July 16, 2025 • 40 mins
#009 Today I break down the advantages of each Shopify and Etsy based on business goals, sharing specific strategies for leveraging both marketplaces effectively.
• Etsy provides immediate access to millions of potential buyers with built-in traffic
• Competition on Etsy is fierce with thousands of candle sellers competing for visibility
• Etsy's total fees can reach 21.5% per sale (listing fees, transaction fees, and offsite ad fees)
• Shopify offers complete control over branding, customer experience, and data collection
• Shopify requires driving your own traffic through SEO, advertising, or social media
• Personalized items and seasonal candles perform particularly well on Etsy
• Building your own website takes time for SEO to gain traction (14-21 days for Google to crawl updates)
• Including business cards with discount codes in Etsy orders can help transition customers to your Shopify store
• Third-party apps can sync inventory between both platforms for simplified management
If you found this episode helpful, we'd love it if you'd leave us a rating and a review. It really helps us reach more makers like you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, candle makers, let's talk shop
literally Etsy or Shopify whichone actually deserves your time,
money and precious candlemaking energy?
I've tried them both and todaywe're diving into the honest
pros, the real cons and myunfiltered opinion on which one
I would choose if I started allover again.
Grab your notebook, becausethis decision might just change
(00:22):
your candle business forever.
So, etsy versus Shopify, we getasked this question pretty
often.
Of which one should I startwith?
Are they both oversaturated?
(00:42):
Where can I start getting somecandle sales at?
So today we're going to diveinto the pros and cons of both
of those.
Let you know where we're at,what our experience with both of
those are and what we woulddecide to go with if we were to
start all over again.
So I'm Sebastian Garzant, theco-founder of Garzant Beacon
Candle Company with my husband,chad, where we have passed now
(01:04):
$1.2 million in candle sales.
I'm also the founder of CandleBusiness Pro, where we help
makers go pro.
So let's dive into this first.
So let's break this intodifferent segments based on the
platform, and then also the prosand cons.
So let's start off with somepositivity.
So what are the pros of Etsy?
(01:27):
Well, one you have a built-inaudience with Etsy.
So that is probably the mostattractive thing about Etsy is
it has an audience.
People, millions of people aregoing to Etsy every single day
looking to purchase something.
Now it's instant trafficpotential for you.
(01:48):
You can make a candle, you canlist it out there today and you
can get sales today.
So that is the pro, the top proof Etsy is that it can bring
you sales when you have noaudience.
There's a few other things thatare really nice about Etsy.
So it's very easy to set up.
(02:10):
There's no technical experiencethat you need to set it up.
They walk you through the setupprocess.
It's very, very user-friendly.
There's also a very low initialinvestment.
This is going to be ideal forif you're just getting started
on a product, you're not reallysure if you have a market fit
for your product.
If you're making a candle andyou don't have that niche or
(02:35):
that target audience that Ialways talk about, almost every
episode just seems to come up,because I am such a big
proponent of knowing exactly whoyou want to sell to and what
niche you're in so that you canalways communicate and talk to
that customer Right.
But if you don't have thatfigured out right now you're not
quite sure who your idealcustomer is, but you already
(02:56):
have the product ready to go.
Putting it out on Etsy can goahead and start generating you
some sales can go ahead andstart generating you some sales,
but you still need to have thattarget audience figured out
because of some of the thingsthat we're going to talk about
with setting up Etsy and makingsure that you're using the right
tools that are built into it tobe successful.
(03:18):
Okay, so it's a low investment,it's easy to set up, it's easy
for anyone to get on there andit's pretty good with having its
own built in SEO, which isgoing to connect potential
buyers with you as a seller.
So those are some really goodthings about Etsy.
(03:40):
So high competition is going tobe probably the highest con of
Etsy, because now they areallowing others that haven't
actually made the productthemselves to sell products on
there, so it's even getting moresaturated.
So you really have to stick out.
The competition is fierce outthere, right?
We all know thousands of candlemakers out there exist and on
(04:05):
top of that, you have now theability for makers all across
the world to be putting productsonto Etsy, so you can literally
buy in bulk from overseascandles or any product, receive
it and then put it onto Etsyyourself and sell that now.
That used to be something thatwas banned, but now they are
allowing that.
(04:25):
So that is something that iscontributing to the competition
on Etsy being even higher thanever.
So that is one of the downsides.
One of the other downsides ofEtsy is going to be the limited
branding opportunity.
So you have less control overyour customer's experience.
So a person that we don't knowis going to go on to Etsy.
(04:48):
They're going to be searchingfor a product.
Your product may show up in theresults.
They like it, they buy it, butyou don't have a direct access
point to that customer, meaningany of the communication you
have with that customer is goingthrough Etsy.
So you don't have access totheir email address.
You don't have access toanything.
(05:09):
You'll have access to anaddress to send that product to,
but without having a phonenumber to put them on SMS
messaging or their email addressfor you to collect that
information, for you tocontinuously market to.
That's one of the downsides.
You just don't have thatavailability anymore.
You are able to obviously sellto them.
(05:30):
You can message with them ifthere's any questions or
concerns throughout thetransaction with them through
Etsy's app, and that's all builtreally well.
But once the transaction's overwith, so is that relationship
with them.
Now you are able to sendcoupons to people that have
liked your store within acertain amount of period or to
(05:51):
previous buyers.
So there are some things builtinto Etsy that really helps to
have a ongoing relationship withthem.
But if at any point, you decidethat Etsy is not for you
anymore and you want to go withShopify or another marketplace
to sell your products on, you'renot able to take those
(06:11):
customers with you.
So keep that in mind.
That is one of the downsides ofEtsy, because we should all be
trying to grow our business, andgrowing our business Isn't
going to just be in how manyactual sales or transactions
that we complete in a certainamount of time, but how many
people are coming into ouratmosphere, how many people are
(06:32):
coming into our world that nowwhen we are running a promotion
when it comes to Etsy.
So let's talk about the fees.
Etsy is going to have higherfees when it comes to a
percentage that they're going totake from you than other places
(06:55):
.
So there's a listing fee.
Now the listing fee is very,very minimal.
So the listing fee currentlyit's 20 cents, so very, very
minimal.
That listing fee is for sixmonths.
So you can put a product outthere on Etsy for 20 cents.
Say, I've got a hundred candles, that's gonna be, I can put a
hundred candles out on Etsy, andyou know, for $20.
So every time you sell theproduct it gets relisted.
(07:16):
If you have the inventory andif you have it to automatically
relist, so it's gonna charge youthat 20 cents every time you
sell it.
So just you know, build thatinto your cost of that 20 cents
there, into every transactionthat you do.
So that's very, very, very,very minimal.
That's going to be the leastexpensive fee, probably in any
venture.
We go on with selling candles,no matter what platform.
So that's that's very nominal.
(07:37):
I'm not concerned about thatwhatsoever.
Now there's a transaction feeof 6.5%.
Okay, so if you make a $100sale on Etsy, they're going to
take $6.50 from you right away.
So that's their transaction fee.
So it is definitely higher thanShopify.
(07:58):
It's higher than any othermarketplaces.
It's definitely high, but we'lldiscuss why it's not so
shocking here in just a moment.
Additionally, on top of justthat transaction fee of six and
a half percent.
They have an offsite ads fee.
This fee, based on whicheverplan you have.
There is an Etsy and there'slike an Etsy pro or an Etsy plus
(08:21):
is what they call it.
So based on which level you'reat, one costs $5 a month and it
just gives you some morefeatures.
So they swear inside of theirhandbook that you do not get any
preferential treatment by beingin the plus side but and paying
that monthly fee.
But you do get some features onyour homepage and some other
(08:42):
listing features that may helpyou out.
We do not use it, but if youwant to check that out, you
certainly can.
But just keep in mind that youare not going to get a better
chance of selling just becauseof that.
Now, if they are allowing youto control how the homepage for
your store looks, um, and it'sgoing to be built a little bit
differently, that possibly cancontribute to the customer's
experience being better, whichmay lead to a sale for you.
(09:06):
But it's something that we wedon't spend the five dollars on
it.
We just it's just not somethingthat we feel is going to bring
us additional sales.
I don't think a lot of peopleare going to our actual like
stores page.
They're going to be searchingfor something and then there's a
whole.
There's tons of results thatare going to show up and
hopefully they're going toselect one of our products.
They're going to go to go tothat product specifically,
probably not going to go andshop the rest of our store, but
(09:28):
it does depend on what they'relooking for, of course.
