Continued from Part 4.

Part 5: Etsy and Its Competitors

No review of getting your pottery online would be complete without a nuanced discussion of Etsy.com.

As the "online craft marketplace," Etsy.com has been, and continues to be, the destination for a lot of potters who just want to sell work online and don't want to be troubled with registering a domain or creating a site. Rather than charging monthly fees, Etsy takes a percentage of each sale as well as a small fee per work listed. Etsy offers a built-in clientele and high customer traffic. Many artists have made a lot of money selling on Etsy.

However, in addition to the limitations around shared marketplaces mentioned previously, Etsy has some issues that have caused a recent exodus of ceramic artists. It isn't possible to have a unique, distinctive page there. They are increasingly mandating practices, like free shipping, that are not affordable for small shops, and copycatting is a widespread problem.

There are several competing sites that operate on the Etsy model who are more friendly to solo artists. This includes Artfire.com, Artspan.com, and the ceramics-only ThePotteryCollective.com. However, these sites only get a tiny fraction of the customer visits that Etsy does, which means that you will be largely responsible for marketing to potential customers. They're really best as a stopgap while you work on your own custom online store.

I do need to mention two better-funded shared marketplaces, though, but mainly in the negative. These are both listed below because I think ceramic artists should avoid them.

Ebay.com and similar auction sites exist, but (according to many potters online) are a really bad place to try to sell handmade art. First, not being able to set firm prices (it's an auction) is difficult, and pressure to sell cheap is high. Customers on Ebay will also criticize you severely for any delay or problem with shipping.

Amazon Handmade has similar "cheap and fast" pressure problems, too, although these come from the corporation and not the customers. To sell on that marketplace, you have to agree to absurdly short shipping times. Worse, the seller agreement, according to some potters who've reviewed it, includes provisions that say Amazon owns the copyright for photos of your work, and can even legally copycat your designs. Amazon is also not set up for selling single unique items; their system expects dozens to hundreds of identical pots.

If none of these shared marketplaces are for you, it's time to move on to having your own online store in Part 6.

Continuted from Part 3

Part 4: Business Card Sites

Most artists most of the time actually want a "bcard" site, and want to handle sales via a phone call. Running an actual online store requires a lot of work that most of us are not prepared to follow through on; I know I struggle to keep my online store inventory updated.

There are several inexpensive places to host your bcard site, starting with your domain registrar. Many of them, including Gandi and GoDaddy, offer static website hosting included your annual domain fee, making it effectively free. However, the "site builders" included in such services tend to be very primitive, so if you want a good looking website you may need to know HTML and CSS. Google provides a better, but still "free", site builder called Google Sites. Like Facebook, though, this has the disadvantage of tying you into the Google advertising system, whether you want it to or not.

If you want a better looking bcard site, you'll likely want to use a sophisticated site builder like Squarespace or Wix (more on these in Part 6). These have the advantage of not only letting you create a really beautiful webpage without knowing code, they also provide options for expanding into a full online store or even "virtual studio" experience later. They do, however, cost between $10 and $30 a month.

As mentioned in the social media alternative, online photo galleries can also make excellent bcard sites. Smugmug, Flickr, and Instagram all offer you space to put contact information as well as photos of your work.

If you like writing about your art, another option is to set up an online blog using Blogger, Tumblr, Medium, Wordpress.com, or similar services. These have the advantage of letting you create a stream of updates that will attract traffic (and customers) to your site and an outlet for your announcements and artistic ideas. I had a blog at fuzzychef.org for years before I had an online store. Be realistic about your ability to keep up a stream of updates, though; a blog that hasn't been updated in a year is a virtual "out of business" sign.

One tip for bcard sites: if you don't have an online store, you can still take credit cards online for phone orders by generating invoices using Square.com, Intuit, or Paypal.

Now, let's move on to one of the most popular online sales options for Part 5: Etsy.

Continued from Part 2: Domains

Part 3: The Social Media & Shared Market Alternative

Domain registration already takes some artists out of their comfort zone. If so, let me suggest another approach, which involves orchestrating your entire web presence around shared sites so that you don't need to register a domain or find a web host. This works for many artists, and there's no reason it can't for you.

Basically, you establish a business presence on a shared social media site like Facebook or Instagram, or photo gallery site like Smugmug, and your online store as part of a shared online marketplace like Etsy. You do not get your own domain, nor do you build a website. The advantage of this is clear; lower expenses, less up-front work, and it involves sites you're probably on anyway.

First, you create your presence by creating a "business page" on Facebook. Alternately, you can use photo sites like Smugmug or Flickr to create a customized personal gallery of your work as your homepage. Social media is better for keeping in touch with your customers, but is not a good idea if you don't already use it -- it's very attention-demanding, and social media users tend to be unforgiving of any sluggishness in responding to messages. Next, you sign up for an account with a shared marketplace like Etsy in order to sell your work, and you link the two locations in descriptions and announcements.

The main disadvantage of this approach is that third party sites are owned by other people and often make policy changes that interfere with your business. For example, Facebook constantly pressures you to buy advertising, and may hide your announcements if you do not. You're also very limited in what you can do on such sites; every Facebook page looks like every other, as does every Etsy page.

There will be more on Etsy and their competitors in Part 5. In the meantime, we will continue with Business Card Sites in Part 4 tommorrow.

(please read Part 1 first)

Part 2: Domains

A "domain" is an online, text address that people can use to find you on the web, such as "FuzzyChef.com" or "FernhillPottery.net". Getting one is your first step if you are going to pursue any path other than "Social Media + Shared Market" (outlined in part 3). You can also use this domain for your email.

You get a domain by "registering" it with an online business called a "domain registrar," such as Gandi.net, GoDaddy.com, Namecheap.com, or Google Domains. While some online website hosts offer domain registration as part of their service, I recommend against that, since doing so would mean that you could never move to a new host. Annual registration fees range from $15 to $35 a year, depending mostly on the "TLD" you choose, which is that part on the end of your domain: ".com" or ".net" or ".us" or less common ones like ".site". Some specialty TLDs, like ".museum" command premium prices like $200/year, so avoid those (and be careful that your first year is not a discount price).

Now you need to choose a name. Keep in mind that you are trying to register a unique, worldwide name, so your name or the name of your pottery business may not be available; you might have to get creative. The registrar will tell you when the name you want is not available. Use deliberation; you will likely keep this domain for years.

If you already have a registered business name, then try getting that. If you can't, try adding "pottery" or "ceramics" or "clay" to the end of the name. If you don't have a business name, "YourNameCeramics.com" works fine for most people. Also, keep in mind that you don't need to have a .com domain; folks are fine with visiting .net, .us, .ca, .shop, or others these days.

There is an alternative to the complicated path of registering a domain and creating a site, and I'll explain that in Part 3: The Social Media Alternative.