They weighed it for me and printed out the shipping label. When I sold my first item I put it in my reused packaging and brought it to the post office. I saved boxes and envelopes that I received in the mail and kept them to reuse. I didn't have a printer, a shipping scale or new shipping envelopes. When I first started out I didn't have anything except my laptop. If you know how to do that, then you could probably just use your phone. I'm not a tech wiz so I don't know if you can print shipping labels from your phone to your printer. The Etsy app is great and I use it a lot, but I still feel like you need a computer. One of my Instagram followers asked me if you can do it all on a smart phone or if you need a computer. If you only read one book I suggest Etsy Excellence: The Simple Guide to Creating a Thriving Etsy Business. You can find my favorite books for selling on Etsy at this blog post: The Best Resources for Pursuing a Creative Vintage Business. Once you sell an item you'll pay a 5% fee. So if you list 10 items it will cost you $2.00. It costs nothing to open a shop but when you list an item it’s $.20 per listing. Etsy has a great resource on how to open an Etsy shop guide. I think it's the easiest place to sell and isn't complicated at all. One of the main questions I received from my Instagram followers was 'Is selling on Etsy complicated?'. When an item sells I can immediately ship it out which makes it much more seamless. With Etsy, customers pay for their items when they checkout. Then you have to start the process over again.) There's so much back and forth and waiting on the customer to pay (And sometimes they don't pay, even after they have claimed an item. Then you have to log into Paypal again to actually ship the item. You have to create an invoice on Paypal, send it and then wait for them to pay.

They have to send you their Paypal info or you have to message them asking for it. The main reason I didn't like selling on Instagram is because there are so many steps once someone claims your item. I did sell quite a bit which was great, but again I didn't like selling on there as much as Etsy. I burned out on Ebay and chose to pursue Etsy instead and I'm glad I did. That's a huge pain because you have to wait days for payment and when they don't pay you have to create a new listing and start over again. I've had someone buy one of my items and then not pay for it. I found the listing process really clunky and not straightforward.

How is Etsy compared to other selling platforms?Ī few years ago I sold a lot on Ebay and it was okay.

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