Website for Etsy sellers: a home you own

Why a maker needs a home off the marketplace

Marketplace shops are rented. Search ranking changes, fee changes and policy changes all happen without your say, and a buyer who loves your work can't easily find you again except through the platform. Your own site doesn't replace the shop; it adds three things the shop can't give you:

An address you own to print on packaging cards, swing tags and craft-fair banners.
A mailing list that stays with you whatever the marketplace does.
Room to tell the story: the workshop, the materials, the process, the person, without a character limit.

What goes on the site

Maker story: Who you are, where you work, how you learned the craft, and photos of real work in progress. This is the page marketplace listings can't hold.
The range: Your work grouped the way you think about it (collections, materials, seasons) with a short description and a link to buy each piece.
Custom orders: What you will and won't make to order, lead times, how pricing works, and how to ask.
Markets and stockists: Where people can see your work in person: fairs, shops, open studios.
Care and FAQ: How to look after the piece, delivery times, gift wrapping, returns policy.

Use a CMS collection for the range, with fields for name, materials, size, a short description, photos and a buy link, so each piece gets its own page and adding new work is a dashboard entry. A second collection for markets keeps upcoming fair dates easy to update.

Two ways to sell from the site

Anticode doesn't run a shop with a basket or stock count. You have two straightforward options, and many makers use both:

Link to your marketplace listing. The buy button opens the listing. The marketplace still handles checkout, shipping and buyer protection; you get the brand presence and the mailing list. Check the platform's current rules about linking and taking orders off-platform before you do anything else.
A payment link for direct sales. For pieces you'd rather sell directly, set up a checkout with Stripe Payment Links, PayPal, Gumroad (good for patterns and digital downloads) or Lemon Squeezy. The site has one payment link per account and every buy button opens it, so point it at a product page or store at the provider that lists your direct-sale pieces, and mark one-offs sold when they go.

Direct sales mean you handle shipping costs and returns yourself, set up in your payment provider. The sell digital products page is useful if you sell patterns or printables.

Custom orders and the mailing list

Anticode's contact form asks for name, email and a message, which is enough for a first custom-order enquiry if your page tells people what to include: what they'd like, size, colours, the date they need it by, and a budget. Forms can't take photo uploads, so invite them to send reference images when you reply. Each enquiry is saved sealed at rest and emailed to you; a connector can drop it into a Notion or Airtable board you use for commissions.

The newsletter form collects an email address and can pass it to Mailchimp (with double opt-in) or Kit. Offer something worth signing up for: first look at new pieces, fair dates, the occasional studio note. See adding a newsletter sign-up.

Make it look like your work

Marketplace shop pages all look the same; your site shouldn't. Use your own photography against your own backgrounds. Organic (Figtree) suits ceramics, textiles and natural materials; Playful (Fredoka) suits bright illustration and toys; Editorial (Geist) suits prints and paper goods. Publish on your own domain (a paid plan feature) so the address matches your brand rather than a subdomain.

What you'll still use the marketplace or a store for

Anticode has no basket, so buyers can't put several items in one order on the site. There's no stock count, variant picker, shipping calculation, tax handling or order management, and no syncing of listings from your marketplace shop: you add pieces to the CMS yourself. No customer accounts or reviews either. If direct sales grow to many items per order, a store platform is the next step, with Anticode kept for the brand pages if you like.

Questions people ask

Can my website import my Etsy listings automatically?

No. There's no listing sync. Add the pieces you want to feature to a CMS collection and link each one to its listing.

Can buyers order several items at once on my site?

No, there's no basket. Link to your marketplace shop for multi-item orders, or point the site's one payment link at a product list at your provider.

Do I need my own domain?

It's optional but worth it: a domain is what you'll print on packaging. Custom domains are available on paid plans.