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Selling on Etsy: The Best Outlet for Selling Vintage Items and Crafts
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Selling on Etsy: How to Sell on Etsy and Etsy Benefits
‘What is Etsy’? and ‘What can I sell on Etsy?’ are the two most common questions that I get related to Etsy.com.
The answer to #1: Etsy is a fixed-price marketplace for vintage and hand-made crafts. Sellers build their own Etsy store and then they can offer their items in a setting that is similar to eBay fixed price listings or eBay store inventory.
#2: Etsy limits sellers to offering the following goods: Vintage Items over 20 years old, hand-made crafts, and “commercial and hand-made craft supplies”.
If your item does not fall into one of those three categories, it cannot be listed on Etsy.
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Selling on Etsy: Etsy vs eBay
These are my own opinions, after being a seller on both sites for an extended period of time. Please use your own judgment after researching both sites, if you are deciding on one site or the other.In other words, don’t just take my word for it. Check the sites out for yourself.
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Selling Bakelite Etsy Collectibles: How to Identify Bakelite, Melamine and Other Mid Century Modern Items
Mid-Century and retro items sell very well on Etsy. The bright colors of the items look great in the site’s selling format, which utilizes large item photos, the ability to market on Pinterest, and also tag items for the search engines. Mid-Century and retro items have had a very consistent demand among collectors, decorators and eBay bidders since the late 1980s. That demand has skyrocketed lately, with the popularity of a number of recent cable TV shows set in the 1940s-1960s, including Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire and Magic City. Locating mid century items is surprisingly easy. They stick out like a sore thumb, once you know what they look like. Start by searching eBay Completed Listings in the Collectible: Vintage, Retro, Mid-Century Category Look at as many photos of these items as you can on the internet and in books BEFORE you go inventory picking. The more you see this stuff, the more it sticks out. One of the easiest ways to identify mid century collectibles is to look for Bakelite. Perhaps that is why so many collectors buy Bakelite items. When you think 1950s, you think Bakelite plastic. It was used everywhere! The colorful plastic is representative of the era, and looks much different than current materials. Most internet sellers can identify Bakelite by sight, in most cases. When all else fails, Bakelite makes a dull ‘clunk’ when you hit items together. Some Bakelite items that do very well at auction include: Bakelite Jewelry (especially bead necklaces and bracelets), radios, serving pieces, pin-backs and brooches, poker chips and sets, dice, clocks, serving pieces and utensils, sculptures, and even Bakelite buttons can sell very well. |
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Selling on Etsy: Creating Etsy Crafts from Garage Sale Finds, Thrift Store Treasure and Flipping Flea Market Finds
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