Etsy vs. Creative Market – a comparison for shop owners – Part 1

Hi there!

I’ve received a lot of questions about Creative Market vs. Etsy since opening my shop on CM (a whole two weeks ago!) I decided to write a series in order to attempt to answer those questions, as well as add my own insights. Most folks I know are pretty familiar with Etsy and Etsy is actually really good at spelling things out for you so I’m coming at this from the perspective of how Creative Market is different.

First, let me say I have had my shop on Etsy for about 5 months, the Creative Market shop for about two weeks. I’m not claiming to be an expert by any means, but wanted to share my experience and some obvious differences in case it can help any of you who may be wondering.

1 – Can I sell my crafts on Creative Market?

Unfortunately no, at least not right now. One key difference here is that Creative Market is geared towards digital creatives. That means Fonts, Photos, Digital Backgrounds, web logos, photoshop brushes etc. Etsy, as most of us are familiar with, started out with handmade goods. It’s expanded to now include us digital creatives as well. 

2 – How do I open my shop on Etsy vs. Creative Market?

This was another big difference. With Etsy, I was able to get started right away. I created my business profile, completed my basic information and I was good to go. I was immediately able to start customizing my shop logo, banner, profile, terms of use, return policy, add listings etc.

With Creative Market on the other hand, I was surprised to click the “Open a shop” link, fill out my basic info, and then get asked for a portfolio of my work. If I remember correctly, they wanted to see at least 20-30 distinct items. I used a combination of my website’s gallery page as well as my Etsy shop in order to provide a rather substantial portfolio. It was after I had done this that I received the message indicating I’d be contacted once my shop was approved or not. Oh no! Let the anxiety begin! I had no idea there was an approval process like this, I also couldn’t easily find information on how long this process takes. I did find a pretty vague article indicating it could take about a week, more if a weekend or holidays were involved. I guess my experience was not typical, I applied very late on a Sunday night, the week before Christmas, and received my approval by Monday afternoon (woo-hoo happy dance time!)

So what did I find once my shop was approved?  

Check out the next post, coming later in the week, for more details.  Of course I can’t leave you without a shameless plug right?  If you’d like to see what my Creative Market shop looks like, you can find it here and compare to the Etsy shop here 🙂