If it's a very specific keywordthat they're looking for let's
say they want a vanilla scentedsoy candle, right, and they land
on my page and they go to it Idon't see them going to my page
to look at whatever other itemsI have, necessarily unless
(09:49):
they've already decided thatthey like that product.
If they like that product thatthe results showed them, then
sure they may go and buy morethings.
So that might be one of thereasons to invest and do an Etsy
plus, but we don't do that.
The other thing that I wasreferencing of why it could be
12% or 15% is the offsite ads.
So what happens is Etsy willrun ads on Facebook, on
(10:09):
Instagram, on Google, lots ofdifferent places all over the
internet that Etsy is actuallyrunning ads for you if you have
this turned on, and what'sreally nice about this is that
you're not paying for those ads.
If you opt in to offsite adswith Etsy, you don't pay
(10:33):
anything unless your item sales.
And if your item sells thenyou're paying either 12% or 15%.
And again that the differencethere is based on if you are
opted into that a monthly fee tobe part of the Etsy plus
program, then you'll be paying aless percentage.
There we have this turned on.
A lot of candle makers I do seecomplain about the fees of Etsy
(10:58):
and especially this offsite adsfee.
But in reality that fee is very, very small compared to if
you're going to go and run yourown ads on Facebook or on
Instagram and trying to sellyour products that way, because
you're not guaranteed any saleswhen you're spending money
(11:20):
running ads.
But if Etsy picks your productand they're going to run ads for
it, you're not paying anythingunless that product sells.
So in reality, if you look at,say that, 12 to 15 percent let's
just say 15 percent to be onthe higher side and you look at
that six and a half percenttransaction fee, so now we're at
(11:41):
21 and a half percent.
Ok, so 21 and a half percent isthe maximum fee that Etsy will
charge you for a sale.
Now that seems high, but fromour experience we know that if
you go and spend a hundreddollars running Facebook ads at
(12:04):
21 and a half percent, thatmeans if you spent $100 on
Facebook, that means you'regetting over $500 in sales.
If that was the case, everybodywould be running ads.
Okay, everybody would berunning ads because you're
getting more money back thanwhat you're putting in.
Also, when you factor in yourcost of goods and your margins
(12:25):
for your candle, for your candlemaking you, you know you should
be close to five X, right?
So if I have a $26 candle, youknow, such as just our classic
candle, that are $26 and we aremaking these for like five, five
, 50.
So we are over a five X.
That's what we're aiming forwith our brand.
Um is getting at least a five Xor very close to a 5X margin.
(12:49):
So as long as you're doing thatand you're pricing your products
correctly, etsy, taking that 21and a half percent plus that 20
cents for the listing fee, ofcourse, we're still making good
money.
We're still making money thatwe would not be making if we
were trying to sell them on ourown with just trying to run ads,
because you're not going to getthat type of success running
(13:11):
meta ads.
We run ads on Facebook for ourbrand, but we're definitely not
getting a five to one, you know,a dollar and $5 out result.
That's just not reality.
Okay, so the transaction feesmight seem high, the fees in
general on Etsy might seem highand that might persuade some
people to not get on Etsy orwant to complain about Etsy.
(13:33):
But those fees to bring you asale are really good.
And remember the worst casescenario you don't get a sale
and you have wasted 20 cents foryour listing fee, plus the time
and effort and energy that goesin, of course, to putting your
products out there.
All right, so let's now moveover to Shopify and talk about
(13:53):
the pros and cons over there.
So the pros you're going tohave full control over the
branding and the customerexperience.
You can design your Shopifywebsite almost in any different
theme that you possibly want andin fact they give you a dozen
different theme options just tostart with.
(14:14):
It's a clean slate.
You get to decide what to putwhere and how you want your
customer's experience to flow,not just from them being on your
website, but then alsoafterwards from the follow-up
emails from the receipts.
You're going to collect theiremail addresses, so you're going
to be building your ownaudience.
You can even set up an emailsequence afterwards to start
(14:38):
sending them coupons and startsending them follow-ups and
start sending them emails to getreviews, right.
So Shopify is the gold standardfor an online platform.
That's why we are looking atShopify and Etsy not Etsy versus
Wix or Squarespace or any otherplace that you can build a
(14:58):
website.
The only place you want tobuild a website of your own is
going to be on Shopify.
It's just a gold standard.
Everything is built in andpackaged all together, from the
actual website itself to yourCRM, which is gonna be like your
customer relation manager,right, where you have all of
your customers' information tothe checkout phase All of these
(15:19):
things.
You actually have to build eachindividual area if you want to
go and try to build this out onWix or like on a WordPress site,
right?
And so while Shopify may bemore expensive on the front end
than those other websitebuilders, by the time you use
all the plugins and the add-onsneeded on those other website
(15:41):
builders, it's gonna end upbeing more expensive than
Shopify.
So you might as well, juststart where it's a standard.
There's thousands of apps thatyou can use that are compatible
with Shopify Um, in fact, theyare shipping.
So some of the some of the appsthat we use, we uh, we use
pirate ship, which is theshipping platform that we use to
(16:01):
get the best rates.
Um, we use a subscription box,a software, um, now, because we
have a candle of the month thatwe send out to all of our
subscribers that have signed upfor that.
It's fantastic for the holidaysas well.
Shopify actually has its nativefunction of doing a
subscription now as well, so wemight not even need to be paying
for that app anymore.
(16:23):
There's so many more apps thatthey have the the review apps,
right, so, where you can getthem to your customers to leave
a review and then it's posted onyour website.
So there's so many good thingswithin Shopify built into it,
right.
So there's that extensive appintegration and that's going to
include email marketing, gettingreviews, reward programs, all
(16:45):
of those types of things.
They've also have a reallyrobust and detailed analytics to
track.
So I go into my Shopify everysingle day.
I live in my Shopify, in fact,people that are in our inner
circle membership.
They actually see the salesthat I'm getting every day,
because I'm showing them duringmy office hours, which is our
live session we do every weekwith our members.
(17:06):
I'm going in there and showingthem the backend of my Shopify.
Whenever there's a questionwhether it's about emails,
shipping, average order value,any of the analytics that we
want to dive into I just showthem my store and so they can
see all of what's being captured.
So the analytics are superrobust.
So, like, for instance, thisweekend, I want to know do I
(17:29):
have the proper staffing for mystore?
Is it busy, is it not?
So I can go and look at my lastcouple of years and see what
the trends are, just to makesure that I'm running my
business properly.
I also have the ability toobviously know what my inventory
is, and then I can also do aforecast to see hey, based on
how many of these are selling,how many do I need to make to
get by for the next 60, 90, 120days?
(17:51):
Right?
So it is a lot more robust.
It's a very robust.
It's going to be the bestwebsite to build on out there.
So these are some of the prosof Shopify.
Is that you're going to haveall of these analytics as well.
Some other good things is thereis going to be a lower
transaction fee, and we'll talkabout the fees here in just a
(18:12):
moment but the overalltransaction fee is going to be
lower than it is on Etsy or anyother of the platforms out there
that you may be building off of, and this is because you're
using a Shopify checkout that isits own checkout system that
has an agreement with the Visa,the MasterCard, american Express
(18:34):
, apple Pay and all of those, sothey can get that transaction
fee pretty low.
So we'll talk about the feeshere in just a moment.
Let's dive into those cons ofShopify.
So the downsides of Shopify thebiggest one, the most glaring
one to anyone that has opened upa Shopify store is you must
drive your own traffic fromscratch.
(18:57):
This is going to be reallychallenging for most new candle
makers that are turning thisinto a business.
So, even though there'smillions of candle buyers in the
world, they aren't just waitingaround for your store to open
so they can just run right inand start buying from you.
Now, if you have a really goodsocial media following, you
already have kind of a sphere ofpeople that are in your space
(19:20):
that are wanting to buy from you.
Absolutely Send them to yourShopify store to make that
transaction.
It's going to be a lot less ofa fee than going to, let's say,
etsy, but you still have todrive them to your website and
you have to drive thosestrangers to your website as
well.
Right Now, you can do thisthrough Google.
You have to have your SEO,which is your search engine
(19:40):
optimization, set up completely.
It has to be done really,really well.
In fact, for our Inner Circlemembers, we actually have a
workshop where we showed youwhat are we ranking in the top
10?
What are we on the very firstfront page of Google for?
What have we done well?
And then where are theopportunities for us to do
better?
And then what we'll do is wewill make the changes, tell you
(20:03):
what the changes are and then goback and see what the
improvements did as far as ourranking goes.
