly fees.
• Etsy Plus: This plan costs $10 per month.

When you create an Etsy account, you automatically get the Etsy Standard plan, which includes a range of selling tools at no cost.

Etsy Plus is optional, but many people find it worth the price. For just $10 a month, you get valuable benefits like:

• Monthly credits for listings and Etsy Ads
• Access to a discounted custom web address for your shop
• The ability to take restock requests for sold-out items
• More options for customizing your shop
• Discounts on promotional materials and custom packaging, such as boxes and business cards

Just keep in mind that there are also other fees associated with each product and transaction.

Etsy Plus offers a few extra perks, including a 30% discount with the printer MOO and possible discounts on shipping boxes based on where you operate.

Additionally, you can pay $15 per month to set up a ‘Pattern’ store on Etsy, which is a simple standalone e-commerce site.

When it comes to pricing, the biggest benefit of using Etsy instead of Shopify is that, as long as you stick with the ‘listings’ version, you won’t have to pay monthly fees. However, the downside is that Etsy's transaction fees are much higher compared to those of Shopify.

Shopify vs Etsy: The Pros and Cons

If you've reviewed all the features mentioned above and still can't decide, this table comparing the pros and cons of Shopify and Etsy may help you make your choice.

For more details about the benefits and drawbacks of Shopify, click the link to find out more. 

Bottom Line: Which platform is for you?

After explaining the differences, we still can’t provide a simple answer to the question, “Which platform is for you? Shopify or Etsy?” The best choice really depends on how you want to run your online business.

If you want to create a unique and strong brand or expand to other sales channels, Shopify is the better option.

On the other hand, if you have a tight budget, Etsy is a great choice. When you sign up for an Etsy account, you automatically get the default plan, Etsy Standard, without any fees. Etsy is also a better fit for people selling crafts, art, or handmade items.

It's no surprise that both platforms have built strong reputations over the years. Shopify and Etsy both have their strengths, but they definitely aren't one-size-fits-all solutions.

FAQs

1. Is it cheaper to sell on Etsy or Shopify?

Etsy generally has lower upfront costs. You pay a listing fee per item and a transaction fee per sale. Shopify requires a subscription fee per month, but offers more capabilities in terms of customization and features.

Key factors to consider:

• Listing fees
• Transaction fees
• Monthly subscription
• Additional costs

2. Is Shopify a good alternative to Etsy?

Shopify can be a good alternative if you're looking for more control over your online store. It offers greater capabilities in terms of design, customization, and features. However, it may be more complex to set up and manage.

Consider Shopify if you:

• Want more control over your store's design and functionality.
• Sell a variety of products that don't necessarily fit Etsy's niche.
• Need advanced features like inventory management, shipping integrations, and marketing tools.

3. Should I sell on both Shopify and Etsy?

Consider your target audience and product offerings. Selling on both platforms can reach a wider audience but requires more management. Take the pros and cons into consideration carefully before making a decision.