This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
In today's episode, a lister has been selling on Etsy, but wants to make the switch to Shopify. What's the best way to do this? Now Etsy, of course, is the world's largest handcrafted marketplace. We've had lots of stories of people selling products on Etsy. We've also had lots of people with e-commerce shops on Shopify.
Shopify is pretty huge right now. There's so many e-commerce sellers, large and small, large, small, medium, all sizes, have been using Shopify to create results. It is a very robust app that has all sorts of features, but of course that can also then create a sense of overwhelm, a sense of, oh, is it too complicated? Is it worth it? Is it expensive?
And if I'm already on something that's really simple, what is the true benefit of changing? And not just the best way to make the change or the switch, but what's important to do along the way. And also, why would you want to make such a transition in the first place? So how do I transition from Etsy to Shopify? Elsa will say more about that.
That's our caller right after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Hey Chris, this is Elsa from Seattle, and I've been listening to the show since I first read "Side Hustle" a couple of years ago. I've been selling on Etsy for a while, but mostly I've been listing on Etsy. I make a few sales here and there. It's just not what I'd like it to be.
I'm in the process of setting up a Shopify store, which seems fairly complicated, even though they have lots of tutorials. There are also lots of apps you can use with Shopify, a bunch of options and features to choose from. And I tend to get decision fatigue from these things, which might be why I've stuck with Etsy. Do you have any tips for making the transition? Thanks for any guidance you can give me.
[Music]
Hey Elsa, thanks for being out there. Good work so far on the Etsy store. And I do think it's probably a good idea to begin transitioning to Shopify. One big thing with Shopify, and it could also not be Shopify by the way, it could be some other platform, but something where you have your own website, where visitors can come and purchase directly from you. Now there are lots of benefits to that.
In fact, there's every advantage to that, except one. So the advantages are you don't pay fees, at least not the same fees you pay for Etsy. You have more direct contact with customers. You can fully customize your site, be in control of your branding, all good things, right? What's not to love?
What's the one advantage it doesn't have? Well, it doesn't come with built-in traffic. So that is a pretty big limitation, which is why most people making the transition keep their Etsy shop open as well, at least for a while. Because the benefit of Etsy, at least the promise of Etsy is that they're gonna bring you traffic. There's lots of visitors coming to buy.
And as Elsa said, she's doing more listing than selling, but that's not totally abnormal. The point is she is selling some. So as for making that transition, it can be complicated because Shopify has so many options. I guess that maybe is one potential disadvantage, but here's where you need to apply the less is more, or the MVP model, minimum buyable product. I would say, plan to spend a couple of hours, maybe even a few hours watching videos and playing with the Shopify app to learn it.
It's gonna be worth it to you. Like you're not trying to become a coder here. You don't need to become an expert designer, any of that. You just want to be able to run your own shop. That's why even if you outsource web design or something else at some point, I don't think it's good to be completely dependent on someone else to process transactions or issue a refund or put items on sale.
Like it's good for you as the store owner to be able to do that. So a little knowledge goes a long way. To make the transition, I would spend some time watching the tutorials and then just kind of practicing playing around with the app. It will become much more intuitive over time. As I said, it's not super complicated.
You're not trying to program. You're just trying to learn how to adapt this technology to the products you sell. So you can build more relationships with your customers. And that's ultimately what you want to do, right? You want to sell your products, build relationships with customers.
And so Shopify or a similar platform can help you do that. That's my two cents, my answer for today. Listeners, if you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions, let me know what's going on. And I would love for you to subscribe, follow, come back tomorrow. We've got a new episode every single day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