So we talk about this a lotinside of the inner circle,
which is our community of othercandle business owners or makers
that have turned this into abusiness.
So I would highly recommend youcheck that out if you are
interested in growing yourShopify store or any other area
of your business.
One of the other pros of theinner circle is I actually walk
(20:24):
you through.
One of the other pros of theinner circle is I actually walk
you through.
It's a really robust three partworkshop on how to build a
Shopify store.
So if you're struggling withShopify, I totally get it.
We were originally as well.
You don't want to pay someoneto build your Shopify store
because what's going to happenis you're going to spend a lot
of money on paying someone tobuild it for you.
(20:48):
But if you don't learn the insand outs of it yourself, as soon
as you need some SEO changes,you need some optimization to
happen.
You need to swap out images,you need to put something on
sale.
Anytime you got to make anychanges, you're going to have to
go back and pay that personagain to do that.
So you want to learn how to useany of the softwares that
(21:08):
you're using, but you definitelywant to learn how to use
Shopify.
So, again, if you are in theinner circle or if you sign up
for it, you can go through ourhow to build a Shopify workshop,
where we actually built anentirely brand new brand,
separate from our Garcin andBeacon Candle company, just to
show you how to build a store.
So we went from completely fromscratch so that we didn't miss
(21:30):
a single step, including likegoing out to making sure that
trademarks weren't already takenand setting it up and
connecting it with our bankaccounts all of that stuff we
show you how to do.
So that would be one of thecons of Shopify is, you've got
to build it all out.
You got to build it all out,but then you can.
You own everything, right.
You own all the customer dataand you can reach out to your
(21:51):
customers at any time.
So those are some really goodthings about Shopify.
Let's talk about the transactionfees, though.
Shopify has a monthlysubscription fee, so $39, I
believe, is what it is at now.
I'll put a link for our Shopifyaffiliate link in the in the
notes below that you can get uh,it will sometimes fluctuate.
Right now they have where youcan get the first three months
(22:14):
for only a dollar a month, sothat would give you time to
build out your store.
See if it's going to be a placewhere you're going to want to
invest.
Invest a lot of your time andresources into building it out
and you know even more.
You know for a dollar for thenext.
You know $3 for the next threemonths.
That's a pretty good deal there.
(22:34):
So open up your Shopify andthen the transaction fees you're
going to see after that aregoing to vary.
So the credit card fees for thetransaction we call them credit
card fees is the transactionthat Shopify is going to take.
It's going to be between 2.4and 2.9%.
That's going to be based onwhich plan of Shopify you're on.
So we're on the $39 plan.
We do not do Shopify Pro or anyof the higher tiers that get
(22:57):
really expensive.
We do not use any of those.
We use the basic Shopify.
That's $39 a month.
We use Shopify in all three ofmy stores now and they really
try to encourage us to upgradeto what's called the POS, which
is point of sale upgrade, butthat's an additional $79 a month
and we have not found that wewould need it.
So it does little things likewe can change what it says on
(23:20):
the receipts.
You know that we're printingout of the register for each
individual store things likethat.
There's a few other inventorythings that come along with
using that.
But we run three stores.
We have an online store, westill have markets still.
And then, obviously, ourwebsite.
We have not found the reasonfor it to be beneficial for us
(23:41):
to upgrade and justify that cost.
So just keep that in mind,because you're going to see a
lot of these upgradeopportunities that they are
going to give you or present toyou.
We haven't needed to take themup on that, so just keep that in
mind.
So we're paying $39 a month andthen we're paying between 2.4,.
Well, we're paying the higher inthe 2.9% on the transaction,
but there is a 30 centtransaction fee as well.
(24:04):
So every time there's a cardswipe, there's 30 cents.
Kind of think about it like thelisting fee over on Etsy.
That's 20 cents.
Right, it's 20 cents to put aproduct out there.
When it sells.
You got to pay 20 cents for itto replenish out there On
Shopify's side, per transaction,so it can be multiple items.
So you're not paying per item,you're paying per transaction.
(24:26):
It's 30 cents.
A swipe and then that 2.9%transaction fee.
Of course, that transaction fee, as I mentioned, can vary as
well, but you do have that $39or whatever it currently is fee
to have a Shopify store.
That's going to be the biggesthindrance for a lot of people
besides, just the.
(24:47):
You got to build it out.
You got to build it out.
You got to put all the workinto it.
So let's talk about what mypersonal recommendations would
be for you.
So what's the goal?
What is your goal with yourbusiness?
Do you really just likecreating a few of this item and
then you want to sell it andthen you're going to switch and
create a few of this item?
(25:08):
Do you like to switch up yoursense all the time?
The reason I ask that isbecause, if you're going to be
changing things a lot, etsymight be the way to go to get
traffic and putting something infront of a massive audience of
people.
Right, people are looking forstuff that are just trending.
There's always trends going upand down on Etsy and they share
(25:28):
that information with you.
If Bohemian is in right now orChic is in right now, they tell
you, they put out newslettersand they explain what's hot and
you can actually make thingsthat are on trend and you can do
really well.
You can also do really well onEtsy with personalized items.
So you can have personalizedcandles that are something where
(25:50):
you're going to put someone'sname on it or you're going to
put a custom label on the candleor even just on the back of the
candle, because a lot of peopleon Etsy are gifting right.
They are buying for otherpeople and not just themselves.
In fact, most of the ordersthat we get spoiler alert were
on both Etsy and Shopify.
So most of the orders we get onEtsy are those personalized
(26:12):
candles and that is why we stillhave an Etsy store.
This is my Sugar Lemon, mybasic, my number one, selling
candle in our store.
This right here does not do wellon Etsy because people aren't
necessarily looking for it.
It's not something that is thelatest trend, it's not the
hottest thing out.
It's not personalized, notsomething that is the latest
(26:33):
trend, it's not the hottestthing out, it's not personalized
, it is.
It does well on Shopify frompeople searching online for that
.
But generally people searchingon Etsy are looking for
something super unique orsomething that they can gift for
someone.
So my recommendation for Etsyis do you like to switch gears a
lot?
If you like to switch gears alot, you're going to be putting
out the latest since the hottestcraze a crave out there.
(26:56):
It's definitely worth exploring, because putting those super
trendy things out on Shopify,your website needs to be around
a while for that SEO to startworking for you.
Now you can go ahead and putstuff on Shopify, like what we
do, and then we'll run ads forit, right?
For instance, last year, santalwas like the hottest summer
(27:20):
scent.
We built out a couple of Santalcandles.
We can run ads all over Googleto our Shopify store.
We can also do the same thingon Facebook, right?
So we're running Facebook adsfor that Santal candle and when
someone clicks on that ad it'staking them to that product,
which is on my Shopify store.
So that is one of the pros ofthe Shopify you can run your own
(27:40):
ads to it.
But if you're not wanting to godown that road of running ads,
it's going to take just a littlebit of time for some of those
trending keywords to be pickedup by Google and driving traffic
to your website.
So SEO is pretty robust.
It's a lot to take on, but yougot to do it for your website to
stick out and just know thatit's a long game, right?
(28:02):
Whatever you update on yourwebsite today, on your Shopify
store today, google's not evengoing to recognize those updates
until they it's called crawl,until they crawl your website
again.
They're not even going to knowabout it yet, right?
They crawl your website every14 to 21 days, okay, so they
don't tell you exactly whenthey're going to do it, but it's
(28:23):
.
It's for e-commerce stores.
The average is 14 to 21 days.
So when you make changes toyour website, google may not
even know about that for two tothree weeks, and then Google has
to see people go to yourwebsite.
Google may not even know aboutthat for two to three weeks, and
then Google has to see peoplego to your website and look at
the decisions they make.
Do they click on it?
And then they leave right away.
That's called a bounce andthat's that's not a good rating.
(28:44):
If they go to your website andthey hang out there for a little
bit, that's a good rating inGoogle's eyes.
So then you go higher up on therankings within Google.
Again, we go into this prettydeep inside of an SEO workshop,
inside of our inner circle, butthis video and episode for the
podcast is all about Shopifyversus Etsy, so let's get back
to that.
So if you have a very uniqueproduct, etsy is a fantastic
(29:06):
place for you to put it, if it'ssomething you're going to keep
around for a long time.
If it's something that you'regoing to keep around for a long
time, you're going to haveseasonal candles that you're
going to want to bring back.
