Should you have one Etsy shop or two Etsy shops?
You might be in a situation where you’re wondering if you should split your Etsy shop into two different ones because you have different ideas or products and you’re wondering if they all belong in the same shop or you might have different shops and you’re wondering if you should fuse them. Whatever your situation is, I think this video is going to help. Let’s dive in, but before we do, here’s a FREE quiz/decision tree to help you decide.
There are two reasons why you could consider having two shops rather than one. The first one is you have too many different item types in your shop. For example, you might be selling jewelry but also have some ceramics and digital prints and you’re considering adding something else again to the mix. That starts diluting your brand positioning as people visiting your shop are just going to get confused. That affects your sales because people don’t trust the quality of what you’re doing simply because you’re not specialized enough, and you may end up suffering from what I call “The Dollar Store Stigma”. That’s why if you’re making things that are different: different item types with different handmade skills, then I would recommend separating them into two shops.
The second reason to have two shops is if you have the same type of items, but they have a different style and different aesthetics that would appeal to two very different types of ideal customers. Then it makes sense to separate them as well.
not sure if you should have 2 shops? Grab this free decision tree!
This free DECISION TREE WILL HELP YOU DECIDE IF YOU SHOULD HAVE ONE OR TWO ETSY SHOP! AND IT’S FUN TOO!
I’d like to share with you an example of one of my Tizzit HQ members. Her name is Jackie and she’s a fabulous human. She’s from South Australia and she makes jewelry but has two different shops. The first one is called “Jacki’s little shop” and she mostly sells LGBTQIAP jewelry (and gives 10% of her profit from that shop back to an organization called Hutt Street Center that helps homeless people in her area).
That appeals to one specific type of ideal customer so when she started wanting to create a different type of jewelry, she realized that it doesn’t work with what she’s currently selling because the new idea was to create a brand of eco-conscious jewelry made with cork. That new shop is called “1703 by Jacki” and this time she picked “1% for the planet” to give the profit back to because yes, Jackie is that awesome.
My point here is that sometimes even if you’re selling the same type of item, if the aesthetics, style and the ideal customer it’s appealing to are different, then you’re better off splitting that into two different stores.
Now let’s look at the reasons why it could be a good idea to have just one shop. The first thing that comes to mind is if you’re new to Etsy. I wouldn’t recommend you overwhelm yourself with starting two shops in that situation. There’s a lot that goes into growing a shop and I do think that it is best to have just one at the beginning, especially if you can’t commit to working full time on that new Etsypreneurship of yours. You’ll be more efficient and productive focusing on just one shop, getting it off the ground, and then considering adding a second one into the equation.
If you’re thinking about opening a new shop, but when you really think about it, you only have like 4 – 6 products that you’re thinking of selling there and it’s just because you have this creative genius moment and you’re thinking, “Whoa, I want to make this now!” it might not be worthy enough of a new shop just yet.
The third reason is kind of like the first one, but it applies to you even if you’ve been on Etsy for a long time. If that’s you, you know what it takes to grow a shop, maintain it, do all the admin work, creation, taking the pictures, listing all the products and everything else.
I do think that unless you really have the mental space and time, it might just be a little bit too much to have two shops at a time. That’s a personal decision though.
Speaking of the decisions, how do you decide? Well, first off, don’t forget the freebie that will help you decide. Other than that, sometimes there are some good reasons to have two shops, but that doesn’t always mean that you should have two different shops. You may think you NEED two shops, but CAN YOU really afford to have them when you add the workload into the equation? I think it’s an important distinction.
The golden rule is to have a consistent, branded shop that appeals to one type of customer. That could mean having two shops or it could mean cleaning up the shop that you currently have of items that don’t really belong with the rest of your shop. How to decide? It’s mostly going to depend on where you’re at on your handmade business journey, your level of experience and the resources (time, and money) that you have available. If you’re still not sure, take the quiz to help you decide!
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I need help trying to understand how Etsy handles allowing me to set up another shop. It seems that I need a different e-mail address to accomplish this, and maybe even a different browser for the second shop. Am I correct and if so, what is your experience with Etsy on this?
Hello Cathy! Thank you for your question. We use our blog to share industry information as well as Deb’s thoughts on topics but we save our in-depth conversation to inside Tizzit HQ so that we can reach and engage our members. You’re welcome to take the conversation to the Community forums inside Tizzit HQ. Thank you!