So here's my situation. I am a caregiver for my Mom, Etsy is my sole income source at the moment.
I am currently using Etsy Plus with Pattern (which is $25USD per month, combined) as I hand make items along with being a reseller of Hawaiian souvenirs that do not qualify in the Etsy format. My thought process was that Etsy has the better priority with Google, that we get better listings in search by joining the Plus Service, we get $5USD in credit towards Promoted Listings, $3USD in free listings, and priority search.
Recently I also joined the Google Shopping program, set at $5 per day, and had my Etsy Promoted Listings set for $5 per day, just to see what would happen. I also joined the "free shipping" nonsense.
I immediately noticed that more people than before were favoriting items, so I went to check my stats for traffic and found that the majority of the hits were coming from my Instagram/Facebook posts or searches within Etsy as third. I then went to look up how my promoted listings were actually doing on the timeline, and the majority of the Etsy promoted listings were dumped into the search at midnight, so by 1am all of my promoted listings were used up for the day. On top of that, I looked at the individual listings in the Search Analytics, my listings were in the 200 - 600 range in the position column, meaning that I was nowhere near the front page. On top of that, I found out in one of the forums that Google Shopping does not include the Pattern Website, only the Etsy Sorefront.
At this point, more than half of my sales are going towards promotions that are eating up all of my profit and showing me no return. The only sales I'm getting are from my Instagram and Facebook posts.
I am currently using Square with Etsy to sell at events and craft fairs. I like that I can link my Etsy inventory with the Square app and can allow people to pay with cards along with cash. The problem is that Esty does not add on the Pattern only inventory to the synchronization, only the Etsy inventory, so I have to manually enter the Pattern only inventory into the Square App, and them after I sell a Pattern only item I have to go back and manually adjust the inventory through the Pattern Dashboard, which you can not do through the Etsy App currently, so it's really hard to keep track in real time.
I was just contacted by Square that they offer free websites, as well as monthly fee websites that have more features included, based on your business needs. For fun I set one up just to see what it would look like and how it would function, and during the set up process, it automatically transferred all of my Etsy Listings, but did not carry over any of the photos. So, although it would be a pain to re-upload the photos, I still have them so it's not a major problem. I would still have to continue posting the Pattern only merch separately.
I was also looking into Shopify, for about the same price per month as Etsy's Pattern I can set up my own shop. I'm not sure if they have a way to coincide yet, but I'm still doing some research on it.
Has anyone here ever used Shopify or Square as a website and what were the pros/cons if you did?
I just can't continue as a business if all of my profits go into promotion that isn't working. And I feel like Etsy started the Pattern program and then put no effort into continuing improving it, most of the improvements on Etsy have not transferred over to Pattern, so I'm not sure what I'm paying for at this moment.