Or if it's, you have a brandand if you're wanting your brand
to go places, you definitelywant to go with Shopify.
So if you are planning to dowholesale or if you're planning
to do private label, if you wantto establish yourself as a
serious brand, you got to have awebsite.
(29:28):
You got to have a Shopify store.
Any of our wholesale outreachthat we do so we've got like 140
ish wholesale accounts.
Now the way I do my outreach iswhen I'm reaching out to new
stores to potentially carry ourproducts, I send them to a
unique hidden page on my websitethat I built on Shopify for
(29:48):
them to go through my wholesalecatalog and they can click
through it all, but also thatnow they're on my website.
So now I'm building trust withthem.
So, shopify, having your ownspace on the internet is
something that's really good fortrust.
If you tell me that your brandis, you know, um, highly scented
candles, whatever, it is rightand you tell me the brand if I
(30:11):
can't find a website for it,it's kind of like you can't find
social media for somethingnowadays, right, like every
brand, whether you like socialmedia or not, every brand has to
have social media.
Every brand that wants to betaken serious and wants to grow
is going to have to have aShopify store.
But you've got to do a lot ofwork to make it work for you.
(30:31):
So my personal experience is wehave both On.
Etsy is where we are promotingpersonalized items.
We are also promoting trendingitems.
Any of the hottest thing outright now we are going to put
onto Etsy.
And anything that is seasonalwe're going to put onto Etsy,
(30:52):
because there's going to be afluctuation of traffic on Etsy
based on the time of year forcertain things.
For instance, we created aunique candle for my teacher
appreciation right, which isgoing to be really popular at
the end of the school year.
We put those out there the nextday.
We're getting sales.
Same thing with, like, mother'sDay candles, father's Day
candles, different types ofholidays out there.
(31:15):
Those are gonna do reallyreally well on Etsy, like
instantly, instantly they can doreally well.
You can also run ads on Etsy butat the same time, if I'm
putting something on Etsy, I amfor sure, putting it on my own
website, because I want to haveit living on that website, for
Google to find it and startsending organic traffic to it
(31:38):
long-term.
Again, building out your ownwebsite, you're not going to be
getting business come to itright away unless you have a
following that you're going tosend to it.
So let's talk abouttransitioning from Etsy
customers to Shopify customersso you can do certain things,
(31:58):
such as put a business cardinside of any order that you get
on Etsy.
So if you're getting orders onEtsy, you want them to buy from
you directly next time, soyou're not paying those
transaction fees.
You also want them to see whatelse you have, because when
they're shopping with you onEtsy, they're not necessarily
seeing all that you have tooffer.
(32:20):
So include a business cardinside of your order.
Include a discount card insideof your order for them to come
back and shop with you on yourwebsite within seven days.
You always want to put someurgency behind it no-transcript,
and then hopefully, you cancapture their email address that
way so that they'll always bein your ecosystem.
(32:41):
So anytime you have a sale, apromotion, something coming up,
you can then email them Anytime.
I talk about this a lot as faras our own email marketing goes,
when I'm talking to peopleinside of our inner circle or
just in our Facebook group.
That's free for everyone, sodefinitely come and join that if
you'd like.
But I talk about emailmarketing and how, anytime we're
in a lull or it's been a roughmonth at the shop, we'll just
(33:03):
send out an email with apromotion and we're always going
to get a good return on that.
We're going to get sales comingin, and the only reason we can
do that is because we've beencollecting these people's email
addresses.
So that would be the ultimategoal of you.
If you are putting stuff out onEtsy, go and get those sales and
try to turn them into customerson your own website.
(33:24):
So one of the downsides aboutEtsy that's not talked about a
lot is how their algorithm isdeciding what to put in each
place, right?
So whenever someone issearching for a specific item,
they're going to be looking fora specific item.
Etsy is deciding which productto put.
You know, show up front andalgorithms can change
(33:45):
dramatically.
It's just like on meta, whichis, you know, your Facebook and
Instagram, where you know youcan be getting tons of traffic
to your business page and thenall of a sudden, it just goes
away and then they want you tostart boosting and putting money
and ad spend behind gettingyour business pages seen and
visible On Etsy.
(34:05):
They own everything and thealgorithm can change tomorrow
and you can go from getting lotsof views and traffic to none.
It can completely dry up, andwe hear about that In a lot of
candle groups.
We hear people talk about whathappened.
I had a hundred sales lastmonth and now I got five Like
what's going on here.
So if you, you know, arethinking about that, send each
(34:28):
one of those customers withtheir order, something that is
going to get them to go to yourown website, so that you're
going to have more control ofthem as a customer going forward
.
So that is what myrecommendation would be, also,
you know, knowing what kind ofproduct you're going to have and
is it going to fit with etsy'svibe?
(34:51):
Um, in general, right.
So etsy's vibe is.
It is a handcrafted marketplaceand there are some luxury goods
on there, but they're going tobe the more unique ones.
Um, I it's, it's.
They are.
People are price conscious whenthey are shopping on Etsy.
You know, our candles that are$26, are probably on the higher
(35:13):
end of most candles out on Etsy.
So that is you know, that is afactor People do are going to be
able to more, more pricesensitive out on etsy.
Remember, a lot of this isgifting for others, and while we
also we all want to give reallygood gifts, we also want to be
mindful how much we're spendingas well.
Um, so that's one of the thingsif you have a really high
(35:35):
priced item compared to someother competitors in your space,
um, if you are considered orconsider your brand a high-end
luxury brand, etsy might not bewhere your customer is, but I
would still recommend at leasttrying it, because you may find
some unique results on Etsy thatmight shock you.
(35:55):
And it's again 20 cents to putyour product out there.
You don't pay any of thosetransaction fees unless it sells
, so that's a really nicepositive.
One other thing I want tomention as we wrap up here today
is going to be there's pros andcons of both of them.
I would recommend being on bothand then just deciding where
(36:16):
you put your effort into.
So we have an Etsy store, butwe don't give it any attention,
we're not out there and updatingour product descriptions and
that SEO that we do out onShopify.
We just don't.
Shopify is where the majorityof our customers are coming from
.
In fact, we received thisShopify plaque here from Shopify
(36:37):
when we received 10,000 orders.
So we got this last year.
It says June 24th of last yearwhen we hit our 10,000th order
on our website.
So again, we're going to bebuilding out our Shopify store
and we're going to continue todo things with that.
But Etsy excuse me does have anice return for those one-off
(37:02):
personalized type of items, likeI said, those teacher
appreciation type of gifts.
Or if you're on a hot trend, ifyou're doing a bohemian chic,
if that's what's trending rightnow or in style right now, if
your vibe is that you can doreally, really well on Etsy.
So go out and see and just lookat the stars right next to the
(37:22):
star rating on Shopify stores tosee how many sales people are
getting, and you're going to beable to notice what types of
products do really well.
Here's a tip for you there areapps out there that will
actually take what you have inShopify and just move it over
(37:47):
and create a listing on Etsy foryou and vice versa so you can
go into these apps and put allof the product information there
and it will send it to Shopifyand it will send it to Etsy.
So we talk about that in theinner circle often.
If you're in there, definitelyask me.
I'll show you which apps we'reusing.
I'll actually show you how itworks.
But that is really an easy wayto manage all of this so that if
(38:09):
you need to swap out photos,you can do it in both places.
So look at those third-partyapps.
There is a charge, I think it'slike $5 per channel.
So Shopify would be a channel,etsy would be a channel.
That's gonna be 10 bucks for usfor that subscription or us to
do it.
But then when I need to swapout a photo, or if I had a
misspelling or I want to trychanging the title, and if I
(38:30):
want to do it in both places, Ican do it through a third-party
app and it makes it really easy.
So that's one really nicefeature about using a
third-party app out there.
So hopefully this has helpedyou kind of decide, okay, which
one makes the most sense Inreality.
I think anyone starting outshould try both.
You can start getting somesales out on Etsy and while
you're building out your Shopify.
(38:51):
But if you're going to bedriving any trap of your own
traffic, I would always drivethem to Shopify.
I would not share that link toEtsy.
Etsy will give you a link foryour products.
I'll actually give you a linkfor your Etsy store, but I would
never share that or promotethat unless I don't have a
Shopify store.
But I would just recommendanyone that's going to take this
(39:13):
serious.
You got to get a Shopify storeat some point.
You might as well start early,because it's going to take
several months for your websiteto start ranking, but you want
to be there and start ranking assoon as possible so that you
can start getting your owncustomer base.
Thank you again for so much forbeing here today.
