I have been on Etsy for 3 years part-time (between two shop names). I've never had consistent sales but my views certainly dropped when the forums were axed.
I also sell on iCraft. Traffic there is 1/4 what it is on Etsy.
I can afford to absorb the losses from listing listing listing and not selling though because this is not my full time occupation. If it were, I would totally use my own website. As it is, I am hmtl dumb, have no time to learn, and appreciate that sites like Etsy and iCraft make my store front and cart system and contact system for me (for a fee, of course).
In my first year, I had a (craptastic) website. I got a large custom order through it. In my second year, I got a decent custom order through Etsy. At the end of December, I got a large custom order through my iCraft site. So... they seem to have the same general level of success to me, just in different ways. I have had more total transactions through Etsy than iCraft (counting the ones under my original name here.) But, with this last custom order, I have sold more $$ through iCraft.
iCraft seems to do better with Google search results than Etsy. Not sure why. So, that's why I don't mind that the traffic is low.
I do think having a website is useful, so I'm using Blogger as my "stand-in" web presence. All my "website" efforts are being focused there (which is why I love this team!)
