Shopify and Etsy: How Your Business Will Benefit From Using Both

Many E-commerce business owners get stuck in the Shopify vs Etsy conundrum when launching their company. Both platforms have millions of users and have become trusted ways to reach a global audience. Shopify and Etsy seem like similar platforms from afar, but they have different operation modes that can benefit e-commerce businesses. Shopify is an e-commerce platform where people can build and manage their online stores. It is flexible and offers many customizable options so business owners can design their storefronts to their taste. Their extensive collection of themes and features allows businesses to craft a unique brand identity and finetune their store to meet customers’ needs. This saves new companies the cost and time of creating a new ecommerce website from scratch.

Shopify has over four million stores and is used in over 175 countries, signifying its reliability and trustworthiness. The scalable platform enables you to expand your business by adding more products to your inventory at will. You can also integrate your Shopify store with other applications to streamline your business operations.

Etsy is a platform mainly tailored towards designers and people into arts and crafts. Unlike Shopify, Etsy is a marketplace where sellers post their products for people to search for and buy them. The platform has about 40 million buyers, so e-commerce business owners can leverage their existing consumer base to make sales. It is easy to create an Etsy store to start selling, so people without the expertise or resources to build a store from scratch can quickly get their products in front of potential customers.

Why Use Shopify and Etsy

There are unique benefits to using either Shopify or Etsy. However, your e-commerce business will gain from using both platforms at the same time in the following ways:

• Exposure to more customers

Selling on multiple platforms will expose your products to a broader audience. Shopify and Etsy have different consumer bases, so it is best to tap into both markets simultaneously. This will help you attract customers who would otherwise not have seen your products.

• Better inventory management

Shopify Etsy integration makes it easier to manage your inventory on both platforms. This is because you can automate the synchronization of your product listings and items in your inventory. This prevents backorders and gives you an accurate picture of how much of your products are left in stock so you can reorder when necessary.

• Optimization of marketing efforts

Using both e-commerce platforms can improve your marketing efforts. Shopify has marketing tools you can use to drive traffic to your online store. These include social media integration and email marketing tools. You can also activate pop-ups on your Shopify store to collect customer data to grow your email list.  Meanwhile, Etsy has a huge consumer base that visits the marketplace daily. It also allows you to run ads showing your sponsored posts to users on search results, market pages, and category pages on their website and mobile application.

Endnote

Instead of picking between Etsy and Shopify when launching your e-commerce business, you can use both. Shopify Etsy integration gives you better inventory management, puts your business in front of more consumers, and boosts your marketing efforts. Both platforms are great starting points for your business because they are relatively easy to set up and manage. They are cost-effective compared to building your e-commerce website from scratch.