During the online series #StandWithSmall for Etsy India, Studio Mianzi founder Shashank Gautam spoke of running a business online during the pandemic. Studio Mianzi is a seller on the e-commerce platform Etsy and creates unconventional but sustainable home decor and products made out of bamboo. “Lockdown proved that online is the market of the future,” Shashank remarked during the session held last month.
A glance at Statista’s June 2019 report on e-commerce projections reveals that global retail e-commerce sales are expected to reach $6.5 trillion in 2021. Currently, two main categories of e-commerce platforms exist — hosted and self-hosted. We have seen hosted platforms such as Amazon, Shopify and Etsy offering ready-made solutions (such as inventory management, sales processing, basic marketing and reporting features) that take care of hosting and server maintenance for the business owner. Self-hosted is for those ready to craft their own site or work with a developer to be independent.
- Author and entrepreneur Neil Patel has a blog post on this very topic, explaining that setting up an e-commerce business takes time. “If you are not strategic about how you run your e-commerce side hustle, it can actually feel restricting. Growing an online business is no simple task… the key to a side hustle is getting revenue off the ground. So you need to set the end goal or target and work backward,” he writes.
- Neil suggests working smarter rather than harder; “the key is planning, he suggests. “[Establishing] a roadmap] early on in your e-commerce business allows you to reduce the time you spend guessing what to do next.”
Vigilance, needed
Etsy India says that the pandemic pushed sellers in the arts and design industry to create an online home for themselves within their platform; as many as 83% of the sellers on the platform are women while 90% of the businesses are one-member companies. The reason for the pull towards the platform is perhaps the transparency offered to first-time business owners on the site. They should be vigilant of the costs required to run an e-commerce business because of the additional expenses such as packaging and shipping.
Etsy says its sellers need to be aware of three types of fees: listing fees, a five percent transaction fee and a collective payment fee, which could all vary across different markets.
Himanshu Wardhan, Managing Director at Etsy India, advises that whatever platform one is inclined to team up with, the contractual terms should be read thoroughly. “My advice to any small seller would be to read the terms and conditions carefully before signing up on any platform and select one that they can identify with, and one which has outlined the terms and conditions clearly so that there are no surprises later,” he adds. “Online retail is a much more democratic way to build a business — especially for small sellers.”
Etsy India Managing Director Himanshu Wardhan | Photo Credit: Etsy India
He adds that 49% of sellers on Etsy have found the motivation to start their creative business because of a financial challenge, like needing additional income.
A numbers game
In 2020, Etsy saw big business for artists such as miniaturist Shirali Patel of SmallIdeaByShirali, blockprint accessory maker Kriti Jindal of Kari by Kriti, and Shashank of Mianzi. Agreeing with this, Himanshu shares, “The last year was the year the world saw the potential of Etsy, people are buying less commoditised, mass produced items that arrive quickly and cheaply, but then end up in a landfill. We delivered very strong results during the third quarter 2020, with consolidated GMS and revenue growth up 119% and 128% respectively.” Pandemic perspective: since April 2020, more than 54 million masks have been sold on the platform.
Shashank points out the financing of a studio during a lockdown would not make any sense compared to the physical distancing-friendly studio of an online marketplace that already has lakhs of willing and waiting buyers who are looking for something new. He concludes, “You have to have confidence in your business or product.”
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