Website or Etsy??

[Longbows]

In your opinion, do you think a business website looks more legit to potential retailers, as opposed to selling your products on Etsy?

[chuck123wapati]

32 minutes ago, Longbows said:

In your opinion, do you think a business website looks more legit to potential retailers, as opposed to selling your products on Etsy?

yes a website is much more legit,  I've never looked on etsy for products let alone buy any from the site nor do I plan to. 

[chrisash]

Far better on a web site, but you do have to build in a potentially very large marketing budget to make it work and reach good positions on any search engine. The marketing can be by e-commerce advertising or traditional means.Amazon, Ebay and Etsy etc have spent their millions in doing the advertising for you, unfortunately also directing all your competitors to the same location whilst doing it, so unless you have a niche product it does tend to be a fight for the lowest total price

Thinking out of the Box, selling to high value retail shops may give you a constant stream of customers at a lower profit but without paying the high marketing costs is one option, but with all businesses its a balancing act whatever way you go

Identifying your market is helps wasting time and money

[Longbows]

Thank you.  It seems if a person wants to get into the retail market, a website is a must.  

[chrisash]

Regarding marketing, don't forget that both sex's buy goods and often for the other half, often men seem to aim their marketing to men and ladies to ladies, but presents are often for the opposite sex, so  maybe a wallet or mens belt will be brought as a present by the wife/girlfriend; and handbags by the husband

So keep options open and wide with marketing/advertising, a sample or leaflet in a ladies hairdressers may bring in a surprising number of orders

[chiefjason]

Depends on your strategy.  Full time or side business?  How much time do you want to dedicate to upkeep of the site?  Or how much money do you want to spend on that?  Payment methods?  Tax collection?  Marketing?  

I've gone the other route as a side business.  I use etsy, eBay, word of mouth, and some local gun boards exclusively.  I don't have time for a full time job, family, side job AND dealign with the minutia of keeping a website up or paying to keep it up.  So I pay for the opportunity to let other people do that for me.  

To Ncvstarleather's point, on one item he's right.  But if you list several items as inventory that .20 gets divided among them.  And if you catch it before you sell out you just edit your inventory and divide it even further.  You just have to be clear on lead times in the description or shipping section.  And even then folks will miss it.