I started a store on Etsy a little over a year ago as a side hustle experiment. I wanted to see if we could sell some of the artwork that my dad hand-painted and created from parts from our old vintage motorcycle restorations.

If you’re not familiar with Etsy, it’s a marketplace that is a world of vintage and handmade goods with more than a million independent sellers from everywhere according to their home page.

The synopsis:

Etsy has been fairly good to me. In all of 2016, I made 12 sales В which came out to a grand total of $434.65. That averages out to 1 sale a month and a little over $36 per sale. It took me about 6 months to get my first sale in June which was followed by another singular sale in July. Things were slow, more like dead, until November which also happened to be my best month of sales with 6 followed by a steady sales month of December at 4. January 2017 saw no sales and I got another sale in early February of this year

The good:В

I like selling on Etsy because it’s a new marketplace full of opportunity for me. There’s millions of sellers so I’m sure there’s also millions of potential customers. Some people really like buying on Etsy just like some people really like buying on eBay or Amazon. For some reason, a lot of people do have brand loyalty to one online marketplace over the others.

Historically, the majority of the customers I’ve had throughout the years, simply because of the industry that I was involved in, have been male. However, the majority of users on Etsy are female. This is a whole new demographic that my products would appeal to. It’s the perfect place for women to get a.gif"http://1.shopifytrack.com/aff_c?offer_id=2&aff_id=18638">Shopify*.В If you don’t make handmade goods then Etsy wouldn’t be a good fit for you. If you have a business that caters mostly to women, Etsy would be a great place to sell your handmade goods. If you cater mostly to men, it might be hit or miss for you.

It’s quite possible that it’ll take some time to make your first sale or to really get the ball rolling so you’ll have to be patient. If you can’t afford to take your time, Etsy probably isn’t the place for you and I’d suggest looking to sell your goods elsewhere.

Selling your goods on Etsy will more than likely give your business a sales boost during the holiday buying season, but it would probably more difficult for you to create steady year-round income. It’s a great place to earn some supplemental income here and there.

I’ll continue to use Etsy and I hope to build upon the small successes that I’ve already had.

If you’d like to check out my store,В you can here.

*This is an affiliate link. I earn some commission if you sign up your shop after the free 14-day free trial. I use Shopify to run my e-commerce store and wouldn’t endorse something that I didn’t use myself. Thanks for your support!