The best places to sell handmade items online are Etsy, your own Shopify or Big Cartel store, Amazon Handmade, and social shops on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Each one puts your crafts in front of buyers who are already shopping online, and most let you start for free or for just a few dollars. If you're wondering where to sell handmade items online, the short answer is to pair one big marketplace with a store you control, then add social selling once you know what moves.
Selling online reaches buyers you'll never meet at a weekend market and keeps money coming in while you sleep. The tradeoff is competition, fees, and the work of photos, listings, and shipping. This guide covers fifteen places to sell your crafts online, what each one costs, how they differ, and how to get your first order once your shop is live.
What You'll Learn
- How to Choose Where to Sell Handmade Online
- 15 Best Sites to Sell Handmade Items Online
- Marketplace vs Your Own Store: The Big Tradeoff
- What Selling Online Actually Costs
- How to Get Your First Online Sales
- Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Handmade Online
- Frequently Asked Questions
How to Choose Where to Sell Handmade Online
Before you open five shops at once, match the platform to your product and how you work. The wrong fit buries your listings and eats your time.
Think about three things. First, how buyers find you. Marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon Handmade bring their own shoppers, so people can discover you through search without you spending on ads. Your own website has no built-in crowd, so you have to send traffic to it yourself. Social shops sit in between, feeding off the followers and reach you build with content.
Second, how much control you want. A marketplace owns the customer relationship, sets the rules, and can change fees or policies overnight. Your own store gives you the customer's email, full control of your brand, and no risk of being shut down by someone else's algorithm. Most makers want both eventually.
Third, your volume and price point. Low-cost impulse items like stickers and jewelry can rely on marketplace search traffic. Higher-priced or custom work often sells better on a branded site or through social channels where you can tell your story. If you're weighing online selling against in-person events, our breakdown of Etsy vs craft fairs compares the reach, cost, and effort of each so you can split your energy wisely.
15 Best Sites to Sell Handmade Items Online
Here are the platforms that consistently work for handmade sellers, grouped by how they work.
1. Etsy. The default marketplace for handmade goods, with millions of buyers who come specifically to shop from makers. You get built-in search traffic and an easy setup, but you compete with a huge crowd and pay per-listing and transaction fees. It's the fastest way to put your work in front of ready buyers.
2. Amazon Handmade. A dedicated handmade section inside Amazon that gives artisans access to a massive customer base and Prime shipping. Approval takes an application, and the referral fee is higher than Etsy's, but the reach is hard to match. Our guide to the Amazon Handmade application walks through getting approved.
3. eBay. Not just for used goods. eBay works well for handmade art, jewelry, and collectibles, and its auction format can push prices up on one-of-a-kind pieces. The audience is broad rather than craft-focused, so listings need strong titles and photos to stand out.
4. Aftcra. A smaller marketplace that sells only American-made handmade products, so there's no mass-produced competition crowding your listings. Traffic is lower than Etsy's, but the handmade-only focus attracts buyers who value the real thing.
5. Bonanza. An online marketplace built as a lower-fee alternative to eBay and Etsy. It's less crowded, integrates with your existing listings, and appeals to sellers who want to keep more of each sale. You'll need to drive some of your own traffic since discovery is thinner.
6. Your own Shopify store. Shopify lets you build a full branded store with your own domain, no marketplace competition, and complete control of the customer relationship. You pay a monthly subscription and drive your own traffic, but you keep your brand and your buyer list. It's the standard once you outgrow marketplace-only selling.
7. Big Cartel. A simple store builder made for artists and makers, with a free plan for a small number of products and no per-sale transaction fees. It's the easiest way to run your own shop without the cost or complexity of a bigger platform.
8. Squarespace or Wix. Website builders with commerce built in, ideal if you want a polished portfolio and a shop in one place. Great for artists and makers who sell a curated line and want the site to double as a brand home.
9. Facebook Shops and Marketplace. Facebook lets you list products directly on your business page and reach local buyers through Marketplace with no listing fees. It's a low-risk way to sell to people who already follow you and to test new items fast.
10. Instagram Shopping. Turn your feed into a storefront by tagging products in posts and Reels so followers can tap straight to buy. Instagram rewards strong visuals, which plays to handmade sellers who can show their work in action. See our tips on social media marketing for craft vendors to build the following that fuels sales.
11. TikTok Shop. Short videos of your process and products can reach huge new audiences fast, and TikTok Shop lets buyers check out without leaving the app. It rewards consistent posting and genuine behind-the-scenes content over polished ads.
12. Pinterest. More of a traffic engine than a checkout, Pinterest sends buyers to your Etsy or Shopify store through product pins that keep working for months. It's especially strong for home goods, wedding items, and seasonal crafts people plan and save.
13. Faire. A wholesale marketplace that connects makers with brick-and-mortar shops looking to stock handmade lines. Instead of selling one item at a time, you land bulk orders from retailers. It pairs well with our guide on getting wholesale orders from craft fair customers.
14. Cratejoy. A marketplace built for subscription boxes, useful if you can bundle your crafts into a recurring monthly product. Subscriptions turn one-time buyers into steady income, which smooths out the slow months.
15. Your own email list. Not a platform, but your most valuable sales channel. A list of past buyers lets you announce new products and sales directly, with no algorithm or fees in the way. Learn how to grow one at events with our guide to building an email list at craft fairs.
Marketplace vs Your Own Store: The Big Tradeoff
Almost every online decision comes back to one choice: sell on a marketplace, run your own store, or do both.
