Anybody here selling fruit/nut trees or cuttings on Etsy?
Wondering if it may be a good side hustle especially in a year where the weather kills all your fruit.
5 Likes
Ive bought alot on Etsy and Ebay…usually the same guys hustling both sites. Both have cuttings and rooted plants that arent sold anywhere else.
Alot of propagators doing well with side hustles on there.
2 Likes
I tried Etsy for a bit. They basically charge four different fees for every transaction and list them as separate line items with limited description. It is a bit of a pain in terms of record keeping.
3 Likes
I have sold cuttings and seeds on Etsy, and I agree with the confusing fee structure. I think Ebay charges less overall per transaction (after you add up all the fees on Etsy), but the webstore structure on Etsy is a little nicer than what you get on Ebay.
3 Likes
Figbid is another option to sell on. no idea on their fees, as i have only ever bought from there, never sold.
2 Likes
The fee structure on FigBid is simpler. There’s just a listing fee (variable depending on the options you choose) and then a commission fee when an item sells. I guess there is a third fee indirectly in that people pay using PayPal and PayPal charges a fee too.
1 Like
I’m just throwing it out there - you can make a free website at webnode as long as you don’t use their checkout page. You would have to list your PayPal account or address for mailing payment but it’s one way to do it as long as your customer base can find the website… I have my pawpaw website (for information only) set up on their platform.
It may be more work for you but fees would be less.
2 Likes
What about Facebook Marketplace, or…? Maybe just create a Facebook page/blog sort of thing and connect with people like that? I set up a Red Raven Movie Records page, for example, and people were always asking to buy records, players, and magic mirriors on the page. Just make an apple growers group of some sort, and attract people to it by posting information constantly??? Just a thought.
It is very easy to sell on FB marketplace as well as Craigslist, particularly if you are in a more populated area. Last year I started a bunch of elderberry cuttings and some extra fig cuttings and they all sold. Elderberry mania seems in full swing and I probably sold 30 plants, offering them at $15/one or $10/each if someone buys two or more. Figs I sold for $20 each, but they were just the basic varieties. I don’t really have any interest in shipping stuff, but if you have more extras than you want, or have a bunch of cuttings of something, I suggest giving it a whirl. People are generally very appreciative to be able to get something out of the ordinary compared to what the local nurseries offer.
1 Like
Years ago I became tasked with disbursing items of value inherited from relatives. I prefer Etsy for these sales because they list your items in search engine advertisements. The search engines charge a fee for these listings based on the number of clicks the listings generate. Thus, those charges are present on your Etsy bill.
1 Like
Was there a set amount per click or did the prices vary?
1 Like
Prices vary. It is important to known the value of your product.
There is an additional option on Etsy to run promotions within Etsy. The cost of these promotions can be capped.
Two decades ago I built a plant & fertilizer online store from scratch and integrated Google AdWords (pay-per-click advertising). I retired it in 2016. Lately I’ve been considering constructing a new online store for extra plants from our repository. Hosting sites offer “packages” to help you do this – often no coding required. However these packages require use of one of their databases which they charge plenty for. At present I’m looking into a 3rd party package without that requirement.
2 Likes
I don’t integrate any payment options since I’m not selling them, but I’ve found the PHP and SQL coding required to maintain a mySQL database of plants isn’t terribly challenging, and most web hosting packages include some type of SQL database in the base rate. The coding that I find most challenging is making the page look aesthetically pleasing, the SQL database stuff is much more well-documented.
If you’re already familiar with integrating AdWords, I think you could just as easily integrate something like PayPal checkout (which redirects to PayPal so you don’t need to worry about storing customer payment data). But I’ve never done that. I think @Marta did for Really Good Plants, which was on a similar scale to what you’re talking about doing (though she’s scaled back that operation recently). She may have thoughts on the best way to set up a web store on the scale.
I just let PayPal to do the credit card processing
1 Like
And I should have some scions there by this weekend
1 Like
This is our first year selling some plants on Etsy. We are running some Etsy promotions on our Elderberries.
It’s hard for me to tell exactly how it works but I only pay when something sells.
I get a lot more orders on Etsy than I get from my own Website but its more expensive.
They even get a percentage of the shipping cost. Overall my Etsy and shipping cost amount to about to about 25% of total sales.
I do see lots of stuff of unknown quality for sale like Non Gmo Elderberry plants or Organic peach branches for rooting new Peach trees.
My biggest complaint is I have not found a way to process multiple orders at a time with mailing labels and invoices and I have to complete them one at a time. It would be a lot easier if I could batch process 25 orders at a time and generate labels and invoices.
2 Likes
Yes. It is due to the search engine advertising. It works far better than personally trying to promote merchandise on social media.
… if you use their site to print labels. The calculated shipping feature is worth it though, as they provide a discount that balances out with the charge you would pay USPS.
You can print all the shipping labels at once. There is an option (somewhere!) to add the item name in a small margin on the shipping label. It is truncated for length. If the buyer has purchased multiple items it erroneously concatenates them all on every label for that buyer and of course that is truncated. I end up differentiating by the weights of each label for that buyer if necessary.
I don’t include invoices in shipments. Still, I agree that Etsy’s approach to processing orders is poor. There does not appear to be any support for combined shipping. I have no need for it with family estate items as I’ve pre-boxed and weighed all of them, placing contents labels on the outside. I just print shipping labels and I’m done.
A shortcoming for buyers is the ability to put something in your cart but have it “stolen” out of there by someone else while you shop. There are better shopping cart systems available.
For plants though it is more complicated. The weights of each box will not be known until time of shipment. There is no FedEx, UPS, or USPS flat rate box of suitable size for live, rooted plants. Multiple items per order (aka combined shipping) is common with plant sales. For labels, the USDA and every state in the nation requires a list of plant names on the exterior along with a nursery stock label and compliance agreements (State Law & Regulation Summaries - National Plant Board). If you are interested in higher sales volume then search engine advertising is necessary to reach the majority of buyers. At present, a custom solution is required to meet all these goals.
1 Like
Thank you for the info. Very helpful to hear from someone who has sold a lot of stuff on Etsy.
We are not looking to do anything on a large scale. Just need to sell about $10K of cuttings/plants over several months in order to bring in some more farm income.
Shipping really is a pain. We settled on one size of padded envelopes for small cutting sales and a medium flat rate box for larger sales. We use Shippo on our website and their front end is a little better and handling multiple orders. I read that Shippo has a plug in for Etsy too but we have not tried it.
I’m going to see if I can find the setting that would allow me to add the name of the item that was purchased to the shipping label so I could discontinue printing the invoice
1 Like