If you have any questions, dropthem in the show notes below.
(39:35):
I would love to answer thosefor you.
Let me know what's working foryou.
Are you finding success onShopify versus Etsy or are you
doing better on Etsy versusShopify?
Let me know if you have anytips and tricks that we can
share with other people.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Candle Business Pro
podcast.
If you found this episodehelpful, we'd love it if you'd
leave us a rating and a review.
It really helps us reach moremakers like you.
(39:58):
Again, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Bye.
All right, candle makers, let's talk shop
literally Etsy or Shopify whichone actually deserves your time,
money and precious candlemaking energy?
I've tried them both and todaywe're diving into the honest
pros, the real cons and myunfiltered opinion on which one
I would choose if I started allover again.
Grab your notebook, becausethis decision might just change
(00:22):
your candle business forever.
So, etsy versus Shopify, we getasked this question pretty
often.
Of which one should I startwith?
Are they both oversaturated?
(00:42):
Where can I start getting somecandle sales at?
So today we're going to diveinto the pros and cons of both
of those.
Let you know where we're at,what our experience with both of
those are and what we woulddecide to go with if we were to
start all over again.
So I'm Sebastian Garzant, theco-founder of Garzant Beacon
Candle Company with my husband,chad, where we have passed now
(01:04):
$1.2 million in candle sales.
I'm also the founder of CandleBusiness Pro, where we help
makers go pro.
So let's dive into this first.
So let's break this intodifferent segments based on the
platform, and then also the prosand cons.
So let's start off with somepositivity.
So what are the pros of Etsy?
(01:27):
Well, one you have a built-inaudience with Etsy.
So that is probably the mostattractive thing about Etsy is
it has an audience.
People, millions of people aregoing to Etsy every single day
looking to purchase something.
Now it's instant trafficpotential for you.
(01:48):
You can make a candle, you canlist it out there today and you
can get sales today.
So that is the pro, the top proof Etsy is that it can bring
you sales when you have noaudience.
There's a few other things thatare really nice about Etsy.
So it's very easy to set up.
(02:10):
There's no technical experiencethat you need to set it up.
They walk you through the setupprocess.
It's very, very user-friendly.
There's also a very low initialinvestment.
This is going to be ideal forif you're just getting started
on a product, you're not reallysure if you have a market fit
for your product.
If you're making a candle andyou don't have that niche or
(02:35):
that target audience that Ialways talk about, almost every
episode just seems to come up,because I am such a big
proponent of knowing exactly whoyou want to sell to and what
niche you're in so that you canalways communicate and talk to
that customer Right.
But if you don't have thatfigured out right now you're not
quite sure who your idealcustomer is, but you already
(02:56):
have the product ready to go.
Putting it out on Etsy can goahead and start generating you
some sales can go ahead andstart generating you some sales,
but you still need to have thattarget audience figured out
because of some of the thingsthat we're going to talk about
with setting up Etsy and makingsure that you're using the right
tools that are built into it tobe successful.
(03:18):
Okay, so it's a low investment,it's easy to set up, it's easy
for anyone to get on there andit's pretty good with having its
own built in SEO, which isgoing to connect potential
buyers with you as a seller.
So those are some really goodthings about Etsy.
(03:40):
So high competition is going tobe probably the highest con of
Etsy, because now they areallowing others that haven't
actually made the productthemselves to sell products on
there, so it's even getting moresaturated.
So you really have to stick out.
The competition is fierce outthere, right?
We all know thousands of candlemakers out there exist and on
(04:05):
top of that, you have now theability for makers all across
the world to be putting productsonto Etsy, so you can literally
buy in bulk from overseascandles or any product, receive
it and then put it onto Etsyyourself and sell that now.
That used to be something thatwas banned, but now they are
allowing that.
(04:25):
So that is something that iscontributing to the competition
on Etsy being even higher thanever.
So that is one of the downsides.
One of the other downsides ofEtsy is going to be the limited
branding opportunity.
So you have less control overyour customer's experience.
So a person that we don't knowis going to go on to Etsy.
(04:48):
They're going to be searchingfor a product.
Your product may show up in theresults.
They like it, they buy it, butyou don't have a direct access
point to that customer, meaningany of the communication you
have with that customer is goingthrough Etsy.
So you don't have access totheir email address.
You don't have access toanything.
(05:09):
You'll have access to anaddress to send that product to,
but without having a phonenumber to put them on SMS
messaging or their email addressfor you to collect that
information, for you tocontinuously market to.
That's one of the downsides.
You just don't have thatavailability anymore.
You are able to obviously sellto them.
(05:30):
You can message with them ifthere's any questions or
concerns throughout thetransaction with them through
Etsy's app, and that's all builtreally well.
But once the transaction's overwith, so is that relationship
with them.
Now you are able to sendcoupons to people that have
liked your store within acertain amount of period or to
(05:51):
previous buyers.
So there are some things builtinto Etsy that really helps to
have a ongoing relationship withthem.
But if at any point, you decidethat Etsy is not for you
anymore and you want to go withShopify or another marketplace
to sell your products on, you'renot able to take those
(06:11):
customers with you.
So keep that in mind.
That is one of the downsides ofEtsy, because we should all be
trying to grow our business, andgrowing our business Isn't
going to just be in how manyactual sales or transactions
that we complete in a certainamount of time, but how many
people are coming into ouratmosphere, how many people are
(06:32):
coming into our world that nowwhen we are running a promotion
when it comes to Etsy.
So let's talk about the fees.
Etsy is going to have higherfees when it comes to a
percentage that they're going totake from you than other places
(06:55):
.
So there's a listing fee.
Now the listing fee is very,very minimal.
So the listing fee currentlyit's 20 cents, so very, very
minimal.
That listing fee is for sixmonths.
So you can put a product outthere on Etsy for 20 cents.
Say, I've got a hundred candles, that's gonna be, I can put a
hundred candles out on Etsy, andyou know, for $20.
So every time you sell theproduct it gets relisted.
(07:16):
If you have the inventory andif you have it to automatically
relist, so it's gonna charge youthat 20 cents every time you
sell it.
So just you know, build thatinto your cost of that 20 cents
there, into every transactionthat you do.
So that's very, very, very,very minimal.
That's going to be the leastexpensive fee, probably in any
venture.
We go on with selling candles,no matter what platform.
So that's that's very nominal.
(07:37):
I'm not concerned about thatwhatsoever.
Now there's a transaction feeof 6.5%.
Okay, so if you make a $100sale on Etsy, they're going to
take $6.50 from you right away.
So that's their transaction fee.
So it is definitely higher thanShopify.
(07:58):
It's higher than any othermarketplaces.
It's definitely high, but we'lldiscuss why it's not so
shocking here in just a moment.
Additionally, on top of justthat transaction fee of six and
a half percent.
They have an offsite ads fee.
This fee, based on whicheverplan you have.
There is an Etsy and there'slike an Etsy pro or an Etsy plus
(08:21):
is what they call it.
So based on which level you'reat, one costs $5 a month and it
just gives you some morefeatures.
So they swear inside of theirhandbook that you do not get any
preferential treatment by beingin the plus side but and paying
that monthly fee.
But you do get some features onyour homepage and some other
(08:42):
listing features that may helpyou out.
We do not use it, but if youwant to check that out, you
certainly can.
But just keep in mind that youare not going to get a better
chance of selling just becauseof that.
Now, if they are allowing youto control how the homepage for
your store looks, um, and it'sgoing to be built a little bit
differently, that possibly cancontribute to the customer's
experience being better, whichmay lead to a sale for you.
(09:06):
But it's something that we wedon't spend the five dollars on
it.
We just it's just not somethingthat we feel is going to bring
us additional sales.
I don't think a lot of peopleare going to our actual like
stores page.
They're going to be searchingfor something and then there's a
whole.
There's tons of results thatare going to show up and
hopefully they're going toselect one of our products.
They're going to go to go tothat product specifically,
probably not going to go andshop the rest of our store, but
(09:28):
it does depend on what they'relooking for, of course.
If it's a very specific keywordthat they're looking for let's
say they want a vanilla scentedsoy candle, right, and they land
on my page and they go to it Idon't see them going to my page
to look at whatever other itemsI have, necessarily unless
(09:49):
they've already decided thatthey like that product.
If they like that product thatthe results showed them, then
sure they may go and buy morethings.
So that might be one of thereasons to invest and do an Etsy
plus, but we don't do that.
The other thing that I wasreferencing of why it could be
12% or 15% is the offsite ads.
