All About Etsy & Website

If you ever looked us up online, you may have spotted that there are two platforms – our website and an Etsy store. Both can be use to shop your linen wardrobe. We notice that this raises several questions to some people. The main ones being “Are both platforms legitimate and are being curated by the same company?” “If so, what’s the difference? Which one should I choose? And what’s the matter with the contrast of prices?”. We see your confusion and would like to finally clarify things with this post.

The mix of the two

When we first started our business, all we wanted to do was to share our love for linen. We desired to introduce sustainable, natural fabrics to people’s wardrobe without compromising style and comfort. A website was created and everything was going in the right direction. We had no intentions to sell our garments between two platforms. However, we quickly saw that if we want to expand our company and reach more customers, we need to make our brand known. Etsy seemed like a good idea as it is trustworthy, simple to use and is reachable to many. We have to be honest – at first it wasn’t easy to manage two selling platforms at the same time. A lot of time, effort, head-racking, and resources took to finally be able to figure everything out. And to get to where we are now.

Equality

Perhaps the most common question we get is – “is it the same company that sells on both, your website and Etsy?”. The answer is yes. We are the same small group of people, working in the same place, trying our hardest to produce the best quality linen possible. Usually there are two people who are responsible for each platform. If a person who’s managing the email gets a question regarding an Etsy order, his colleague is immediately informed about the whole situation. The problem solving then goes from there. 

It is important to mention that there is no priority to either website nor Etsy orders. Each day we handle yesterday’s orders / questions, and both platforms receive the same attention at the same time. Once we are ready to start the production, all the orders are given to our manufacturing team. At the same time, on the same day.

Ready to ship sections

While roaming through our shops, you may have detected some differences between the stock availability, colors and general content that occurs. Why is that? You see, it takes a lot of effort to run a business and sometimes things just don’t go as smoothly as we would like. For a while, we were figuring out how to keep our business afloat. Etsy sales were increasing significantly so we focused more on creating a proper shop there. Unfortunately, at the same time our website was slowly fading into the background. 

We are well aware that our Etsy shop has a lot more Ready To Ship alternatives to select from. So it is understandable why some customers decide to stick with Etsy. Having said that, we are constantly working towards bettering the stock on our website as well. As of now, we have three – website’s “ready to ship”, Etsy’s “ready to ship”, and the main storage rooms. Day by day our seamstresses are working on stocking the most popular items. So that in summer you won’t have to wait so long to receive your order.

Currently we are moving towards eliminating all the differences between the two platforms. We are making sure all the colors and most of the items are available on both sites. If some products are missing or are accessible only at one place, it’s the discontinued ones that in the future will disappear completely.

Price

Now allow us to address probably the most important question of them all – if you sell the same products, why are the prices on your website different? First off, we are extremely sorry for any possible inconvenience that was caused while trying to figure this out. We do understand that it is hard to mingle between both sites, to compare where the price is better and which one has more options to choose from.

If you are unfamiliar with Etsy, it is a marketplace that has millions of users and sellers under their wing. Selling on Etsy is easy as the maintenance of the store is quick and simple. And yet, the platform has transaction fees that a business is charged for each listing. The website, on the other hand, is built entirely by us. We have full control over it – starting from its design and ending with the prices of goods. The website doesn’t have any transaction fees, and while the maintenance does require investments, they are lower and fewer than on Etsy. Now, we always have an option to make the prices equal on both the website and Etsy, but after considering all circumstances, we have decided that leaving the opportunity for people to buy our products for less is the path we want to take.

Choose what suits you the best

We, as a brand, are extremely grateful for Etsy and for the doors they’ve opened for Linenfox. Etsy has let us spread our wings and reach more people than we could have ever imagined. At the same time, we are very proud of our own website too. It took us a while to get it how we wanted it to be, but everything’s finally coming along and we are working towards bettering it every day. Seeing it improve feels like a big reward.

Alright, so where to shop? Well, the decision is entirely yours. At the end of the day, your order will contain the same linen pieces produced with the same amount of love, by the same hands. 

Thank you to those who messaged us regarding the website versus Etsy confusion. We appreciate them and hope we were able to answer some of the most frequently asked questions. Feel free to message us anytime if in doubt or confusion. We are open to any suggestions and want our customers to have the best experience while shopping at Linenfox.