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About a year ago I decided it was time to give Etsy a shot. I'd heard so many great things: low fees, attractive shopping experience, and overnight successes to name a few. The idea of adding a little extra visibility to my line seemed like a no brainer. However, after slim sales, virtually no visitors per week, and more fees than I wanted to deal with, it's time to quit. Here's what I've discovered:

It turns out that the vast quantity of Etsy shoppers are Etsy sellers. It makes sense I suppose. While Etsy has had record growth in the last 12 months, it really hasn't become well known outside the crafting communities. I heard about it from a handmade forum, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone outside my other beading friends mention it. While there are tales of celebrities looking out for great handmade deals, the site is geared to attract other artistic types. With artist forums and a dazzling display on the front pages, it's not easy to get down to business without being distracted by the other talent. Let's back that up with some data: According to an article on Handmade Marketing, the top sites that an Etsy shopper visits are Jewelrysupply.com Artbeads.com and Beaducation.com, to name a few. That is, other sites that are 100% geared to crafters, not jewelry shoppers.

Handmade Marketing also points out that the average shopper is a college-educated female under 34 with low to mid income. Now I know I sell luxury goods, so those statistics alone tell me I'm in the wrong place. Also most of the shoppers are from within the US, and while I'd love to get a stronger following here, the truth is that the majority of my sales come from Europe and Australia.

Demographics aside, the main problem for me was that most of the visible stores are underselling their work. I could write pages on underpricing and how it's damaging the home-business market, but I digress. The specific issue here is that people are expecting artisan goods in the $10-$40 range, so with thousands of competitors selling at that range my $60-$500 line of jewelry seems quite out of place.

I even tried the "throw money at it" approach and signed up for a few featured spots with some of my most delicious-looking items. I didn't really expect sales as a direct result, but I though that launching my page into the public eye might have some people coming back when they were ready to drop some cash. I had tons of views during my feature time, and then slipped back to 4-5 visits per day.

The other problem I faced was that combining new Etsy fees with the Paypal fees meant I had to mark up my prices in order to cover the costs. If it had been a stellar deal, I would have promoted my Etsy pieces through Twitter, Facebook and so on, but I couldn't, in good faith, direct people there when I knew they could pay less at my own hosted store.

I don't doubt that many people have had great luck with Etsy; it's an easy way to set up a good looking store with very low overhead, and I applaud these services that are opening up web commerce to the coding illiterate. There are so many truly talented artists using it as their selling platform who would be unheard if not for their efforts there. However, it is not for me.

What's been your experience with Etsy? Do you shop there, sell there, or both? If you were looking for luxury goods, is Etsy top of your list or are you heading straight to Tiffany?