So what happens is Etsy willrun ads on Facebook, on
(10:09):
Instagram, on Google, lots ofdifferent places all over the
internet that Etsy is actuallyrunning ads for you if you have
this turned on, and what'sreally nice about this is that
you're not paying for those ads.
If you opt in to offsite adswith Etsy, you don't pay
(10:33):
anything unless your item sales.
And if your item sells thenyou're paying either 12% or 15%.
And again that the differencethere is based on if you are
opted into that a monthly fee tobe part of the Etsy plus
program, then you'll be paying aless percentage.
There we have this turned on.
A lot of candle makers I do seecomplain about the fees of Etsy
(10:58):
and especially this offsite adsfee.
But in reality that fee is very, very small compared to if
you're going to go and run yourown ads on Facebook or on
Instagram and trying to sellyour products that way, because
you're not guaranteed any saleswhen you're spending money
(11:20):
running ads.
But if Etsy picks your productand they're going to run ads for
it, you're not paying anythingunless that product sells.
So in reality, if you look at,say that, 12 to 15 percent let's
just say 15 percent to be onthe higher side and you look at
that six and a half percenttransaction fee, so now we're at
(11:41):
21 and a half percent.
Ok, so 21 and a half percent isthe maximum fee that Etsy will
charge you for a sale.
Now that seems high, but fromour experience we know that if
you go and spend a hundreddollars running Facebook ads at
(12:04):
21 and a half percent, thatmeans if you spent $100 on
Facebook, that means you'regetting over $500 in sales.
If that was the case, everybodywould be running ads.
Okay, everybody would berunning ads because you're
getting more money back thanwhat you're putting in.
Also, when you factor in yourcost of goods and your margins
(12:25):
for your candle, for your candlemaking you, you know you should
be close to five X, right?
So if I have a $26 candle, youknow, such as just our classic
candle, that are $26 and we aremaking these for like five, five
, 50.
So we are over a five X.
That's what we're aiming forwith our brand.
Um is getting at least a five Xor very close to a 5X margin.
(12:49):
So as long as you're doing thatand you're pricing your products
correctly, etsy, taking that 21and a half percent plus that 20
cents for the listing fee, ofcourse, we're still making good
money.
We're still making money thatwe would not be making if we
were trying to sell them on ourown with just trying to run ads,
because you're not going to getthat type of success running
(13:11):
meta ads.
We run ads on Facebook for ourbrand, but we're definitely not
getting a five to one, you know,a dollar and $5 out result.
That's just not reality.
Okay, so the transaction feesmight seem high, the fees in
general on Etsy might seem highand that might persuade some
people to not get on Etsy orwant to complain about Etsy.
(13:33):
But those fees to bring you asale are really good.
And remember the worst casescenario you don't get a sale
and you have wasted 20 cents foryour listing fee, plus the time
and effort and energy that goesin, of course, to putting your
products out there.
All right, so let's now moveover to Shopify and talk about
(13:53):
the pros and cons over there.
So the pros you're going tohave full control over the
branding and the customerexperience.
You can design your Shopifywebsite almost in any different
theme that you possibly want andin fact they give you a dozen
different theme options just tostart with.
(14:14):
It's a clean slate.
You get to decide what to putwhere and how you want your
customer's experience to flow,not just from them being on your
website, but then alsoafterwards from the follow-up
emails from the receipts.
You're going to collect theiremail addresses, so you're going
to be building your ownaudience.
You can even set up an emailsequence afterwards to start
(14:38):
sending them coupons and startsending them follow-ups and
start sending them emails to getreviews, right.
So Shopify is the gold standardfor an online platform.
That's why we are looking atShopify and Etsy not Etsy versus
Wix or Squarespace or any otherplace that you can build a
(14:58):
website.
The only place you want tobuild a website of your own is
going to be on Shopify.
It's just a gold standard.
Everything is built in andpackaged all together, from the
actual website itself to yourCRM, which is gonna be like your
customer relation manager,right, where you have all of
your customers' information tothe checkout phase All of these
(15:19):
things.
You actually have to build eachindividual area if you want to
go and try to build this out onWix or like on a WordPress site,
right?
And so while Shopify may bemore expensive on the front end
than those other websitebuilders, by the time you use
all the plugins and the add-onsneeded on those other website
(15:41):
builders, it's gonna end upbeing more expensive than
Shopify.
So you might as well, juststart where it's a standard.
There's thousands of apps thatyou can use that are compatible
with Shopify Um, in fact, theyare shipping.
So some of the some of the appsthat we use, we uh, we use
pirate ship, which is theshipping platform that we use to
(16:01):
get the best rates.
Um, we use a subscription box,a software, um, now, because we
have a candle of the month thatwe send out to all of our
subscribers that have signed upfor that.
It's fantastic for the holidaysas well.
Shopify actually has its nativefunction of doing a
subscription now as well, so wemight not even need to be paying
for that app anymore.
(16:23):
There's so many more apps thatthey have the the review apps,
right, so, where you can getthem to your customers to leave
a review and then it's posted onyour website.
So there's so many good thingswithin Shopify built into it,
right.
So there's that extensive appintegration and that's going to
include email marketing, gettingreviews, reward programs, all
(16:45):
of those types of things.
They've also have a reallyrobust and detailed analytics to
track.
So I go into my Shopify everysingle day.
I live in my Shopify, in fact,people that are in our inner
circle membership.
They actually see the salesthat I'm getting every day,
because I'm showing them duringmy office hours, which is our
live session we do every weekwith our members.
(17:06):
I'm going in there and showingthem the backend of my Shopify.
Whenever there's a questionwhether it's about emails,
shipping, average order value,any of the analytics that we
want to dive into I just showthem my store and so they can
see all of what's being captured.
So the analytics are superrobust.
So, like, for instance, thisweekend, I want to know do I
(17:29):
have the proper staffing for mystore?
Is it busy, is it not?
So I can go and look at my lastcouple of years and see what
the trends are, just to makesure that I'm running my
business properly.
I also have the ability toobviously know what my inventory
is, and then I can also do aforecast to see hey, based on
how many of these are selling,how many do I need to make to
get by for the next 60, 90, 120days?
(17:51):
Right?
So it is a lot more robust.
It's a very robust.
It's going to be the bestwebsite to build on out there.
So these are some of the prosof Shopify.
Is that you're going to haveall of these analytics as well.
Some other good things is thereis going to be a lower
transaction fee, and we'll talkabout the fees here in just a
(18:12):
moment but the overalltransaction fee is going to be
lower than it is on Etsy or anyother of the platforms out there
that you may be building off of, and this is because you're
using a Shopify checkout that isits own checkout system that
has an agreement with the Visa,the MasterCard, american Express
(18:34):
, apple Pay and all of those, sothey can get that transaction
fee pretty low.
So we'll talk about the feeshere in just a moment.
Let's dive into those cons ofShopify.
So the downsides of Shopify thebiggest one, the most glaring
one to anyone that has opened upa Shopify store is you must
drive your own traffic fromscratch.
(18:57):
This is going to be reallychallenging for most new candle
makers that are turning thisinto a business.
So, even though there'smillions of candle buyers in the
world, they aren't just waitingaround for your store to open
so they can just run right inand start buying from you.
Now, if you have a really goodsocial media following, you
already have kind of a sphere ofpeople that are in your space
(19:20):
that are wanting to buy from you.
Absolutely Send them to yourShopify store to make that
transaction.
It's going to be a lot less ofa fee than going to, let's say,
etsy, but you still have todrive them to your website and
you have to drive thosestrangers to your website as
well.
Right Now, you can do thisthrough Google.
You have to have your SEO,which is your search engine
(19:40):
optimization, set up completely.
It has to be done really,really well.
In fact, for our Inner Circlemembers, we actually have a
workshop where we showed youwhat are we ranking in the top
10?
What are we on the very firstfront page of Google for?
What have we done well?
And then where are theopportunities for us to do
better?
And then what we'll do is wewill make the changes, tell you
(20:03):
what the changes are and then goback and see what the
improvements did as far as ourranking goes.
So we talk about this a lotinside of the inner circle,
which is our community of othercandle business owners or makers
that have turned this into abusiness.
So I would highly recommend youcheck that out if you are
interested in growing yourShopify store or any other area
of your business.
One of the other pros of theinner circle is I actually walk
(20:24):
you through.
One of the other pros of theinner circle is I actually walk
you through.
It's a really robust three partworkshop on how to build a
Shopify store.