A marketplace like Etsy or Amazon Handmade brings the traffic. Shoppers are already there searching, so you can make sales without an audience of your own. The cost is real competition, fees on every sale, and rules you don't control. The platform owns the customer, so a buyer who found you on Etsy usually stays an Etsy customer, not yours.
Your own store on Shopify or Big Cartel flips that. You control the brand, the pricing, the checkout, and most important, the customer's email address so you can sell to them again. The catch is that no one shows up unless you send them, so you have to earn traffic through social media, search, ads, or in-person events that point people online.
The smartest play for most makers is both. Use a marketplace to get discovered and make early sales, then guide those buyers to your own store and email list where you keep more of each dollar and own the relationship. Think of the marketplace as the front door and your store as the home you actually own. For the full comparison of selling styles, our look at pop-up market vs permanent vendor booth applies the same logic to physical selling.
What Selling Online Actually Costs
Every online channel takes a cut, and knowing the shape of the fees keeps your pricing honest. Platforms update their rates often, so confirm the current numbers before you commit, but here's the general picture.
Marketplaces charge per sale. Etsy adds a small listing fee for each item plus a transaction fee of around 6.5 percent, then payment processing on top. Amazon Handmade waives its monthly professional selling fee for makers but takes a referral fee closer to 15 percent. These fees buy you the platform's traffic, so treat them as a marketing cost, not just overhead.
Your own store charges a subscription. Shopify runs on a monthly plan plus payment processing on each sale, with no per-listing fee. Big Cartel offers a free tier for a handful of products and flat monthly plans above that, with no transaction cut. You trade a predictable monthly cost for keeping more of every sale, which pays off once your volume climbs.
Social and wholesale vary. Facebook and Instagram shops are low or no cost to list, though selling through checkout may carry a processing fee. Wholesale platforms like Faire take a commission on the orders they bring you.
The takeaway: build every platform's cut into your prices from the start so you still profit after fees. Our complete guide to pricing products shows the math so you don't sell yourself short online or in person.
How to Get Your First Online Sales
Opening a shop is the easy part. Getting that first order takes a few deliberate moves.
Nail your photos first. Online, your photos do all the selling your hands would do at a booth. Shoot in bright, natural light against a clean background, and show scale, detail, and the item in use. Our product photography guide covers the setup that makes handmade work look worth the price.
Write listings buyers search for. Use the words shoppers actually type, like the product, material, color, and occasion, in your titles and descriptions. On a marketplace, this is how search finds you. Fill in every field and tag so the algorithm knows what you sell.
Point your own audience to your shop. Share the launch with friends, family, and any followers you have, and add the link to every social bio. Your first sales almost always come from people who already know you, not strangers.
Turn in-person buyers into online customers. People who meet you at a market are your warmest online leads. Hand out a card with your shop link, add a QR code to your booth, and collect emails so local fans can reorder from home. Our guide on using QR codes at craft fairs shows how to bridge the table and the web.
Post consistently. Whether it's Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest, regular content keeps your work in front of buyers and feeds traffic to your store. Show your process, not just finished products, because people buy handmade for the story behind it.
Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Handmade Online
A few common missteps stall new online sellers. Sidestep these and you'll get to profit faster.
Relying on one platform. If your whole business lives on a single marketplace, one policy change or suspended account can end it. Spread across a marketplace, your own store, and social so no single channel controls your income.
Underpricing to compete. Racing to the bottom against mass-produced sellers trains buyers to undervalue handmade work. Price for profit after fees and shipping, and compete on quality, story, and presentation instead.
Ignoring shipping costs. Postage and packaging can quietly erase your margin. Weigh your products, build real shipping into your pricing, and use packaging that arrives intact so you don't eat the cost of returns.
Skipping the customer's email. A marketplace sale is a one-time event unless you capture the buyer. Include a thank-you note and an invitation to follow you or join your list so a first order can become a repeat one.
Treating online as passive. Listings don't sell themselves. The makers who win online keep photographing, posting, and refreshing their shops. If you'd rather sell face to face, our guide on where to sell handmade items locally covers the in-person side, and many sellers do both.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I sell my handmade items online?
Sell them on marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon Handmade, eBay, Aftcra, and Bonanza, on your own store through Shopify or Big Cartel, and through social shops on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Start with one marketplace and one store you control, then add channels as you grow.
What is the best site to sell handmade items?
Etsy is the best starting point for most makers because it brings its own crowd of buyers who are searching for handmade goods. As you grow, pair it with your own Shopify or Big Cartel store so you keep more of each sale and own the customer relationship instead of renting it.
Is it better to sell handmade online or at craft fairs?
Both work, and many makers do both. Craft fairs give instant sales, direct feedback, and no shipping, while online shops sell around the clock and reach buyers everywhere. Use events to build an audience and an online store to sell between shows.
How much does it cost to sell handmade items online?
It ranges from nearly free to a monthly subscription. Marketplaces like Etsy charge small listing and transaction fees per sale, Amazon Handmade takes a referral fee around 15 percent, and store builders like Shopify charge a monthly plan plus payment processing. Build these costs into your prices so you still profit.
Do I need a business license to sell handmade items online?
In most places you'll need to register for a sales tax permit and may need a basic business license, even for online sales. Requirements vary by state and product, so check with your state revenue department before you start selling.
Selling handmade online comes down to pairing a marketplace that brings traffic with a store you control, pricing for profit after fees, and driving your own audience to both. Start with one of each, get your photos and listings right, and expand once the orders roll in.
Ready to sell in person too? Browse upcoming craft fairs and markets near you on TheCraftMap and turn every shopper you meet into an online customer who buys again and again.