So if you're struggling withShopify, I totally get it.
We were originally as well.
You don't want to pay someoneto build your Shopify store
because what's going to happenis you're going to spend a lot
of money on paying someone tobuild it for you.
(20:48):
But if you don't learn the insand outs of it yourself, as soon
as you need some SEO changes,you need some optimization to
happen.
You need to swap out images,you need to put something on
sale.
Anytime you got to make anychanges, you're going to have to
go back and pay that personagain to do that.
So you want to learn how to useany of the softwares that
(21:08):
you're using, but you definitelywant to learn how to use
Shopify.
So, again, if you are in theinner circle or if you sign up
for it, you can go through ourhow to build a Shopify workshop,
where we actually built anentirely brand new brand,
separate from our Garcin andBeacon Candle company, just to
show you how to build a store.
So we went from completely fromscratch so that we didn't miss
(21:30):
a single step, including likegoing out to making sure that
trademarks weren't already takenand setting it up and
connecting it with our bankaccounts all of that stuff we
show you how to do.
So that would be one of thecons of Shopify is, you've got
to build it all out.
You got to build it all out,but then you can.
You own everything, right.
You own all the customer dataand you can reach out to your
(21:51):
customers at any time.
So those are some really goodthings about Shopify.
Let's talk about the transactionfees, though.
Shopify has a monthlysubscription fee, so $39, I
believe, is what it is at now.
I'll put a link for our Shopifyaffiliate link in the in the
notes below that you can get uh,it will sometimes fluctuate.
Right now they have where youcan get the first three months
(22:14):
for only a dollar a month, sothat would give you time to
build out your store.
See if it's going to be a placewhere you're going to want to
invest.
Invest a lot of your time andresources into building it out
and you know even more.
You know for a dollar for thenext.
You know $3 for the next threemonths.
That's a pretty good deal there.
(22:34):
So open up your Shopify andthen the transaction fees you're
going to see after that aregoing to vary.
So the credit card fees for thetransaction we call them credit
card fees is the transactionthat Shopify is going to take.
It's going to be between 2.4and 2.9%.
That's going to be based onwhich plan of Shopify you're on.
So we're on the $39 plan.
We do not do Shopify Pro or anyof the higher tiers that get
(22:57):
really expensive.
We do not use any of those.
We use the basic Shopify.
That's $39 a month.
We use Shopify in all three ofmy stores now and they really
try to encourage us to upgradeto what's called the POS, which
is point of sale upgrade, butthat's an additional $79 a month
and we have not found that wewould need it.
So it does little things likewe can change what it says on
(23:20):
the receipts.
You know that we're printingout of the register for each
individual store things likethat.
There's a few other inventorythings that come along with
using that.
But we run three stores.
We have an online store, westill have markets still.
And then, obviously, ourwebsite.
We have not found the reasonfor it to be beneficial for us
(23:41):
to upgrade and justify that cost.
So just keep that in mind,because you're going to see a
lot of these upgradeopportunities that they are
going to give you or present toyou.
We haven't needed to take themup on that, so just keep that in
mind.
So we're paying $39 a month andthen we're paying between 2.4,.
Well, we're paying the higher inthe 2.9% on the transaction,
but there is a 30 centtransaction fee as well.
(24:04):
So every time there's a cardswipe, there's 30 cents.
Kind of think about it like thelisting fee over on Etsy.
That's 20 cents.
Right, it's 20 cents to put aproduct out there.
When it sells.
You got to pay 20 cents for itto replenish out there On
Shopify's side, per transaction,so it can be multiple items.
So you're not paying per item,you're paying per transaction.
(24:26):
It's 30 cents.
A swipe and then that 2.9%transaction fee.
Of course, that transaction fee, as I mentioned, can vary as
well, but you do have that $39or whatever it currently is fee
to have a Shopify store.
That's going to be the biggesthindrance for a lot of people
besides, just the.
(24:47):
You got to build it out.
You got to build it out.
You got to put all the workinto it.
So let's talk about what mypersonal recommendations would
be for you.
So what's the goal?
What is your goal with yourbusiness?
Do you really just likecreating a few of this item and
then you want to sell it andthen you're going to switch and
create a few of this item?
(25:08):
Do you like to switch up yoursense all the time?
The reason I ask that isbecause, if you're going to be
changing things a lot, etsymight be the way to go to get
traffic and putting something infront of a massive audience of
people.
Right, people are looking forstuff that are just trending.
There's always trends going upand down on Etsy and they share
(25:28):
that information with you.
If Bohemian is in right now orChic is in right now, they tell
you, they put out newslettersand they explain what's hot and
you can actually make thingsthat are on trend and you can do
really well.
You can also do really well onEtsy with personalized items.
So you can have personalizedcandles that are something where
(25:50):
you're going to put someone'sname on it or you're going to
put a custom label on the candleor even just on the back of the
candle, because a lot of peopleon Etsy are gifting right.
They are buying for otherpeople and not just themselves.
In fact, most of the ordersthat we get spoiler alert were
on both Etsy and Shopify.
So most of the orders we get onEtsy are those personalized
(26:12):
candles and that is why we stillhave an Etsy store.
This is my Sugar Lemon, mybasic, my number one, selling
candle in our store.
This right here does not do wellon Etsy because people aren't
necessarily looking for it.
It's not something that is thelatest trend, it's not the
hottest thing out.
It's not personalized, notsomething that is the latest
(26:33):
trend, it's not the hottestthing out, it's not personalized
, it is.
It does well on Shopify frompeople searching online for that
.
But generally people searchingon Etsy are looking for
something super unique orsomething that they can gift for
someone.
So my recommendation for Etsyis do you like to switch gears a
lot?
If you like to switch gears alot, you're going to be putting
out the latest since the hottestcraze a crave out there.
(26:56):
It's definitely worth exploring, because putting those super
trendy things out on Shopify,your website needs to be around
a while for that SEO to startworking for you.
Now you can go ahead and putstuff on Shopify, like what we
do, and then we'll run ads forit, right?
For instance, last year, santalwas like the hottest summer
(27:20):
scent.
We built out a couple of Santalcandles.
We can run ads all over Googleto our Shopify store.
We can also do the same thingon Facebook, right?
So we're running Facebook adsfor that Santal candle and when
someone clicks on that ad it'staking them to that product,
which is on my Shopify store.
So that is one of the pros ofthe Shopify you can run your own
(27:40):
ads to it.
But if you're not wanting to godown that road of running ads,
it's going to take just a littlebit of time for some of those
trending keywords to be pickedup by Google and driving traffic
to your website.
So SEO is pretty robust.
It's a lot to take on, but yougot to do it for your website to
stick out and just know thatit's a long game, right?
(28:02):
Whatever you update on yourwebsite today, on your Shopify
store today, google's not evengoing to recognize those updates
until they it's called crawl,until they crawl your website
again.
They're not even going to knowabout it yet, right?
They crawl your website every14 to 21 days, okay, so they
don't tell you exactly whenthey're going to do it, but it's
(28:23):
.
It's for e-commerce stores.
The average is 14 to 21 days.
So when you make changes toyour website, google may not
even know about that for two tothree weeks, and then Google has
to see people go to yourwebsite.
Google may not even know aboutthat for two to three weeks, and
then Google has to see peoplego to your website and look at
the decisions they make.
Do they click on it?
And then they leave right away.
That's called a bounce andthat's that's not a good rating.
(28:44):
If they go to your website andthey hang out there for a little
bit, that's a good rating inGoogle's eyes.
So then you go higher up on therankings within Google.
Again, we go into this prettydeep inside of an SEO workshop,
inside of our inner circle, butthis video and episode for the
podcast is all about Shopifyversus Etsy, so let's get back
to that.
So if you have a very uniqueproduct, etsy is a fantastic
(29:06):
place for you to put it, if it'ssomething you're going to keep
around for a long time.
If it's something that you'regoing to keep around for a long
time, you're going to haveseasonal candles that you're
going to want to bring back.
Or if it's, you have a brandand if you're wanting your brand
to go places, you definitelywant to go with Shopify.
So if you are planning to dowholesale or if you're planning
to do private label, if you wantto establish yourself as a
serious brand, you got to have awebsite.
(29:28):
You got to have a Shopify store.
Any of our wholesale outreachthat we do so we've got like 140
ish wholesale accounts.
Now the way I do my outreach iswhen I'm reaching out to new
stores to potentially carry ourproducts, I send them to a
unique hidden page on my websitethat I built on Shopify for
(29:48):
them to go through my wholesalecatalog and they can click
through it all, but also thatnow they're on my website.
So now I'm building trust withthem.
So, shopify, having your ownspace on the internet is
something that's really good fortrust.
If you tell me that your brandis, you know, um, highly scented
candles, whatever, it is rightand you tell me the brand if I
(30:11):
can't find a website for it,it's kind of like you can't find
social media for somethingnowadays, right, like every
brand, whether you like socialmedia or not, every brand has to
have social media.
Every brand that wants to betaken serious and wants to grow
is going to have to have aShopify store.
But you've got to do a lot ofwork to make it work for you.
(30:31):
So my personal experience is wehave both On.
Etsy is where we are promotingpersonalized items.
We are also promoting trendingitems.
Any of the hottest thing outright now we are going to put
onto Etsy.
And anything that is seasonalwe're going to put onto Etsy,
(30:52):
because there's going to be afluctuation of traffic on Etsy
based on the time of year forcertain things.
For instance, we created aunique candle for my teacher
appreciation right, which isgoing to be really popular at
the end of the school year.
We put those out there the nextday.
We're getting sales.
Same thing with, like, mother'sDay candles, father's Day
candles, different types ofholidays out there.
(31:15):
Those are gonna do reallyreally well on Etsy, like
instantly, instantly they can doreally well.
You can also run ads on Etsy butat the same time, if I'm
putting something on Etsy, I amfor sure, putting it on my own
website, because I want to haveit living on that website, for
Google to find it and startsending organic traffic to it
(31:38):
long-term.
Again, building out your ownwebsite, you're not going to be
getting business come to itright away unless you have a
following that you're going tosend to it.
So let's talk abouttransitioning from Etsy
customers to Shopify customersso you can do certain things,
(31:58):
such as put a business cardinside of any order that you get
on Etsy.
So if you're getting orders onEtsy, you want them to buy from
you directly next time, soyou're not paying those
transaction fees.
You also want them to see whatelse you have, because when
they're shopping with you onEtsy, they're not necessarily
seeing all that you have tooffer.
(32:20):
So include a business cardinside of your order.
Include a discount card insideof your order for them to come
back and shop with you on yourwebsite within seven days.
You always want to put someurgency behind it no-transcript,
and then hopefully, you cancapture their email address that
way so that they'll always bein your ecosystem.
(32:41):
So anytime you have a sale, apromotion, something coming up,
you can then email them Anytime.
I talk about this a lot as faras our own email marketing goes,
when I'm talking to peopleinside of our inner circle or
just in our Facebook group.
That's free for everyone, sodefinitely come and join that if
you'd like.
But I talk about emailmarketing and how, anytime we're
in a lull or it's been a roughmonth at the shop, we'll just
(33:03):
send out an email with apromotion and we're always going
to get a good return on that.
We're going to get sales comingin, and the only reason we can
do that is because we've beencollecting these people's email
addresses.
So that would be the ultimategoal of you.
If you are putting stuff out onEtsy, go and get those sales and
try to turn them into customerson your own website.
(33:24):
So one of the downsides aboutEtsy that's not talked about a
lot is how their algorithm isdeciding what to put in each
place, right?
So whenever someone issearching for a specific item,
they're going to be looking fora specific item.
Etsy is deciding which productto put.
You know, show up front andalgorithms can change
(33:45):
dramatically.
It's just like on meta, whichis, you know, your Facebook and
Instagram, where you know youcan be getting tons of traffic
to your business page and thenall of a sudden, it just goes
away and then they want you tostart boosting and putting money
and ad spend behind gettingyour business pages seen and
visible On Etsy.
(34:05):
They own everything and thealgorithm can change tomorrow
and you can go from getting lotsof views and traffic to none.
It can completely dry up, andwe hear about that In a lot of
candle groups.
We hear people talk about whathappened.
I had a hundred sales lastmonth and now I got five Like
what's going on here.
So if you, you know, arethinking about that, send each
(34:28):
one of those customers withtheir order, something that is
going to get them to go to yourown website, so that you're
going to have more control ofthem as a customer going forward
.
So that is what myrecommendation would be, also,
you know, knowing what kind ofproduct you're going to have and
is it going to fit with etsy'svibe?
(34:51):
Um, in general, right.
So etsy's vibe is.
It is a handcrafted marketplaceand there are some luxury goods
on there, but they're going tobe the more unique ones.
Um, I it's, it's.
They are.
People are price conscious whenthey are shopping on Etsy.
You know, our candles that are$26, are probably on the higher
(35:13):
end of most candles out on Etsy.
So that is you know, that is afactor People do are going to be
able to more, more pricesensitive out on etsy.
Remember, a lot of this isgifting for others, and while we
also we all want to give reallygood gifts, we also want to be
mindful how much we're spendingas well.
Um, so that's one of the thingsif you have a really high
(35:35):
priced item compared to someother competitors in your space,
um, if you are considered orconsider your brand a high-end
luxury brand, etsy might not bewhere your customer is, but I
would still recommend at leasttrying it, because you may find
some unique results on Etsy thatmight shock you.
(35:55):
And it's again 20 cents to putyour product out there.
You don't pay any of thosetransaction fees unless it sells
, so that's a really nicepositive.
One other thing I want tomention as we wrap up here today
is going to be there's pros andcons of both of them.
I would recommend being on bothand then just deciding where
(36:16):
you put your effort into.
So we have an Etsy store, butwe don't give it any attention,
we're not out there and updatingour product descriptions and
that SEO that we do out onShopify.
We just don't.
Shopify is where the majorityof our customers are coming from
.
In fact, we received thisShopify plaque here from Shopify
(36:37):
when we received 10,000 orders.
So we got this last year.
It says June 24th of last yearwhen we hit our 10,000th order
on our website.
So again, we're going to bebuilding out our Shopify store
and we're going to continue todo things with that.
But Etsy excuse me does have anice return for those one-off
(37:02):
personalized type of items, likeI said, those teacher
appreciation type of gifts.
Or if you're on a hot trend, ifyou're doing a bohemian chic,
if that's what's trending rightnow or in style right now, if
your vibe is that you can doreally, really well on Etsy.
So go out and see and just lookat the stars right next to the
(37:22):
star rating on Shopify stores tosee how many sales people are
getting, and you're going to beable to notice what types of
products do really well.
Here's a tip for you there areapps out there that will
actually take what you have inShopify and just move it over
(37:47):
and create a listing on Etsy foryou and vice versa so you can
go into these apps and put allof the product information there
and it will send it to Shopifyand it will send it to Etsy.
So we talk about that in theinner circle often.
If you're in there, definitelyask me.
I'll show you which apps we'reusing.
I'll actually show you how itworks.
But that is really an easy wayto manage all of this so that if
(38:09):
you need to swap out photos,you can do it in both places.
So look at those third-partyapps.
There is a charge, I think it'slike $5 per channel.
So Shopify would be a channel,etsy would be a channel.
That's gonna be 10 bucks for usfor that subscription or us to
do it.
But then when I need to swapout a photo, or if I had a
misspelling or I want to trychanging the title, and if I
(38:30):
want to do it in both places, Ican do it through a third-party
app and it makes it really easy.
So that's one really nicefeature about using a
third-party app out there.
So hopefully this has helpedyou kind of decide, okay, which
one makes the most sense Inreality.
I think anyone starting outshould try both.
You can start getting somesales out on Etsy and while
you're building out your Shopify.
(38:51):
But if you're going to bedriving any trap of your own
traffic, I would always drivethem to Shopify.
I would not share that link toEtsy.
Etsy will give you a link foryour products.
I'll actually give you a linkfor your Etsy store, but I would
never share that or promotethat unless I don't have a
Shopify store.
But I would just recommendanyone that's going to take this
(39:13):
serious.
You got to get a Shopify storeat some point.
You might as well start early,because it's going to take
several months for your websiteto start ranking, but you want
to be there and start ranking assoon as possible so that you
can start getting your owncustomer base.
Thank you again for so much forbeing here today.
If you have any questions, dropthem in the show notes below.
(39:35):
I would love to answer thosefor you.
Let me know what's working foryou.
Are you finding success onShopify versus Etsy or are you
doing better on Etsy versusShopify?
Let me know if you have anytips and tricks that we can
share with other people.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Candle Business Pro
podcast.
If you found this episodehelpful, we'd love it if you'd
leave us a rating and a review.
It really helps us reach moremakers like you.
(39:58):
Again, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Bye.
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